Relationships, especially for people carrying past hurt, aren’t easy to navigate. Loving someone can come naturally, but helping another person feel safe, seen, and secure takes patience, intention, and care. That security is at the heart of the Japanese BL Therapy Game, a drama that understands that sometimes healing means simply being a steady presence for someone who chooses you every day.

Adapted from Hinohara Meguru’s manga of the same name, Therapy Game follows Mito Minato (Kida Naoya) and Ikushima Shizuma (Tomita Yuki), two men whose first encounter is anything but romantic. After a night spent together that Shizuma doesn’t remember, Minato’s pride and insecurity push him into a reckless vow: he’ll make Shizuma fall for him, turning emotional hurt into a self-protective game. What begins as something messy and rooted in bruised ego slowly turns into something much more sincere, as both men are forced to confront their feelings and pains.

From the start, Minato and Shizuma are opposites. Minato is prickly, defensive, and painfully aware of how easily he can be discarded, while Shizuma is openly kind to the point of neglecting his own needs, a man whose softness is often taken for granted. Watching them come together is uncomfortable in the best way, because their flaws help expose one another.

Minato’s fear of intimacy and Shizuma’s lack of boundaries don’t vanish overnight, and Therapy Game expresses that by allowing their connection to grow slowly, with misunderstandings, apologies, and moments of reconciliation that feel deeply sincere.

What makes Therapy Game stand out, though, isn’t the romance, it is the world surrounding it. The series builds an ensemble cast of characters that feels like a chosen found family. The club becomes more than a setting; it’s a refuge. A space where gender expression, sexuality, and identity are met with acceptance rather than scrutiny. Seeing Minato safely within that space compared to how casually he shakes off homophobia outside of it, is sobering. It grounds the romance in a reality where love doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but within a society that can be both nurturing and cruel.

As the series unfolds, Minato’s journey becomes less about winning someone’s affection and more about learning that he deserves stability, care, and reassurance. Shizuma, too, grows by learning that love doesn’t mean self-sacrifice to the point of giving yourself up.

There were moments where the pacing felt almost too slow, but even then, Therapy Game never loses its purpose. It continuously reassures the audience as much as Minato that love can be strong if you find the right person to stand by your side. Someone who understands the insecurities you have, the reasons for them, but is still willing to be there through it all. Sometimes watching two people choose each other again and again is enough.

By the end, what mattered most was the sense of safety the series creates. Therapy Game isn’t full of dramatic plot twists, it’s about the reassurance that love can become a place of comfort, not fear wrapped in an ensemble cast that radiates warmth and belonging.

For a series about finding love when you least expect it, and learning that vulnerability can be a form of strength, Therapy Game is a heartfelt, healing watch. Streaming now on GagaOOLala.

Rating- 4 out of 5