PIPLE: My Married Life With An AI

Hello drama family!

Our next drama we'll explore is Japanese! I noticed I hadn't written anything about Japanese dramas yet, so I figured I would write one about one of the more recent ones I have watched.

Title: PIPLE: My Married Life With An AI

Apps: Viki

Release Year: 2021

Region: Japan

Episode Count: 8

Genres:

Science fiction, romantic comedy, drama

Plot: Set in the year 2030, the story follows Kenichi Tsumiki who is a man who doesn't have much going for him in life. He has no girlfriend and his job isn't going well. His life is pretty mundane. Due to a mistake during a night of drunken online shopping, he ends up with an AI that looks and feels human. In a world where AI companionship has become somewhat normalized, Kenichi has accidentally found himself with a robotic wife. Not all goes as planned, though. Watch as he navigates his new life and his sudden marriage along with two other unexpected relationships that follow.

Our ML is Kenichi Tsumiki played by Yuki Kaji. Kenichi is a very mundane man, he lives a relatively boring life that is filled with an abundance of failure. He has had his fair share of relationships, but none of them have worked out. He even has a one sided love for a coworker. Not only that, his job isn’t going as well as he would like. He's also not very good at speaking up for himself, either.

Our FL is Piple played by Ayaka Wilson. Piple is Kenichi's brand new robotic wife. She is cute, pretty, smiles a lot, and is singularly focused on Kenichi. She provides for all of her husband's needs as best she can, constantly bettering her knowledge of her husband and the world around her. For me, all I could think the whole time was how cute she was and I found myself attached to her.

There are other characters involved in this drama as well, but there is a main focus on Kenichi and Piple's relationship. Other characters include Kenichi's friend, a doctor that highly dislikes him, his office crush, and the woman that created Piple. Some I loved and others I absolutely disliked. If there were more episodes, I would have loved to see more information about each of them.

This drama is really a mini series with only eight episodes at around 24 minutes each. It had a cute storyline, but also delivered some heart-wrenching moments. There have been other dramas I have seen that involved robotic love interests and none of them have really drawn me in to watch. If they had, I sometimes was never able to make it through the whole series. Now, PIPLE: My Married Life With An AI was a little different for me. The relationship development between Kenichi and Piple was rather cute, but I did end up feeling a little bad for Piple from time to time as other women began to take an interest in Kenichi. Toward the end, he began to realize what relationships were really important to him and who really mattered in the long run. I was skeptical of the drama initially, but as I watched I became more interested in the story and the characters. I expected a typical tragic love story, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. Thankfully, it had a relatively happy ending.

There was something that bothered me a little with the story, though. There was a side plot revolving around a couple of the side characters that wasn't fleshed out fully. There weren't a lot of details that were given about the resolution of the relationship between these two, either. An AI was even involved in their relationship to some extent, but it was rather short lived and nearly ignored for most of the series. This particular AI was pretty important, in my mind, to the secondary characters and their relationship. Once the AI was removed from the series, it wasn't really brought up again and seemed to be a plot device that was relatively ignored. I do wish there had been more clarification of how the AI effected their relationship as well as a more detailed resolution for this, but I believe there is only so much that can be done in eight episodes. I really just wish this series were longer.

I recommend you watch this, especially if you want to watch something short that can be finished in one sitting with maybe a break or two.

Drama Mama Rating: 7/10 (I was left wanting more, but it was enjoyable)