Cinderella Closet - A Story That Reminds Us to Love Ourselves for Who We Are (Spoiler Alert!)
Drama title : Cinderella Closet
No. of episodes : 12
Duration of watching: 24/5/2026 - 25/5/2026 (I managed to finish it in 2 days because this is a 12-episode drama with each episode lasting around 20 minutes)
This drama is just something I picked up as my next watch after the The Epoch of Miyu, and also because I had my eye on it since Netflix released it around last year. The story is simple and sweet, and the medium length format makes it easier on the brain and eyes for me after something as drama-heavy as The Epoch of Miyu. With that being said, I will try to keep this entry simple as I realized my previous entry on The Epoch of Miyu is way too lengthy that even I don't think I would read it myself.
What's the drama about?
Fukunaga Haruka is a young woman who moved from the countryside for her college life in Tokyo. She has a crush on her co-worker, Kurotaki Keisuke, at the restaurant where she works part-time. On her 20th birthday, she eagerly sets off to meet Keisuke, mistakenly assuming that he had arranged for a date with her on that day. Being a plain jane, Haruka fusses over her appearance and meets Kamiyama Hikaru — whom she accidentally bumped into while rushing to work some time before her birthday — again at a cosmetics store and asks for his help, only to realize that it had been a misunderstanding between Haruka and Keisuke as he forgets his careless promise to her and Haruka didn't confirm with him beforehand.
Seeing Haruka feeling dejected, Hikaru gives her a simple makeover so that she can face Keisuke confidently. Afterwards, Haruka goes out drinking with Hikaru and ends up having him stay the night at the apartment. When Haruka wakes up the next morning, she is surprised to discover that the beautiful Hikaru is actually a young man who likes to cross-dress! And thus begins the tale of their unlikely friendship that eventually evolves into love...
Characters
— Fukunaga Haruka, played by Osaki Ichika :
Haruka is a bubbly, kind and upfront young woman who is currently a college student working part-time at the same restaurant as her crush Kurotaki Keisuke. She hopes to fulfil her bucket list and live her dream life in Tokyo. Her life took an adventurous turn after she meets Hikaru as with Hikaru's skills (or magic, as Haruka calls it), Keisuke starts to notice her and eventually asks her out. From then on, Haruka starts to learn more about Keisuke, Miorin and later on understands her own true feelings towards Keisuke in their current relationship.
Her friendship with Hikaru feels quite entertaining and refreshing to watch as Haruka mostly sees Hikaru as a "girl friend" initially but more importantly, Haruka really likes to be his friend mainly for the fact that she feels so comfortable around him before finally realizing that she loves him romantically.
Their dynamic is interesting as Haruka's bubbly and upfront personality is often contrasted with Hikaru's cool and confident demeanour that hides his vulnerabilities. This doesn't mean that Haruka isn't without a shred of worry though, it's just that to me it seems that Haruka recognizes and sorts out through her feelings a lot quicker than Hikaru which leads to her beating Hikaru at both confessing love and proposing marriage to him.
Through Haruka's interactions with Hikaru, Keisuke and Miorin, we see her getting closer to them which leads to Haruka comparing herself to them and makes her explore and question her identity as a person further. As Haruka is still a young person, she sometimes tends to overthink about this but is very good at identifying her feelings hence she almost always manages to resolve her worries on her own account though the most important lesson of loving herself is ultimately learnt through her relationship with Hikaru.
— Kamiyama Hikaru, played by Matsumoto Leo :
A stylish young man who likes to cross-dress as a girl simply because he likes beautiful things (or at least that's what he told Haruka). He is a trade school student who studies cosmetology and fashion and is top of his class with his amazing creativity, talent and skills - all of which he utilizes to "cast a spell" on Haruka, essentially becoming Haruka's "fairy godmother".
Beneath Hikaru's bold choice of fashion and his cool and calm demeanour, lies hidden vulnerabilities. Hikaru's relationship with his father is strained as his father doesn't approve of him cross-dressing and Hikaru isn't always ready to reveal the fact that he is a man when he cross-dresses around those he is unfamiliar with — which factors into his reluctance to confess his feelings earlier on to Haruka and him putting up an effort to keep the fact that he is a guy a secret from Kurotaki just so Haruka doesn't get judged by Kurotaki for being friends with a guy who cross-dresses. So, even though Hikaru cross-dresses confidently to the people around him, sometimes his getup also acts as an armour to certain people and situation around him.
Just like how Haruka is comfortable being with Hikaru, Hikaru also feels just as comfortable when he spends time with her due to her open-mindedness and straightforward personality. He admits to liking Haruka since the first time they met and looked after her in his own way, before they eventually confessed their feelings to each other and live together. Much like Haruka, Hikaru also learns to fully love everything about himself and realizes that using make-up is all about the magic of enhancing one's appearance and charm instead of using it as an armour, through their time together.
— Kurotaki Keisuke, played by Hachimura Rintaro :
The colleague whom Haruka has a crush on and briefly dated in the series. Much like Haruka, he is friendly but perhaps a bit too approachable for Miorin's and Haruka's liking, which makes Haruka feels insecure when they dated — making Haruka hate the person that she becomes when she's with him, hence the reason why they broke up. They remained good friends after the breakup though and Kurotaki's presence gives a much needed push for Hikaru to show that he is really committed to Haruka and truly loves her.
— Suzuki "Miorin" Mio, played by Mito Yuna :
Kurotaki's ex-girlfriend from when they were freshmen in high school before she transferred schools after their break-up. Similar to Haruka, Miorin's reason for breaking up with Kurotaki is because she feels insecure when she sees Kurotaki being too approachable and nice to other girls which somehow also leads to her feeling that she isn't good enough to be with him. In the present time in the series, she becomes a beauty influencer and meets Kurotaki again when Haruka invited him to one of her offline events.
Miorin initially wanted to create a wedge in Haruka's and Kurotaki's relationship but didn't proceed when she sees that Kurotaki really likes Haruka. She later becomes Haruka's close friend and decides to rectify the faults in Kurotaki's too approachable personality so that Kurotaki can have a stable relationship with the person that he likes.
Things that bothered me/I don't like/feel that there's room for improvement
I don't think I have much to nitpick about except maybe about Hikaru's parents. I wish they had just expanded a bit on how his father finally accepts him for who he is.
Things that I absolutely love!
— The core characters' personalities :
They are pretty much unapologetically themselves, being nice and polite to each other but also don't shy away from saying their mind to each other. This makes the issues between them resolve fast and the drama can focus more on their growth (especially for Haruka and Hikaru).
— Haruka and Hikaru's dynamic
— Matsumoto Leo's performance :
This is my first drama of him and I think he acted so well in this drama. He expresses his emotions through his eyes so well. I hope to see more of his works in the future.
Other thoughts about this drama
Since this is a rather short drama, there isn't much to ponder on about except the important lesson of loving yourself.
All in all, I enjoyed watching this drama and my rating for this drama is 9/10. See you in the next entry!
P.S : Now, I've been putting off finishing this entry for quite a while because I just didn't have the mood for a lot of stuff recently. So that means that I might have forgotten, missed or overlooked some points that I wanted to put in the entry since I've left this on hold for some time. However, I'm fine with how this entry turned out — I did say I wanted to make this entry simple anyway. As of now, I have just finished watching The Soulmate (a mini C-drama), still in the process of finishing Nodame Cantabile live-action adaptation collection (I only have 2 movies left to go through), started watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5 and only just started watching episode 1 of Gokusen although I think I want to start watching The Princess's Gambit and finish that one first before I proceed with Gokusen, but we'll see how it goes.