Stream It Or Skip It?

The Japanese dating reality series The Boyfriend became a worldwide hit for Netflix in 2024 because it showed that people living in a house and trying to find love can be warm and supportive of each other, even if there’s some tension. The second season moves the location to snowy Hokkaido, adding a coziness factor to the hookups.

THE BOYFRIEND SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: Scenes from Season 2 of The Boyfriend, set against the snowy landscape of Hokkaido.

The Gist:  In Season 2 of The Boyfriend, eight men move into “The Green Room,” a nice house in wintery Hokkaido. The idea is that in the two months they spend living and working together — they’re tasked with starting and manning a coffee shop — attractions will be acted upon and love will bloom. At the very least, the residents will come away from the experience with lifelong friends, but they all hope to find the love of their life in the house.

The first seven housemates move in during the first episode: Bomi, Hiroya, Huwei, Izaya, Jobu, Kazuyuki and William. Most are in their 20s and 30s, though Kazuyuki is coming into this experience at 40. Willam is Peruvian-Japanese and has just moved back to Japan from a period of time in Spain. Izaya was originally from Tokyo but now lives in Australia; Huwei is from Thailand.

As is the usual tradition, a group of hosts watches the footage and makes funny observations. It’s the same group as Season 1: Megumi, Chiaki Horan, Thelma Aoyama, Durian Lollobrigida, and Yoshimi Tokui.

At the end of the first day, the roommates are instructed to write an anonymous letter to the people they’re attracted to and put it in the box outside the person’s bedroom door. Some roomies get one note, some get multiple notes, and others get none.

There are a couple of complications this season; for instance, Jobu seems to have met about half the roommates before, and implies that he had already hooked up with one of them. Izaya reveals that he was ghosted by another one of the roommates after a brief fling where he started to develop feelings.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As we said before Season 1, The Boyfriend has the same low-key vibe as Terrace House, which is produced by the same company.

Our Take: It certainly feels like the producers of The Boyrfiend wanted to introduce a skosh more tension in Season 2 than there was in Season 1, given the fact that there is some previous history between some of the roommates. One other roommate, 20-year-old Ryuki, has yet to enter the house, and the promotional material for the show indicates that there will be a total of 10 roommates; the later arrivals will likely throw established flirtations into some turmoil.

But The Boyfriend isn’t trying to be Love Island or any kind of scandalous, drama-filled reality dating series you would see in the U.S. or the U.K. Like in the first season, all of the rommates get along, and the help they give each other is supposed to be a bonding experience that helps them make lifelong friends, even if they don’t find a relationship in the Green Room.

The gentleness of the drama is quite refreshing, because, as in the first season, the show is trying to highlight a portion of Japan’s LGBTQ population. In a country where same-sex marriage isn’t legal yet, there is still a culture that has led a number of the roommates to not come out to friends or family yet. Some of them are so young that they’re navigating being their true selves as well as trying to find relationships. In a lot of ways, it’s actually something that’s very endearing to watch.

But whatever added drama the producers have created with this season’s casting — and the extra month of living in the Green Room — will help boost some of the slower moments. You can only see the roomies cook and eat dinner so many times, right?

Performance Worth Watching: As usual, the hosts do a good job making observations about the roommates and the goings-on that audiences at home might make.

Sex And Skin: We see an ab-filled trip to some hot springs, but that’s about it in the first episode.

Parting Shot: The hosts discuss the revelation by Izaya that one of the other roommates ghosted him, and that he may still have feelings for that person.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Kazuyuki, because it takes a lot of bravery to go on a show like this at 40, where many of the roommates are 10-20 years younger than you are.

Most Pilot-y Line: While giving the roommates a coffee shop business to run leads to scenes of watching them bond while training, it’s too bad the producers couldn’t think of a different business for the roommates to run this season.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Boyfriend continues to be the gentle, warm alternative to all of the scandal-heavy dating shows on TV, which also gently points out the difficulties the LGBTQ population in Japan faces.

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.