Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Badly In Love’ On Netflix, A Japanese Dating Show Where People With Checkered Pasts Live Together And Try To Find Love

In Badly In Love, a new Japanese dating reality series on Netflix, a group of men and women with checkered pasts live in an old school building for two weeks; at the end of that time, they have to declare their love for one of their housemates. We’re talking former gang members, people who have violent incidents in their teenage years, and more. But everyone wants to find a mate, right?

Opening Shot: Flashes of the participants in Badly In Love talking about what they want in a mate.

The Gist: The contestants, ranging in age from 21 to 30, are considered “yankii,” the Japanese term for juvenile delinquents. The men and women in this social experiment have violent and/or light criminal incidents in their pasts, and they carry some of that same attitude into their adulthoods. For instance, when Shunya Tsukahara (aka Tsu-chan), the first one into the classroom where everyone meets, sees Takumi Sato (aka Milk), come in and look at him funny, they have to be broken up by security. But they immediately bond minutes later.

The other initial members of the “Bad-Ass” group (i.e. the men) are Sho Tsuda (aka Tackle), Nisei Sakurai (aka Nisei) and Isamu Nishizawa (aka Yanboh). The “bad bitches” (i.e. the women) that walk in are Otoha (aka Oto-san), Yuria (aka Baby), Hikaru (aka Tekarin) and Kirei (aka Kiichan). Yep, 5 men and 4 women. That won’t cause problems, will it?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think of Bachelor In Paradise or Love Island, but with a renovated school building as the “house” and former juvenile delinquents as the contestants.

Our Take: One of the emcees of Badly In Love is MEGUMI, an actress who is also the show’s creator, and she tells her fellow emcees — rapper AK-69 and comedian Nagano — that she created the show because these participants are “unapologetically raw” and express themselves with an intensity that isn’t seen in the dating world of the 2020s. She definitely got what she was looking for, as the initial 9 contestants (two more will come along later in the season) put their emotions right on the surface, including brazen jealousy.

Of course, the men are the most outwardly elbowing each other for the women’s attention, as we see late in the first episode, when Yanboh gets visibly angry and threatening after one of the women picks Milk over him for a private get-together. For right now, the women seem to have the “fast friends” camaraderie that women seem to have before the negativity starts creeping in, but we’d imagine things might get more hostile with them as the feelings between members of the house intensify.

In a lot of ways, Badly In Love progresses like a typical dating show, with notes being passed through lockers in the school between men and women, and people choosing others for one-on-one dates. But dating shows don’t tend to have contestants that used to be yakuza (i.e. gang members), for instance, or ones that have acknowledged that they’ve assaulted people. It’ll be interesting to see if there will be physical confrontations as the stakes increase, even knowing that one of the house’s main rules is that physical confrontations might lead to people being asked to leave.

Performance Worth Watching: The three emcees are pretty funny, especially Nagano, who has no idea what AK-69’s “yankii” lingo means.

Sex And Skin: Nothing in the first episode, though we’re not sure that there will be at all in this series.

Parting Shot: Yanboh confronts Milk about his one-on-one date.

Sleeper Star: Oto isn’t just distinctive because she’s tattooed from her neck to her toes. It’s also because of her backstory, which makes her desire for love all the more remarkable.

Most Pilot-y Line: The designs of the men’s and women’s sleeping quarters are insanely cliche, with the women’s room awash in pink and fuzzy material, and the men’s room looking like a locker room.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Badly In Love takes the dating show genre and shakes things up with a group of romantic hopefuls that have real baggage, and emotions that are barely in check as they mature. It should make for some explosive episodes.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.