Waraeru Koi wa Shitakunai (2006)

Country: Japan
Genre: romance, Christmas
Format: drama 3 episodes
Cast: Yamasaki Shizuyo, Koumoto Junichi, Masuda Takahisa, Sakai Wakana, Natsukawa Jun, Matsuo Toshinobu, Okada Yoshinori, Ogi Hiroaki, Yahagi Ken,
Synopsis: Suzune (Yamasaki Shizuyo) is an elevator girl, she is not the prettiest one, but she falls in love really quickly. Suzune´s friend Tonaka Ippei (Koumoto Junichi) is a manager of cake shop, but he is hardly managing to cope with his job. Yukiko (Sakai Wakana) used to be news announcer, but must work now in variety show. Akai Santa is "Happy Delivery" man, who is mostly controlled by his 4 older sisters. They all are missing love in their lives and during the Christmas they have started to feel loneliness. Without knowing, they will become related to each other in one or other way.
Rating: 5/5
This is my Christmas special drama. I watch it on every Christmas now. It is beautiful and sad, but it kinda gives me a courage to keep trying harder. I like Suzune´s saying "Even if I fail 99 times, I know 100th I will succeed" and her thoughts about confessing to people you like. To some people it happens that they cannot move on without a real end, they want to be sure that there won´t be any "if"-s in future. "If that person is really necessary for you, you will see him again someday, but if not, then he/she is not meant for you". I guess this drama is something that has a bit of similarity with all of us, so it is easy to relate to some characters or situations.

The short drama is also very humorous and keeps you laughing for a long time. Characters´ thoughts are shown out to viewers and it adds so much more to the story. In addition, look forward to actor's face expressions. The drama is technically great too. I like how the timeline is shown, so you must watch the clock and think about the time to understand the right order of things happening. If you do not pay attention, then it might get a bit confusing and you might miss some hints that they are giving you. Lastly, I think it has one of the best soundtracks ever! Not only the theme songs, but the whole sound is great, funny and gives you exactly the right feeling while watching it.
There are four main-characters, who in some way or another are related to each other. The action is set during the Christamas mostly in big shopping center where a lot of people go to make the shopping for the holidays.

Most of the time the link between characters is Suzune, who is also known as "Love Terminator". She is much bigger than average Japanese woman and not exactly the beauty-queen by her appearance, but she happens to fall in love much easily than most of people. She tends to over-react and is very fast-forward when it comes to liking somebody. I must say that actually there is something beautiful in her, both by appearance and personality, but most of the time she makes a fool out of herself with her actions. Besides, she is very un-professional when it comes to work. During that Christmas, one of Suzune's eye-candies became Ryohei, who is intern at the shopping center. He is cute and goodhearted and a bit naive with life, but I understand his feelings when things come to Suzune. And as I said that she falls in love very easily, then there are more Santa, who becomes her love of her life and Shigeo, who becomes the first man to be interested in Suzune.  

Suzune's great friend is Tonaka Ippei - baker and an owner of the bakery store at the shopping center. Similar to Suzune, He is bad when it comes to love, but at the same time, he does not fall in love as easily as she. He is also bad when it comes to saying right things. Once he gets nervous, he can say very wrong things in wrong place. Everyone misunderstand Tonaka's  name for "Tonakai"m which in Japanese means "Reindeer", that´s why he gets so irritated for calling him "Tonakai" and that´s one reason why he is dressed as a reindeer in the end. To know the other reasons, watch the drama.
Despite, not falling in love easily, this Christmas he ends up falling for Rika, who is cute-looking lady working in a store. She is shy and decent woman, but her love for sweets is enormous.  I totally understand how she gets excited when she is talking about sweets and cakes. Anything and everything, which tastes sweetly, is my addiction and eating 6 pieces of cake is not a problem.

The last characters are Yukiko and Santa. They have about 6-8 years age-difference as Yukiko is 29, but Santa is some years over 20. Santa is most of the time abused by woman, since he is too nice and good-looking. Growing up with 4 older sisters, has made him afraid of older women and love is not in his priority. He is working as Happy Delivery delivery-man. I really started to think how is that possible that Santa is perfect, while his sisters are like... well you will see once you watch it. It is the same mystery like it is with Goofy and Max(imilian) from Disney channel (high five for Disney fans). In addition, there is a name-twister in Santa's name too as literally it means "Red Santa".

Yukiko is facing the biggest changes in her life and as we know not all the Christmas are merry and jolly. She gets fired from her usual job in the TV and put into variety show that is not her specialty at all. In addition to having problems in her love-life, she tends to drink too much and has most of the time a bitch-attitude to protect herself. I guess Sakai Wakana is my favorite on-screen love-interest of Masuda Takahisa. The look very good together and their characters have good chemistry.
Overall the drama is very beautiful and worth every second of watching, but unfortunately I guess it is also very under-rated drama as it definitely does not have the popularity it should have.

There are some good sayings to put behind your ear and make them your everyday motos:
"If there is no ending, there won't be a new beginning"
"Life is a roller coaster"
"you cannot achieve happiness, when you are scared"
"If you smile, only good things will happen"

Spoiler-Review: I hoped that Suzune understands Shigeos feelings, as he acted was exactly like male-version of Suzune, except that Shigeo had some looks and money, but at the same time I understand that you cannot make yourself fall in love with someone when you just do not have the spark. In addition, I think that Shigeo was maybe a bit too fast with the proposal.
In addition, I was hoping to see that Suzune and Tonaka end up together as they understood each other the most and were matching very well, but I guess this is what you call a great friendship.