7 Romantic Japanese Dramas That Should Be On Your Watchlists

If you’ve spent countless hours swooning over Korean and Chinese dramas, you can’t sleep on romantic dramas from Japan!

Japanese dramas, or J-Dramas if you will, are underrated gems that rarely get their due as compared to anime and movies from the region. These TV shows cover a wide range of genres, from action and horror to romance and slice-of-life dramas. If you’re looking for something new to watch this weekend, give these romance dramas a go.

There’s something for every kind of romance lover, from sweet and funny to slow-burning, angst-filled dramas. Without further ado, here are some of our favourite romantic Japanese TV shows that you need to watch now…

Best Romantic Japanese Dramas To Watch On Netflix, Viki And More

First Love (2022)

This heartwarming drama is all about second chances. It follows two people who met each other as children in the 90s and grew up together, only to get separated because of circumstances. They reunite years later and try to rekindle their past love, but things are not as easy as they seem in the present. The show has a great OST and stunning visuals.

Watch it here

The Many Faces of Ito (2017)

This Netflix original rom-com series revolves around jaded screenwriter, Rio Yazaki, who is stuck writing romantic scripts. She decides to trick four love-sick women into thinking she has smart love advice for them to mine their love lives for content. The drama is based on the novel Ito-Kun A to E by Asako Yuzuki.

Watch it here

Cursed In Love (2020)

If you like heartwrenching slow burns, then this one is for you. It follows a confectionery maker whose turbulent past makes it difficult for her to practice her art. However, meeting an old connection years later might bring the change she’s looking for. There’s mystery, time skips, romance, and tonnes of angst in this one.

Watch it here

My Love Mix-Up! (2021)

Like the name suggests, this high school romance follows a mix-up that causes our protagonist Aoki to assume his crush actually has feelings for another boy, Ida. Things get even more chaotic when Ida begins to believe that Aoki has a crush on him. It’s a silly and sweet drama that you can binge-watch in one sitting.

Watch it here

Rich Man (2018)

A remake of the popular Japanese series Rich Man, Poor Woman (2012), this one follows the story of a CEO of an IT company who suffers from a facial recognition disability and a job seeker from the countryside who has superlative memory. Their unexpected meeting turns their lives upside down in all the good ways.

Watch it here

Coffee and Vanilla (2019)

This drama is perfect for anyone who loves a healthy dose of melodrama in their romance. In the drama, a true-blue romantic girl from a small town moves to Tokyo to attend university. She longs for the kind of romance that’s there in books and movies and when she meets an older businessman, it looks like her dream for the perfect love story might come true. But things soon go south when her partner’s past comes knocking on their doorstep.

Watch it here

Fight Song (2022)

This lighthearted romance answers the question based on the adage ‘You should never meet your heroes!' Down-on-her-luck Kisara Hanae meets the songwriter, whose work she had idolised for years, only to discover that he’s actually an erratic, one-hit-wonder, who is nothing like who she thought he was. But it soon becomes evident that there’s more to his story than meets the eye. Throw in Hanae’s old friend who has a crush on her, and you’ve got a good old-fashioned love triangle on your hands!

Watch it here