The first episode opens with an odd scene of Nakaji racing to someone's (at the point we don't know who's) apartment. He get's there, and there's blood seeping out from under the door. Now cut to a scene of Haru leaving her new job as an assistant teacher. She is on her way to do some shopping and later meet up with her mysterious online friends she met via Twitter (it's a big thing in this drama). On the way, she gets mistaken for a purposely-spill-tea-on-lap-then-wipe-it-up pervert by a scruffy, yet attractive man (guess who?). They both proceed to tweet about how much they hate each other after the encounter.
Later at the meeting, we find out that scruffy, yet attractive, asshole guy is actually Nakaji, the twitter guy Haru had a crush on. Big surprise there. It's tense for a while, but they eventually warm up to each other (a bit) and a lot of nothing important follows. Doctor develops a crush for Haru, the first string in a very confusing web of love interests.
Up next is episode two. We find out that everyone has pretty much lied about their lives and professions. Doctor is not really a doctor, he just sells medical equipment and acts basically as a slave to real doctors to get them to buy said equipment. Which they never do. Nakaji is not actually a famous magazine photographer. He is a magazine photographer, but for the J equivalent of Maxim, or Playboy. The only one who was really honest was Linda. He's a magazine editor, but only because his boss has a creepy crush on him and is blackmailing him for sexual favors. We also find out that Nakaji has a mysterious girlfriend and that they both share mysterious tattoos.
At some point, the group goes out for drinks again, and they all get terribly drunk. Haru refuses to throw up on Doctor, and instead calls for Nakaji, thus leading to them all thinking that Haru likes Doctor, because apparently, "you can't throw up in front of someone you like". This leads Nakaji to set her up on a secret date with Doctor, which only makes her mad. To shorten things up, he eventually finds out that she likes him (Nakaji).
By the way, I completely forgot to mention that Haru's friend, Peach (this is her Twitter name), is involved in this as well. She's a flight attendant with emotional problems that's pregnant by an older, married guy. But in the grand scheme of things, she's unimportant. (Update: Turns out she lied too. She actually works in a children's clothing store)
Overall, the seems like a promising series. At first I only watched it because JJ was in it. The summary on DC made it seem a little questionable, if not utterly plotless. Fact is, while cliche, it's full of plot twists and surprises. On a basic level, it's very typical and similar to a lot of dramas, but there are also some big differences. Most of the dramas that I have watched thus far haven't been very...deep, for lack of a better word. They're mostly light-hearted, the characters are revealed rather quickly, and while interesting, they don't have much meat to them. SNN is different. Each character is well-developed with traits and quirks that play out over time. Usually, by episode two of a series you know pretty much all there is to know about all the major characters. This is not true for SNN. There are still a lot of questions regarding Nakaji and his relationship with Kiriko (his on again/off again girlfriend) and a mysterious old man that Haru's mother is also involved with. You don't really know that much about Linda yet. You know he's an editor with a terrible boss, is estranged from his family, and seems to be willing to do a lot for his friends. There's one moment between him and Nakaji that almost makes me think that he's gay. There's a mysterious boy at Haru's school that we now nothing about that seems to have something for her and her brother seems to be taking drugs, but we really don't know for sure.
There's an sense of mystery about this show and it's characters that I really liked. And the use of twitter and the fact that the relationships formed thereon were based mostly upon deception also says a lot about the depth of plot, but I won't get analytical here.
Anyway, to wrap things up, I really do enjoy this series so far. I hope it stays good. My preliminary score is a five. Although the Doctor/Nakaji/Haru mix-up love triangle is a bit too reminiscent of You're Beautiful for my tastes, but I doubt that was intentional.
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