Review of Why I Dress Up For Love / 着飾る恋には理由があって

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 recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

Although this blog post is coming out much later than when I’m typing it, I am happy to report I did find a job and will be starting soon! But before I began to get caught up in the throes of capitalism yet again, I was still having a grand time clearing through my watch list of Japanese dramas. They’re typically short and very to the point, which makes them a good choice for when you don’t want long-term commitment.

With my newest obsession with Japanese dramas in mind, I ended up scouring Netflix for my next watch and landed on Why I Dress Up For Love. As someone who went to fashion school (Fashion Institute of Technology alumna here!) for my undergraduate degree and ended up in an adjacent industry, I have a guilty pleasure for shows and dramas that tend to involve fashion to some degree.

So it was the title of this one that caught my eye, and when I read the synopsis I knew it was something I would be interested in. I ended up finishing it over the course of a week, which is pretty good timing for me. Some Korean dramas take me forever to finish.

Let’s get into the review! This introduction is getting a little long already.

When looking for a new apartment, one young professional finds herself in a unique situation.

Our main character in this series is Mashiba Kurumi, who, at the beginning of the series, is working at a home decor company. Her job is to do press relations, or PR, which combines a little bit of digital marketing as she runs the social media accounts for the company. She’s proven to have quite the eye for social media, which becomes a plot point throughout the course of the series because she manages to amass a large amount of followers.

Anyways, because she is such a professional and throws herself into her work, she forgets that she actually needs to renew the contract for her apartment. By the time Kurumi remembers, it’s too late and she needs to find somewhere else to live immediately, as her apartment building and landlord kicks her out for a new tenant.

Scrambling to find a new place to live, Kurumi finds her friend Koko willing to give her a space in her apartment. Koko is a talented food stylist, but when you see her apartment, you’re going to find it incredible for a Tokyo apartment. That’s coded for unrealistic, by the way, as this is more like a New York City penthouse rather than a dingy Tokyo apartment in a city that’s scrambling for space.

When Kurumi arrives with her belongings, she assumes that Koko lives alone in the luxury apartment. Turns out she’s dead wrong: there are three other people living in the space with her. With Kurumi, that makes five. The others are Ayaka, who is an artist and works as a delivery person in order to make some extra cash, Haruto, who is an online counselor, and the charming chef Shun.

The rest of the series largely explores not only Kurumi’s professional life, but how this little group of people living inside of one apartment can be a found family of sorts. They go on outings together, have deep conversations, and Shun even might have some romantic tension with Kurumi.

The love story between them becomes the focus later on in the show, but I wouldn’t entirely describe this as a romance drama. It’s something that feels like a comfort show in the sense that all of these people are coming together and finding solace in each other. It’s heartwarming in that way, but also just really refreshing in others.

We also really get to know each of these characters, which is also pretty nice to watch on-screen. Some Japanese dramas feel really rushed and jump from plot point to plot point, but I feel like this show takes its time as needed and actually didn’t feel as rushed as some other shows I’ve watched lately.

Overall Thoughts

I liked this show a lot! I’m being upfront about that fact because I found this really different in some ways compared to some other Japanese dramas I’ve watched lately. I feel like this show manages to be really charming without being cheesy, which is a hard balance to achieve.

I wouldn’t say this is a revolutionary drama and this isn’t something I’ve never seen before, but it feels really well done. There are moments where you’ll smile and laugh with the characters, which is pretty consistent throughout each episode. There are some dramas where I do not connect to the characters at all. This drama I did!

I’ve been so impressed with the amount of Asian and international content Netflix in the USA has been adding lately. I’m hoping to get to more Japanese dramas after this one, even if it might not compare to how good this show was to me.

Go watch this one if you haven’t already! It might become your new favorite, or you might give it three episodes before giving up. That’s fine—taste is so incredibly subjective, and at least you tried.

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