Okitsura

Alright the full title for this one is, “Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She’s Saying” and so for obvious reasons I’m just going with the shortened version of the Japanese title, Okitsura. Now I don’t know that I’d even be able to distinguish Japanese dialects, but here we’re dealing with a whole other language. This means it’s subtitles galore.

Now our protagonist Teru comes from the mainland, so everything about Okinawa is explained to him by his crush Hina and her friend Kana, who translates. Now watching this show I have two thoughts: 1) was this funded by the Okinawan tourism board? and 2) the only way this can really end is with Kana and Teru getting together. She has a crush on him and while he might not realize it I just really don’t see how he could be with Hina. Hina seems to have no interest in romance, or she expresses it just by teaching him about Okinawa. There’s a chance she’s even upped the Okinawan language use as a way to be a wingwoman to Kana. Barring some bizarre pivot, there’s just no way this triangle is actually much of a competition.

I think a competition between the two would also ruin the show, as they’ve done a lot of flashbacks showing just how close Hina and Kana are. In general a competition or love triangle would take away from the good vibes of the show, and I worry a late season tease is setting something up.

Overall this ended up surprisingly being the strongest new romcom of the season, and I hope we get more soon.