Proposal Daisakusen (Operation Love)

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Ken and Rei have been friends since childhood. Though he has been in love with her for years he was never able to tell her. On the day of her wedding to another man Ken sees a picture of their high school years and wishes he could go back and change the past. At that moment a spirit appears and grants him his wish. Will a second chance allow him to win her over?
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Tomohisa Yamashita stars as Ken Iwase, a young man full of regret over his past in "Proposal Daisakusen".

As his childhood friend and long-time crush Rei (Masami Nagasawa) is married to another man, Ken muses over not taking advantage of his chances to be with her. Time is interrupted by Yosei (Hiroshi Mikami) a self-described "fairy" of love who grants Ken the ability to travel into the past and try to correct the poor decisions he has made. However, Yosei can only send Ken back through physical pictures of that past, and only for a short time. Can Ken change either the outcome of his future relationship with Rei or how he feels about her?

Moving the story along are Ken's group of four friends including Rei, the mature Mikio, the absurdly immature but endearing Tsurumi, and Rei's best friend, and Tsurumi's crush, Eri. We follow them from primary school, through high-school and university, with Ken darting from his past back into the present moment of the wedding and then back again.

It is difficult to dislike the groom, Tada, (Fujiki Naohito) who seems to embody all the qualities that Ken lacks, while also genuinely being in love with Rei.

This complicates the story, but also makes it more interesting since there is no cop-out, "wait till she discovers he is a bad guy" mechanism in place.

That mechanism would only impede the main theme and course of the plot, which is that in matters of the heart, it is not enough to just identify those who we love most, but that we must consistently act to externalize our love towards that person, or else we damn ourselves to being misunderstood --- and all of the bad things that go with that.

Far less mystical than the premise of a 'time-travel-endowing fairy' suggests, "Proposal Daisakusen" uses that only as a means to express the very real and earthly values of friendship, honesty, redemption and courage. It leaves us with the affirming message that our own happiness is the ultimate standard by which we must make our decisions, no matter how painful the process of that decision-making might be.