‘Love Is Blind: Japan’ Somehow Turns a Chaotic Premise into a Sincerely Romantic Journey

Love Is Blind is quite possibly the messiest reality show on Netflix, if only because it takes a wrecking ball to the status quo of a dozen-ish lives and leaves them — as well as their friends and families — figuring out how to rebuild a sense of normalcy. Sometimes it works out, like when the sight unseen proposals lead to a marriage that both extended families can get behind. Sometimes it leads to messy breakups after painfully awkward in-person meetings, or emotional explosions at the altar in front of everyone these people know and love (COVID restrictions aside). Love Is Blind is a show that asks singles to make the biggest decision of their lives at breakneck speed. Love Is Blind is pure romantic chaos — and that is why Love Is Blind: Japan is such a revelation.

Love Is Blind: Japan feels so far removed from the American series that brought “pods” into our regular vernacular. Japan’s spinoff is patient, emotional, sincere, vulnerable, romantic — it has way, way more in common with the Terrace House franchise than Love Is Blind. Both shows have the same chill vibe, and both have casts of attractive and career-driven singles looking for true love — but Love Is Blind is actually a dating show. Unlike international iterations of RuPaul’s Drag Race or The Circle, which deliver mostly the same energy as the originals but with a few unique flourishes, Love Is Blind: Japan just feels completely removed from Love Is Blind: USA — in the absolute best way.

The premise is exactly the same: men and women go on dates in “pods” where they can only talk to each other. They date around until a proposal happens, and then they get to meet face-to-face for the first time. Then there’s a honeymoon phase, a meeting-the-family phase, and then the ultimate decision on the wedding day. And all of this takes place in, like, a month. As premises go, it’s pure madness… but somehow Love Is Blind: Japan makes it work!

This is due in large part to the singles. The American edition tends to cast for, I’ll keep saying it, chaos. You cannot tell me that those casting producers did not know exactly what they were getting when they cast legendary villains like Shaina and Shake this past season. I refuse to believe that anyone did a 1:1 Zoom with Shayne and thought, “Oh, yeah, he’s definitely capable of remaining calm while placed in reality TV’s most intense pressure cooker.” Even comparatively reasonable couples, like Nick and Danielle, were driven to some of the most stressful breakdowns on the show. These are not the kind of people you get on Love Is Blind: Japan.

Maybe it’s a cultural difference, like how I just long for any baker on Great British Baking Show to come into the competition with the unshakeable self-confidence and shit-stirring tendencies of an Alyssa Edwards, but Love Is Blind: Japan only cast people who are literally there for love. Many of them are in their 30s, a number of them are divorcees — there’s even a 56-year-old man in the mix! All of them are professionals, from restauranteurs to hairstylists to people working in sales and marketing and IT. So many of them run their own companies and, unlike Terrace House, none of them are models. Not saying modeling is an easy gig, just… Terrace House cast a lot of models.

But all of those stats would be moot if all the singles just asked basic-ass questions like “What do you do on the weekend?” or horny ones like “What are you wearing?” Nope! They ask each other about their careers, their heritage, past relationships, strengths and weaknesses, if they have any tattoos that represent a strongly held conviction — !

All of these people treat this experience as if they were going on trial dates with a potential spouse. Wild, because that’s exactly what they’re doing! No one groans, “Ugh, crop tops are so hot” on Love Is Blind: Japan. The equivalent is, like, comedian Odacchi saying of his potential fiancé Nanako, “It’s kind of a contradiction. I want to see her because of the wall. But it isn’t her appearance that I can see. It’s the shape of her heart from her words. I can see the essence of who she is, what she considers important.”

This is how everyone on this show thinks. Like, Motomi feels most attracted to hair stylist Ryotaro because he doesn’t use words that would hurt other people’s feelings. Crop tops never even enter the chat! And if Wataru did ask Midori if she was wearing a belly shirt and yoga pants, the answer would be dutifully logged in his notebook because everyone carries a notebook and everyone takes meticulous notes! Again, it’s like they’re all trying to record facts about their future spouse or something. The Americans have notebooks too, but this level of detail gets you called out.

Japan has a cast full of Nicks! Writing plays a big part in this season too, as the cast are allowed to write letters back and forth to each other. A few people choose this as a means of breaking hard news or revealing something intimate about themselves — and the editors really know how to wring lots of drama out of the fact that we don’t know what the letters say until one of the cast members tells us what they say.

Also just aesthetically, you love to see Love Is Blind: Japan. The set design of the whole place is gorgeous, with above shots showing how the entire place is laid out.

Instead of talking into a piece of opaque glass, the singles all talk into a large circle that they all nickname “The Moon,” which is just beautiful. And as for a first meeting spot, America’s bland corridor has nothing on the pure fairytale magic of Japan’s.

Like the conversations leading up to that first in-person meeting, those fateful encounters are similarly restrained. No one grabs an ass on the bridge — okay, one guy does literally sweep the girl off her feet. That vibe carries through to the getaway phase of the season, as just holding hands takes the place of sex conversations. When it comes to activities, production allows the couples to do way more than just drink on the beach, or drink by the pool, or drink in a hot tub.

All of this emotionally mature content only makes the problems that do arise, because of course these journeys are not easy, feel even more heartbreaking. When Kyle and Shaina finally call it quits, you know you can finally stop screaming at your television. But when one of Love Is Blind: Japan’s couples break up, you feel a fraction of the genuine heartache of a very real breakup.

Overall, the resulting vibe is the exact opposite of Love Is Blind; it’s comfort TV over chaos TV. But Love Is Blind: Japan also truly succeeds at the one thing that Love Is Blind sets out to do. You actually feel like these people are falling in love without ever seeing each other, and it’s because they all know that there’s more to love than whether or not someone’s got killer abs to show off.

Stream Love Is Blind: Japan