The breakout success of LGBTQ+ dating series “The Boyfriend” has turbocharged Netflix‘s Japanese unscripted slate, with Ota Dai, who oversees the streamer’s Japan unscripted division, crediting a deliberate rejection of conventional reality television formulas for its unexpected international resonance.
The expanded slate now includes renewed series “Badly In Love,” which hit No. 8 on Netflix’s Global Top 10 Non-English Series list, along with new launches “Final Draft,” Japan’s first physical survival series, and “Offline Love,” which removes phones entirely from the dating equation.
“What I’m most conscious of is not building in big game-like elements or a strong overarching plot,” Ota tells Variety. “Instead, once I provide a basic setting, I try to simply watch over the participants so they can spend their time there as they are.”
That philosophy extends across titles as different as “Badly In Love,” which focuses on yankii (delinquent youth) culture, and “Love Village,” now in its second season with participants aged 35 to 60 — the first Japanese reality show centered on that demographic. Ota attributes the approach to avoiding what he calls the variety-show convention of turning people into consumable character symbols.
“Once you stick labels like ‘the butt of the jokes,’ ‘the hopeless one,’ or ‘the love master’ onto someone, their story becomes fixed there,” Ota explains. “I deliberately chose people who are difficult to label — those with multilayered identities in terms of age, gender, background and romantic experience — and followed them over a long period.”
The strategy has proven particularly effective with international audiences. “Badly In Love” sparked major social media buzz within hours of its release and landed in top 10 rankings across Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan despite featuring extremely local subculture. “What surprised me was that overseas viewers who presumably aren’t familiar with Japan’s yankii subculture got excited about the characters’ emotions at almost exactly the same points as Japanese viewers did,” Ota says. “I was able to confirm that moments like an outlaw or someone on the margins of society sincerely facing their own past or clumsy ways of expressing affection are received as something quite universal.”
The breakthrough validates Netflix’s “Local for Local, then Global” philosophy. Rather than diluting specific cultural elements, Ota maintains that preserving local intensity while creating accessible entry points through subtitles and editing allows authentic engagement. “There’s no need to dilute or overemphasize a specific culture or character to make a global version,” he says. “Keeping the local intensity as it is and portraying things honestly – while carefully creating an accessible entry point – can give you confidence that viewers around the world will willingly dive in.”
“The Boyfriend” Season 2, which doubled the cohabitation period from one to two months in a Hokkaido setting, demonstrated how extended timelines create space for relationship complexity that first seasons can’t capture. “We were able to see developments that did not occur in Season 1, such as someone whose one romance ends and then moves on to a new love, and couples who form and then graduate partway through,” Ota says.
Cast members reflected on how the extended format reshaped their understanding of relationships. Bomi, 23, who entered seeking his first boyfriend, found his idealized notions challenged. “I was only looking at the bright side of love,” he says. “In the process of nourishing love, you might fight or maybe have relationship issues – those are the parts that I have never even imagined. Love is not just about loving each other. That itself is not able to carry on the relationship.”
For Izaya, 32, confronting past relationship patterns proved transformative. His previous long-term relationship taught hard lessons about communication. “We tried to hide things. It became such a relationship that we hid some of the things we were not able to say,” he reflects. “Going forward, I want to be able to face and communicate with a partner and be able to say things that I really think.”
Studio host Durian Lollobrigida, who returned alongside Megumi, Yoshimi Tokui, Chiaki Horan and Thelma Aoyama, describes the role as translator and viewer representative. “Basically, we are like one of the viewers, and we just follow and enjoy the drama of the boys,” Durian explains. The extended timeline created opportunities for more nuanced portrayal. “If the time is longer, there’s more time in facing each other, spending time with each other. There’s more intricate depiction or portrayal of people’s feelings compared to Season 1.”
Ota remains focused on balancing emotional authenticity with participant wellbeing. “We make it a rule not to introduce game-like elements or impose any forced overarching structure that would go against the participants’ genuine emotions,” he says. “The only way to create an authentic reality show is to have people participate just as they are, with their true selves, and simply keep filming them for as long as possible.”
Mental health support operates throughout production, with aftercare explained in advance. “I believe that delivering emotionally moving experiences to viewers and protecting the lives and wellbeing of the cast members are two things that must always be considered together,” Ota emphasizes.
Looking ahead, Durian hopes for expanded representation in future seasons. “I want more feminine, ladylike type of person – we call it onē in Japanese – but also different body shapes or people with different backgrounds. I hope that there’s more breadth to that.”
Ota measures success across multiple dimensions beyond viewership data. “What I personally focus on is: How many people watched it all the way to the end and came to love it? And after it’s over, how many people does the work continue to impact, and how deeply?” he says. “Even if the numbers aren’t huge, if we receive reactions from viewers saying that the show nourished their life in some way, or that their heart was saved by it, I feel that is also a form of success.”
