Innocent Love - well, if you consider traumatic pasts and insane exes innocent, that is

I continued my trip back into jdramaland with Innocent Love, starring Horikita Maki and Kitagawa Yujin. I started and enjoyed it years back but got sidetracked. Now I am back, on episode 6, and this thing is so addictive, it's insane. Can you say no to that:

IL makes no bones about being a melodrama. In fact, if Japan had makjang as a genre, it would steadily fall into that category (only, being a jdrama, it's somehow understated about all the makjang). IL follows Kanon (Maki) and Junya (KY)- two kind souls horribly treated by the world. When Kanon was still a girl, her parents died in a fire, a fire for which her older brother was convicted. Now she's pretty much a social outcast with no job prospects, self-worth or future. Junya is a young pianist who's unfailingly kind and gentle but who hides a metric ton of damage underneath that exterior - his parents died when he was a child but he didn't give up on the world. He poured all his love and hopes into his fiancee, a fiancee who had a tragic accident the day of their wedding, and is now in a coma inside his house, while he cares for her. Since she's neither dead nor alive, he cannot move on. Until a haunted young cleaner comes into his life. Yeah, this OTP is fucked up.

Throw in major secrets - Kanon was molested by her parents, hence her brother's crime, Junya's fiancee is in a coma because she tried to kill herself as she didn't want to marry him and is actually a bitch etc, evil secondary girls, and more angst than you can think of, and in the center of it, the most darling, loveable, sweet OTP you can imagine, and you have IL.

First a little happiness.