A stoic Buddhist priest on his way to becoming the head of his temple falls VERY hard for a pretty English teacher with a dream of going to New York City. Soon her family, her co-workers at the English Institute where she works, and his fellow priests are all affected by his dogged attempts to woo her. With perhaps the exception of the last two episodes, this is a very funny light-hearted series where just as much English as Japanese is spoken. The dialogue is very rat-a-tat-tat where people are speaking over each other and if you blink, you miss some of the funnier lines (if you have to rely on captions). Satomi Ishihara and Tomohisa Yamashita make an appealingly mismatched couple. The auxillary romances are not all that interesting (and even a little strange at times) and can be skipped over with little impact on the overall story. Though I wouldn't have minded seeing more of the relationship between two of Junko's co-workers: the company "Lothario" who falls for the quirky Momoe who is obsessed with BL. (Her reaction to visiting the temple for the first time is hilarious). The last two episodes get just a little too serious given the storyline but it all ends well and I wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more of their story.
Review of From Five to Nine
