Ossan's Love
Synopsis. Soichi Haruta, a single 33-year old man, has been unsuccessful in getting a girlfriend. One day, he discovers his boss, Kurosawa, secretly collects images of him and learns that Kurosawa is deeply in love with him. Unsettled by Kurosawa's bold confession and romantic pursuits, Haruta seeks advice from his friends, discovering in the process that his male co-worker is also in love with him. Caught in a love triangle, Haruta navigates through his feelings for his two love interests. Production. "Ossan's Love" was inspired by producer experience of being looked after by  a female friend while in college, and her desire to explore the subject of romantic relationships between co-workers. Scriptwriter noted that rather than writing the series as a "moe" love affair between men, he instead framed it as a romantic drama that merely features men instead of a male-female couple; consequently, "Ossan's Love" specifically avoids depictions of homophobia or other LGBT-related issues. While "Ossan's Love" is an original work, Tokuo has noted both "shōnen" and "shōjo manga as among its influences, particularly "Marmalade Boy". The series was heavily marketed through social media; "Musashi's Room , an Instagram account featuring in-character posts from Musashi Kurosawa, became widely popular and gained more followers than the series' official account. Ossan's Love" was first broadcast as an hour-long television special on December 30, 2016, as the third part of TV Asahi's series. The program starred Kei Tanaka as Soichi Haruta, Kōtarō Yoshida as Musashi Kurosawa, Motoki Ochiai as Yukiya Hasegawa, and Sae Miyazawa as Asuka Minato. Following positive response from the special, TV Asahi created a 7-episode television series based on the original television special, which was broadcast in 2018. The 2018 series appeared  on TV Asahi's programming block. Tanaka and Yoshida reprised their roles, while Kento Hayashi and Rio Uchida replaced Ochiai and Miyazawa, including characters that were in their original roles. On January 22, 2019, TV Asahi announced that it would produce a second season of "Ossan's Love" for release in 2019. The second season, "Ossan's Love: In the Sky", is a re-imagining of the series that retains Haruta and Kurosawa's characters, as well as the love triangle plot, but is set in an airport and is not connected to the first season's narrative. Other media . Film. A film sequel to season 1 of the television drama, "", was released in theaters nationwide on August 23, 2019. In its opening weekend the film sold 239,000 tickets, for a box office gross of ¥343 million. The film grossed a total of ¥2.65 billion, making it the twelfth highest-grossing Japanese film released in 2019. Several cheer screenings were held throughout the theatrical run. Manga. A manga adaptation of "Ossan's Love" illustrated by Umebachi Yamanaka was serialized in the manga magazine "Be Love" from 2018 to 2020. The series was collected into four volumes published by  Kodansha: Remake. A Cantonese-language remake of the first season produced in Hong Kong was first announced in February 2021. The remake stars Mirror members Edan Lui and Anson Lo, as well as Kenny Wong. It was later broadcast in Hong Kong on ViuTV beginning June 28, 2021. Episodes 7 to 15 had new content that was not present in the original Japanese version. Reception. Critical reception. "Ossan's Love" was credited as one of the series that brought interest to the boys' love genre to mainstream audiences outside of anime and manga fans, and was praised in Japan and  Hong Kong for its positive portrayal of same-sex couples. The series' popularity is noted as influencing the production of live-action television dramas and films featuring male-male romance, such as "" (2018) on Fuji TV, "What Did You Eat Yesterday?" (2019) on TV Tokyo, and "Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!" (2020) on TV Tokyo, and the live-action film adaptation of "The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese" (2020). James Marsh from the "South China Morning Post" gave "Ossan's Love: Love or Dead" a score of 3 out of 5 stars. The official  guidebook for the first season sold 100,000 physical copies within its first week of sales. During its second week of sales, it sold an additional 56,000 physical copies and became the best-selling official guidebook for a television drama since the 2011 television series "Ikemen desu ne".