Review of Cinderella’s Closet / シンデレラクロゼット

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I’ve always been a bit of an Asian drama junkie since I was in middle school and taking Chinese classes in order to prove that I was smart (long story short: I signed up for Chinese instead of French because I heard a kid say the smart kids learn Chinese, and I had an ego to stroke. That ended up changing my life completely for the better), but I never really got into Japanese drama until the past year.

I’m typing this in October 2025, even though I know this blog post is going to come out later because of my content calendar, but 2025 has been my year in watching new kinds of shows, movies, and picking up books from all around the world. I’ve been really having fun with it the past few months.

I live in the United States and the combination of Viki and Netflix has really been helping my goals on the Asian drama front. I can even watch Turkish dramas nowadays on Netflix, which is incredible to me because I remember the days when you had to find them on some sketchy website or through Turkish avenues.

Netflix has really been stepping up their Japanese drama game specifically, and I think I’ve been in the mood for them because they’re fairly short compared to their Korean and Japanese counterparts. The plot goes by at a speed that might leave you with whiplash at times, but there isn’t much extra fluff to mull over while you’re watching.

This show particularly interested me because of how it seemed to have an LGBTQ+ slant, which is always interesting to see in the Asian drama world. And that’s what propelled me to watch this all the way through, if we’re going to be honest.

Let’s get into the review!

A girl, who’s a plain Jane, finds her new best friend in Hikaru—who isn’t who she seems at first.

Our main character in this show is Haruka, who has moved to Tokyo relatively recently in order to pursue her education. The synopsis for this show describes her as a plain Jane, but she’s also a bit of an airhead at time. Maybe something about being from the countryside allegedly makes her less sophisticated?

Anyways, Haruka has a part-time job where she’s now fallen madly in love with her coworker Kurotaki. He has no idea because she’s kind of awkward about it, nor does she really have any confidence.

It’s when she meets the mysterious and chic Hikaru that she finally has a shot at chasing the boy she likes. Hikaru, who is a fashion design student, takes Haruka under her wing and teaches her the ways of makeup and fashion. I thought the transformation wasn’t that drastic in this show, but it was nice to see Haruka gain some confidence.

Regardless: it’s because of Hikaru that Haruka is chasing after her dreams in some ways. As the two continue to hang out though, Haruka comes to the revelation that Hikaru isn’t actually a regular girl like she thought she was—she actually is a boy who just loves makeup and clothes.

We see later the friction that causes between Hikaru and his family later on in the show, as well as with other people in his life, but I found this entire storyline to be interesting (as I mentioned before). I don’t think I’ve seen a show that takes it as seriously as this in mainstream Asian entertainment. Most of the time it’s a gimmick, like a girl dressing up as a boy to go to an elite school or something, but here it feels more serious and genuinely identity based.

Eventually, Haruka falls in love with Hikaru, too, although the speed of getting there is actually quite quick. Classic Japanese drama in that sense, but there are some dramatic moments of tension before we get to that point.

Overall Thoughts

I’d say I genuinely enjoyed this show a lot! Some dramas and television shows I watch these days I only finish because of a sense of duty, not because I really liked it, but this show I felt like I wanted to watch it through all the way to the end. I had no idea how many episodes there were, but I kept checking my Netflix to see if a new one was added until it definitely seemed to be over.

It did remind me that I want to see more shows like this in general. I like seeing couples that are beyond the typical heteronormative expectations that society places on us, even if I myself might not fully identify with what they are. Representation is just really cool to watch, even though this show doesn’t specifically put labels on anything.

I would love to read and hear more about what queer people think about this show though! I wasn’t going in with much of a critical lens and haven’t had the time to mull it over, but I found this show to be pleasantly surprising in some ways. Let me know what you think.

And if you’re interested and haven’t seen it, go ahead and do so! It’s not too long, so not much of an investment, and definitely worth giving a chance.

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