“BL dramas are full of steamy sex scenes.” One of my readers pointed out that I tend to harp on this in my past BL drama reviews. As such, he suggested that I watch Cherry Magic (30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい), which was in Japanese drama style – was lighthearted yet addictive to watch.
What Is Cherry Magic (30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい)?
Cherry Magic, also known as 30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい in Japanese, is a Japanese BL drama that aired on TV Tokyo. The direct translation of the long and peculiar name is “It seems that you can have magic if you are still a virgin by 30 years old”. However, it is known more intimately as Cherry Magic, or Cherry Maho (チェリまほ).
Adapted from the yaoi manga of the same name, Cherry Magic follows an office worker, Adachi, who led a low key life at work. However, he realised he could hear other people’s thoughts by touching them, after he turned 30 years old. Shortly after, he found out that the star worker in the office, Kurosawa, had a crush on him!
Humour Without Going Overboard
As someone familiar with Japanese drama, I would say Cherry Magic wasn’t all that groundbreaking in its storytelling, cinematography or post-production. Yet, it had been some time since I had watched Japanese dorama (there were simply too many Chinese and Thai dramas to follow!). Therefore, returning to watch Cherry Magic with its classic Japanese drama humour was refreshing.
Read Also: Cherry Magic ended its run with not a single kiss!
Japanese drama’s humour is usually founded on the Japanese’s discomfort with “getting real” with other people. That was why the premise that Adachi could hear other people’s thoughts, and therefore be in touch with their real selves, was so amusing.
A now classic scene was when Adachi first found out about Kurosawa’s crush on him. As the ability to hear other people’s minds was getting too much for him, Adachi started to avoid the morning peak in order to minimise human contact. As fate had it, he was packed into an elevator with Kurosawa and accidentally got to know that the latter was feeling excited about being in the same elevator as “someone”.
Adachi took on the pleasure to find out who that “someone” was, just like how we liked to engage in some gossip at work. However, within a few minutes, he realised to his surprise that the object of Kurosawa’s love was nobody else but Adachin himself!
The double twist was what made the drama cute and easy to watch.
We also got to experience Adachi’s discomfort, as he navigated through the mind of Kurosawa. Like when Adachi found out that Kurosawa was infatuated with Adachi’s mole behind his ear, or that Kurosawa was already imagining their cohabiting life, even though they had been “just colleagues” all these while.
Constant Tease Between Kurosawa and Adachi
As of Episode 10, I can declare that there had yet to be any steamy sex scenes. By this standard, 2gether’s 1st of 3 kissing scenes at Episode 5 sure felt too raunchy. However, the scriptwriter sure knew how to tease viewers.
In Episode 3, Adachi and Kurosawa found themselves in an awkward situation, when they were made to kiss each other during a post-work drinking game. Just as we thought that we would get the first kiss of the series, Kurosawa did the most gentlemanly thing – to give a peck on Adachi’s forehead.
Even then, we knew from Adachi’s mind reading that Kurosawa was saddened and worried that he had put Adachi off. Adachi, being ever so kind and empathetic, went to look for Kurosawa. At the rooftop, we thought Kurosawa would finally get to kiss Adachi. With the grabbing of Adachi by the neck and the classic drop of the water bottle at their feet, viewers held their breath for the cheesy-yet-satisfying kissing scene.
But in comes the wonderful third wheel Rokkaku (translated as “Hexagon”) to spoil the evening! (By the way, Rokkaku interrupts KuroDachi many times in the series. Despite spoiling the ambience, fans still loved the humour that Rokkaku added to the drama!)
Yup, we still did not get the kissing scene.
From then on, the series proceeded with how the 2 leads got comfortable with each other. By Episode 8, they were officially together. And yet! There were no signs of progression from that peck in Episode 3! Yup, the only “intimacy” we got was from Adachi’s fantasy.
Cherry Magic Only Takes Up 20 Minutes Every Week
Each episode of Cherry Magic was about 20 minutes. Even though it was short compared to other dramas, this made watching the series so light and enjoyable.
It was easy to catch one episode in between our busy schedules. At the same time, the storytelling was full, so that the development of Adachi and Kurosawa’s relationship didn’t feel illogical.
In fact, the storytelling was so well planned, there was enough time to develop a second story line for Adachi’s good friend, who also just turned 30 and started to find his love.
Cherry Magic Portrays Kurosawa’s Struggles of Nursing A BL Love
In a way, Cherry Magic was like 2gether, where you have one lead who were already in love with the other and was hoping that his love object would reciprocate his affection.
Cherry Magic did a lot better in portraying the struggle of the former. No thanks to Adachi’s mind reading capabilities, we were able to peek into the psyche of Kurosawa. On one hand, he was suppressing his infatuation with Adachi. On the other, he was feeling all pessimistic that Adachi would ever know or even reciprocate his feelings.
Through the lens of Adachi, we were able to understand the struggles of Kurosawa, who was learning to cope with his BL affections in a non-BL reality.
Parting Words
Cherry Magic doesn’t aim to tell a groundbreaking, breathtaking love story. All it did was to stretch a little bit of reality (that someone could actually read the minds of others after staying a virgin till 30 years old), and with a little bit of tease and a dash of Japanese drama humour, tell a love story for 20 minutes every week.
Perhaps the scriptwriters were wary of Japanese’s conservative mindset, which is still not that receptive to BL relationships, so there were none of those over the top kissing or bed scenes. Instead, the writers focused on the development of the characters and their attitudes towards each other.
BL dramas are still considered a niche, and we can’t blame the showrunners (from Thailand to China) for relying on raunchy sex scenes to gain viewership. After all, if this genre isn’t profitable, the investment for BL dramas will cease and we will all be losing access to our favourite pastimes!
Despite the reality check, Cherry Magic took a niche genre, packaged it in the classic Japanese drama’s way of presentation, and focused on the human aspect of BL genre. In this way, Cherry Magic is like the breeze that signals the turn of the season with its dash of cherry blossom fragrance.
So how can BL lovers miss out on such a refreshing drama?
Till then, don’t get BLown away!
p/s: If you are like me and prefer BL dramas without raunchy bed scenes, you can check out I Told Sunset About You and my review for this poetic Thai BL drama!
You can watch Cherry Magic on WeTV. However, you might have to use a VPN, depending on where you are.
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