Revenge Lover

Review

6/10 is my rating and I think I am being generous because I did like the premise, the couple was cute together and I think it was a good attempt. The problem is Revenge Lovers: tries to cram a full-blownrevenge + second-chance romance + corporate intrigue + surprise family drama story into only 8 episodes of ~25–30 minutes each and with recaps and a long intro it is only about 20 minutes of original content per episode so only about 160 minutes total which is not even three hours. Which is about the length of some movies.

So. the revenge part is over almost before it starts. Which makes the title and even the synopsis a little misleading. He entices her into the fake relationship, they do the one big public humiliation scene with the ex, and then… poof, revenge complete. So, it you plan to watch it to get some big revenge drama "fix" this is not it. Then there is the other part of their agreement, the “psycho fiancée” (Reina) which also is over almost before it starts. His fiancé shows up, acts unhinged for literally one episode, gets dumped off-screen, and is never heard from again. Same with the ex-boyfriend—he gets publicly shamed once and basically disappears. Because everything is so rushed, none of the emotional beats land. There’s no slow burn of him actually tormenting her, no real satisfaction when the side villains get theirs, and no time to process any aspects of their emotional connection. I would not recommend it to anyone looking for a good, well developed and enjoyable story. I was not even all that attached to the characters. Maybe if you read a webtoon and wanted to see the live, but other than that I can't think of others that would want something that has more problems than pluses. I would not watch it again and will not recommend it to others.

Spoilers

My daughter who reads way more Webtoons than I have said this is the general pattern when you see such a short series adapted from a webtoon. That it is going to be rushed and ultimately sorely lacking. And it was true of this. Things would just happen, some big reveal and you would be like "did I miss something?" and no you didn't. The premise and plot could have easily supported a 12 or even 16-episode script, but since they only had budget for 8, so their solution must have been to just omit background stories, build-up, all the things that would have helped it cling together and make sense. It was like watching something and hitting a 10 second skip periodically. In general, as I understand it, it suffers from the current Japanese streaming-drama disease: super short seasons + too many tropes they feel obligated to check off and not enough screen time to fully develop and unspool anything. When you only have 8 half-length episodes, something has to give, and in this case it was coherence, believability and emotional payoff.

If you want a Japanese revenge romance that actually commits to the revenge and has room to breathe, people usually point to older classics like Hana Yori Dango or Boys Over Flowers* (longer seasons) or the Korean version of the same story. Modern short-form J-dramas almost always pull this same bait-and-switch. It pulls viewers in with an interesting cast and promising premise but then produces a series that is whirlwind fast and holier than swiss cheese.

Synopsis

This is a quick 8-episode Japanese rom-com (approx. 24 minutes per episode) that dives straight into a messy workplace betrayal. Maika has been with her boyfriend, Narimitsu for three years and is waiting for him to ask her to marry him at any time. She is absolutely crushed when she finds out that, instead of a proposal, her boyfriend of three years is cheating on her. On the heels of her finding out about the infidelity, Shun, a handsome new CEO comes to the company. And he immediately seems enamored of Maika. After a couple of encounters where Maika is clearly distraught seeing her ex become engaged to a fellow office worker, Shun proposes a deal to Maika that will benefit both of them. They become a couple for Maika to get revenge on her sleezy ex and for Shun to get out of an arranged marriage. The story comes from Ryo Morita and Chika nada's manga Fukushu Kareshi: Dekiai Shacho no Kao ni wa Ura ga Aru. What starts as a simple ruse to get revenge and to get Shun out of an arranged marriage, quickly becomes something more.

Major Characters:

- Hattori Maika (Konno Ayaka): A resilient but freshly crushed staffer at a hotel management company, navigating the sting of her colleague's infidelity by jumping into a high-stakes fake romance that forces her to reclaim her spark.

- Satori Shun (Suzuki Jin): The polished, secretive new CEO of the Bird Left hotel chain, a reluctant heir dodging a suffocating arranged marriage by orchestrating a sham relationship that peels back his guarded layers one reluctant smile at a time.

- Matobe Narimitsu (Kondo Shori): Maika's charming but utterly duplicitous coworker and ex, whose casual cheating unleashes the revenge engine and keeps stirring the pot with his smarmy opportunism.

- Saionji Yuria (Tomite Ami): The scheming office interloper locked in Matobe's affair, whose manipulative maneuvers crank up the jealousy and corporate catfights, pushing Maika to evolve from victim to victor.