My Cuteness Is About To Expire!?

Maruya Kousuke is the kawaii-est thing since BTS. But how long will his cuteness last?

You can look at this recent series from Japan as a textbook office romcom, but that would not be seeing the full picture. "My Cuteness Is About to Expire!?" is an examination of fleeting youth, beauty standards, growing old and humanity's eternal longing for a fountain of youth. 

Maruya Kousuke (Ryosuke Yamada, from Full Metal Alchemist and boy band Say! Hey! JUMP) is a 29-year-old worker at a Tokyo beer company who has led a charmed life. He's super kawaii, polished, amiable, and a sales leader for the brand. Kousuke has the cute bias to his advantage and he knows it:  girls flock to him, men want to be him, all doors are open to him and even older ladies swoon in his presence. 

The ghost of cuteness past wants to have a word with you. And it isn't pretty.

One day, he is visited by his time-traveling, 59-year-old future self who tells Kousuke that when he turns 30, his cuteness will be over. No more kawaii, hello aging. It all goes downhill from here. Imagine something like the ghost of Christmas future visiting Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol." Of course, he's more than a little freaked out: he begins to examine his face in the mirror more frequently, looking for signs of aging: is that a blemish? A dark spot? He ceases eating oily foods, candies and begins to buy loads of anti-aging cashew supplements in the fight to keep his kawaii superpowers. 

If you ever wanted to know what it's like to date a robot, have we got a girl for you.

When he is assigned to mentor a new worker, Izumi, who is transferred from research into the sales department, he finally meets someone who is immune to his kawaii for the first time in his life. Izumi is a capable employee, but highly introverted, to the point of being antisocial. Kousuke's charms do not work on her. He can deliver his trademark smile, crack a joke, but they have no effect on Izumi.  Kyoko Yoshine, who we saw in the lead of Princess Jellyfish plays Izumi with robotic charm, if that is a thing. She is the polar opposite of Kousuke: blinking is her only expression, she speaks in monotone, and we've seen robots with more charisma. Yet oddly enough, Kousuke finds himself attracted to her. Viewers may be asking the same question. Is it because Izumi is a challenge? Because she's a female coworker who actually isn't attracted to him? Is it because she is unusually smart, not unlike Woo, in Extraordinary Attorney Woo? All of his life, Kousuke never had to make the first move on a girl--they've all been attracted to him. Now it's his turn to approach her, if he wants to have a chance. Which begs the question: is he up to the challenge? 

Think of Ichinose as a cuteness challenger brand. Can he take away the title from Kousuke?

This is a compact, but solid series, each 30-minute episode of this 9-part series is only 23 minutes long. And you'll find, compared to the usual 30 and 40 episode Taiwanese series, that it's over before it barely has a chance to start. There are hardly any supporting players, and they lack character development, but "My Cuteness is About to Expire!?"  is delightful ride, even in its brevity. We don't really get a chance to dig deep into many of the other characters, except Ichinose, who is a younger version of Kousuke, played with a frenzy of energy by Kazuya Ohashi (who reminds this viewer of a Japanese Mickey Rooney). Then there's Riko, Kousuke's ex-girlfriend, the jealous, mean-spirited receptionist of the company. Theater and character actor Furuta Arata plays the 59-year-old version of Kousuke. 

My Cuteness Is About To Expire!? is available on Rakuten Viki.