Taberu Dake literally means 'just eating' and is said a lot in the drama when describing the mysterious protagonist: 'the one who is only eating'. She appears from nowhere wearing some eccentric outfit and never says a word. Even so, she manages to find some desperate soul to steal food from and she seduces them with her sexy eating. Or to put it another way, some one pities the girl enough to treat her to a meal and is for some reason astonished by how pretty her messy eating looks. And somehow, watching this cute girl eat solves their worries for no deeply explored reason. Meanwhile, Kakino is trying to find 'the girl who only eats' because after he saw her ramming an ice cream down her throat he feel madly in love and decided that he will marry her. He's a bit creepy and stalker-ish to say the least.
When I read the synopsis, I thought this show was going to be really fun and lighthearted. But how wrong was I? The first episode is horribly depressing! It's all about Kakino who is at his wits ends trying to pay maintenance to his three ex-wife. He gets abused at works and is struggling so much he feels that his life is not worth living. He tries to kill himself! It's too horrid! After that first episode it does cheer up a lot, but I still wouldn't say it's very funny. The scripts not very clever and there's not really any body gags.
This is the first time I've heard of a show about eating, but it's not the first I've heard of people taking pleasure from another eating. Just look at this article about a trend in Korea. People are making money from live-streaming their meals. It must be a cultural difference because I'd rather be eating myself, watching other people eat just makes me hungry! All those food porn shots (the one's that fill almost half of the 20 minute long episodes) are just plain torture! So because of this cultural difference I do feel like I'm missing out on the main part of this series. Since the main part of the show is just presenting various delicious meals rather than a coherent plot.
Personally I'd much rather a decent plot to food porn. The plot is all over the place! Some times we follow Kakino and his stalking of 'the girl who only eats' and his colleagues love life. Other times it's all about the girl and her spontaneous meal companions. Also, the fact that people magically feel better after eating with her distresses me. If only it was that easy to feel better in life!!
I believe this is the first drama I've watched where the episodes are only 20minutes long instead of nearly an hour long and given that almost 10minutes of that is food porn you can see that I don't have a lot of content to review. I'd usually discuss acting here but our main character is a mute who does nothing but eat and I am not prepared to critically analyse some one's eating! So instead, we will cut this review short and got straight onto the conclusion.
The concept really did interest me 'the girl who only eats' could of been a fun lively girl who liked to stuff her face and it was her carefree attitude that helped people forget their worries. It should be full of funny jokes and exaggerated body gags and most importantly it should of had a sensible plot. Instead we get a girl who tries too hard to be cute and no sign of a plot. The characters are all pretty stupid too and their motives are rubbish! In general it is just a terribly weak plot and unless you want to watch people eating you're not going to enjoy it!
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