Why Offline Love Is the Reality Show You Should Watch Right Now

A new dating show on Netflix attempts to capture what romance was like before smartphones changed everything. In Offline Love, 10 young Japanese adults travel to Nice, France, where they are asked to lock their phones away and see what transpires over 10 days.

The low stakes romance reality show carries a similar seemingly unstructured quality that made previous East Asian reality series like Terrace House, The Boyfriend, and most recently, Single’s Inferno, such international hits. Unlike The Bachelor or Love Is Blind, where participants are focused solely on finding everlasting love, Offline Love is more interested in simply following the journey of its cast as it unfolds.

For viewers who never experienced life before smartphones, the series is a fascinating look at what happens when we let go of the things we think we need. For those of who do remember life pre-smartphone, it is an invitation to reflect on what was, if not a simpler time, then a much less digitally demanding one.

What happens in Offline Love?

In terms of escapism, it helps that Offline Love's constructed reality is a heavily romanticized one. Over 10 episodes, the Japanese men and women who agree to go to Nice without smartphones are not asked to make it to a job or to maintain other duties. They just have to experience life in a beautiful foreign city, and stay open to the possibility of running into and forming connections with the other cast members. The possibility of no one ever meeting is played up for effect, but the cast almost immediately starts running into one another. They are all staying within a relatively small radius—some of them are even at the same hotel. Each person is given the same show-crafted guidebook with suggestions for local sites, eateries, and shops, which leads to them visiting many of the same locations. And, if they don’t organically run into one another, they can arrange dates through mailboxes assigned to every person. By the end of Episode 3, all the cast members have been introduced to one another.

Like most reality TV shows, Offline Love requires a suspension of belief to truly buy into the idea of fateful romance it’s promoting. This isn’t Before Sunrise, the first installment of Richard Linklater’s romance trilogy starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as two strangers who strike up a conversation on a train and spend the night together in Vienna, but it is designed to feel like it. In one early, memorable scene, 30-year-old model Maho wanders briefly into a church where 24-year-old model and actor Yudai is already sitting. When she goes to leave, she glances back one last time and notices him. Maho approaches, shows Yudai her guidebook, and the two greet each other in whispers. The hushed voices are out of respect for the quiet, holy place they happen to be in, but they also serve to frame their meeting as a reverent one. Viewers and the studio commentators watching alongside us can’t help but wonder, “Could this be the start of something true?”

Offline Love does not manage to sustain this level of Hollywood-esque romantic intimacy from scene-to-scene, but it is more sincere-seeming for its diversity of interactions. Many of the contestants are adorably awkward as they stumble through first and second meetings with strangers who could be future lovers. Some lean into the opportunities to make friends. Save for a few exceptions, the show’s casting seems to prioritize people who are relatively inexperienced and also idealistic in their views of romance. Many believe in concepts like fate and love at first sight. A few of them have never been in a relationship before. Aru, a 30-year-old dancer and choreographer who arrives late and without his luggage because of flight shenanigans, says in an introductory interview that he wants to experience an “I would die for you” kind of love.

Offline Love’s studio commentators add their perspectives

The importance of cast chemistry extends to the group of studio commentators-hosts who watch alongside the audience. In the scope of East Asian reality TV commentator panels, the Offline Love group is a slight crew, consisting of only three people (Single’s Inferno, for example, had five emcees providing insight). Still, there is a logic to the commentator panel, which includes former idol Kyoko Koizumi, and comedy duo Reiwa Roman. Koizumi, a 59-year-old singer, actor, and producer who started her career as a tomboyish teen pop idol in the 1980s, provides an older perspective. She firmly remembers the pre-smartphone era, and what it was like to live and love before apps, maps, and digital overload. “I never really connected with romance reality shows,” Koizumi said in a Netflix press release, “but this concept is fascinating: in a foreign country and without digital devices, participants rely on letters, promises, and coincidences to find love. I grew up without a smartphone, and every moment felt precious.”

Reiwa Roman consists of 30-year-old Takahira Kuruma and 31-year-old Kemuri Matsui. The comedy duo has won the M-1 Grand Prix, one of Japanese highest honors for early-career comedians, for two consecutive years. While Kuruma and Matsui are slightly older than a majority of the Offline Love contestants, who ranged from 20 to 30 years old at the time of filming, they provide a more peer-like perspective, and funny reactions to the goings on of the young cast. “It felt more like witnessing a grand social experiment rather than a dating show,” said Kuruma of the experience. “In a foreign land, they experience the ultimate digital detox, with no complex rules—it's a series of surprises, realizing how such a lifestyle can transform someone's feelings.” Matsui added: “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced romance without social media, messaging apps, emails, or phone calls.” (It is unclear if Kuruma will be taking part in further promotions for the show, as he recently said he would “suspend activities” following news of his involvement in illegal online gambling.)

The kind of escapism Offline Love offers

While Offline Love tries to play up the difficulties of connecting without use of a smartphone, it quickly becomes clear that the escapism of the show—and many other low-stakes reality series—lies in the relative ease of forming and nurturing relationships when temporarily freed from many of life’s distractions and commitments.

For 10 days, these young men and women don’t have to go to work or school or attend to family commitments. They are not allowed to check their emails, or their text messages, or to spend time scrolling through Instagram. Instead, they can focus on the immediacy of the moment and the fullness of the other people who are in this social experiment with them. Their only job is to wander around a gorgeous city, trying to find human connection. Even if they don’t find love, they will not be deemed a failure—experiencing life, being alive, is success enough. What a romantic reality to escape into, if only for a little while.