Naked Dining (Japanese Series)

One more show around the recent popular genre within BL series: Food. Personally I have been enjoying these shows, or at least a few of them which are done well. Unfortunately while my heart says that this show wasn't bad at all, my brain tells me otherwise. A whole lot of things were just taken for granted here, especially when it comes to detailing a character, their behavior, backstory and stuff like that. More on that later, but on a plus side, we do get to see again some yummy dishes being cooked in a show of 12 episodes of about 23 minutes each.

Souta, a young man, works in Tokyo and for some off reason loves to eat food naked when he is alone. This is how way of relieving stress after work. After his grandma's death, he decides to visit the home where he grew up and have memories. There is that house he meets Mahiro, a young boy who happens to run a fruit and vegetable store. Souta realizes that his grandma has kept a recipe book of many international cuisines and in fact he and Mahiro used to cook often. Mahiro recognizes that Souta and he used to be classmates and he has ever since crushed on him, but Souta has no idea. They meet often whenever Souta is in town and they cook, and in the process Mahiro catches Souta naked or about to get naked to eat food. Anyway, one night Mahiro kisses Souta, but when later he tries to reciprocate Mahiro steps back saying that he should do it only if Souta likes him. And at this point Souta has no idea about his feelings. Souta's co-worker, a girl, in the meantime comes into picture just to create a little drama and act as an accessory for both Mahiro and Souta to realize that they both do like each other and only if they could recognize their feelings of one another and act upon it and do something about it, they could be happier. In the end they do start dating and Souta decides to quit his job and open a cafe with Mahiro in this village.

This is the kind of story that could have been easily a short film. Mediocre storyline, acting, full of cliche tropes mixed with unnecessary misunderstandings, random side stories that added absolutely nothing. The two charming leads can only take the story so far, but even their good looks are not enough. Mahiro behaves like the wife of an alcoholic in an abusive relationship - he actually recoils from Souta every time they're near each other, and he just looks afraid all the time. Souta manages to express some repressed longing, but it's still not convincing. There is no romantic chemistry between them, and certainly no romance. They barely even touch each other, at least not on purpose.They meet, cook an international meal (the only best part of every episode) and then Mahiro goes back and Souta eats alone. Even though the episodes are short, it doesn't take away from the fact that it is poorly written and someone probably just tried to cash on it the rising popularity of cooking in BL shows. Stuff like childhood memories of Mahiro of sharing the food, Mario's boss giving him a comfort hug, the girl co-worker literally forcing herself on Souta to date her; all these create very unreliable and unpleasant narrative, with so many annoying tropes thrown in that its hard to ignore after a certain time. The only saving grace here is the yummy international cuisines that we get to see being made. The whole title and using the idea of a guy liking to eat naked, could have been explored more about the lead's personality and actually adding to the story rather than using just as a shock value.  Why create it if you were not going to explore it to its fullest extent? Or maybe I am just into fluff anymore. Overall, a disappointing one. (4/10)