Love Deadline Episodes 9-10 marks the finale of the month-long show, creating much anticipation about the final couples. It (ラブ デッドライン) is a Japanese dating reality show, hosted by Hidetsugu Shibata (from the comedy duo “Untouchable”), Miu Ikeda and Nana Suzuki.
The cast of the show includes Nona (Konona Shiba), Anna Tsumura, Saki Kamata, Shizuka ‘Shi’ Eto, Sayuri ‘Sayu’ Fujita, Keisuke ‘Kei’ Hashimoto, Takayuki ‘Taka’ Toda, Takuya ‘Okapi’ Okane, Yuta Yanagawa, Yuki ‘Fuku’ Fukuda, Keijiro Minoura, Yushi Sogomoto, Sora Shibata and Kiichiro Sakamoto.
In this reality show, single individuals travel to beautiful destinations, from idyllic Okinawa to historic Kyoto, searching for their life partners. The women are tasked with choosing their fate with a man who could be eliminated at any moment. With time running out, and only one chance at proposing, the pressure is on for the women to make the right choice and find their happily ever after.
Love Deadline Episodes 9-10 Review
After the contestants flew to Singapore, with Shizuka ‘Shi’ Eto dropping out of the show, the man who was eliminated next was Kei. It was expected that his journey would come to an end since he confessed to Nona (Konona Shiba) that he wanted to focus on her only. Meanwhile, Takuya ‘Okapi’ Okane also tried his best to create a connection with her, leaving everyone questioning what was in Nona’s mind or her choice.
Kei’s elimination made everyone emotional, including Okapi since they became quite close on the show. Yet he tried to appeal to Nona till the very end. After considering for the night, with some hesitation as the clock ticked closer to 10 AM, Nona decided to propose to Keisuke ‘Kei’ Hashimoto. Clad in a black dress and holding a pink bouquet, she walked towards him and confessed how her feelings grew for him with each moment that they spent together. Looking at the wide smile on Kei’s face, there was no doubt that this proposal would be rejected like the last time.
As Kei expressed his feelings and they shared a kiss together, Okapi also expressed his desire to leave. Since he only had genuine feelings for Nona, he didn’t think it would be wise to force connections with the remaining cast and thought it would be best to go home. Leaving just Anna, Sayu, Sora, Yushi, Keijiro and Fumi on the show. However, within a few moments, Fumi also announced that he would be leaving the show due to his job and other commitments that he had to go back to. There was still a day left before his return and the cast was given a chance to go on dates in Singapore.
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During his short stint, Fumi connected the best with Anna and decided to go on a last date with her. They had a good time together, walking around and clicking pictures together. Towards the end of the date, Fumi expressed how he had feelings for Anna and would be glad if she decided to go back with him to Tokyo. Other than them, Yushi and Sora also went on a date and asked each other about their experiences with other people.
The next day, Fumi waited till 10 AM for Anna to show up as she had shown equal interest in him. But she decided not to propose since she wasn’t sure about her feelings and didn’t want to rush into it. Instead, she wanted to assess her own feelings and went on a date with Yushi, when they were allowed to take anyone out. They found similarities in their views about marriage and the kind of life they envision. On the other hand, Sayu also tried to appeal to Yushi and spent some good time with him. And with Sora also having the best connection with him, it was a competition between the three ladies for one man.
After having deep conversations with all three, it seemed like Yushi was leaning towards Anna more. He even confessed it to Sora as well since their ideal marriage values didn’t seem to align. Sora wanted to focus on her career for now and didn’t have a marriage plan in the near future. While Yushi seemed quite keen on starting his family soon enough. Ultimately, when the cast was given the one last date to go on the show, only one couple matched up – Yushi and Sora.
Despite their difference in perspectives, Yushi realised that marriage doesn’t only mean having kids but his feeling and love are important. After much thought, he decided to go with his feelings and picked Sora. On their last date, they were able to understand each other’s viewpoints much better and even Sora seemed to going through some introspection. Initially, she advocated for ‘commuter/weekend marriage’ as an ideal, through her journey on the show and meeting with various people she realised that her views might be coming from a place of fear. It might be possible that she fears losing her individuality and pushes such ideas that would help her avoid vulnerability.
Ultimately, the one-month-long show came to an end on a cruise ship in Singapore. On Love Deadline Finale, all the remaining men – Yushi Sogomoto and Keijiro Minoura were waiting for their connection to show up. The ladies – Anna Tsumura, Sayuri ‘Sayu’ Fujita and Sora Shibata were asked to propose to the man they liked. Yushi had expected Sora to turn up bearing flowers but she decided not to propose since her feelings weren’t to the point of getting married to him. Meanwhile, Keijiro had made his feelings clear to Anna but she wasn’t as responsive. Thus, he also had to leave solo. In the case of Sayu, Yushi had already rejected her thus she didn’t even think of proposing.
In the end, the dating-marriage experiment of Love Deadline ended with only one couple Kei and Nona. They even checked on them after three months and it was revealed that they had started living together. Later on in November, they even got engaged to each other with wedding plans in the coming months.
As I had said in the review of the initial episodes the contestants were quite passive, it turned out to be quite true since most of the contestants walked out solo. Almost everyone seemed quite averse to committing. Surely, marriage is a big decision but sitting back and doing nothing won’t make life easier anyway. Compared to dating shows where they only get a week to choose a partner, they had adequate time yet so indecisive.
The moment when Taka rejected Saki, after chasing and leading her on, still infuriates me. If he wasn’t sure of his feelings then he shouldn’t have made promises or confessed every time they met. Another clueless contestant was Anna, it was quite evident that she hit off with Yuki quite perfectly. However, in the pursuit of meeting a better contestant, she hopped from one person to another leading them all but rejecting everyone in the end. Compared to all, Shi seems like a much better person despite her pushy personality. Atleast she was honest about her feelings and tried her best with the person she liked.
On a different note, having been on the show for a month, it definitely gave the contestants some good time to introspect their views about love and marriage. It was a learning experience for them all and hopefully, they will make better choices in the real world.
Love Deadline is available for streaming on Netflix.
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