Camille Léger (Fleur Geffrier) is an awkward person. Because of her father's training in her childhood, Camille cannot stand the smell or taste of alcohol, reacting violently to it. Nor can she tolerate too many foods. She has not spoken to her father in years, since her mother cut off all contact when she was young. She does have fond memories of her childhood, but they are cloaked in a dark cloud of Léger's (Stanley Weber) fame and influence.

Issei Tomine (Tomohisa Yamashita) is an awkward person. From a family of diamond brokers, he is constantly being pressured to leave the world of oenology, and take up the family business. His mother and grandfather use every means they have to get him to pull out of the contest to win his mentor's estate.

These two people travel between France and Japan in The Drops of God television series that is very heavy on the drama. So heavy, that aside from the fact that golden retriever puppy-like Shizuku Kanzaki is now broken and traumatized Camille Léger, and suave, confident Issei Tomine is here, is a stiff and uneasy person, the biggest difference between manga and TV series is how drinking wine is presented. In the manga, drinking wine is fun, even if you don't know much. Especially at the beginning of the manga series, we are told repeatedly that wine is best when drunk with friends—wine does not have to be expensive or rare to be worth drinking. In this television series, wine is a very serious business, and beginners are not welcome.

Camille's training as a child, like Shizuku's, gives her a leg up on the competition. She may not know the wines, but she does know the flavors, the scents, and the terroir. Most importantly, she knows her father. This last becomes important in the climactic, final test when neither Camille nor Issei cares any longer about the stupid estate.

Another key difference between the two iterations is the introduction of Alexandre Léger's best friend, Luca, who helps Camille until she defies him and his agenda. Then he becomes an implacable enemy, not dissimilar to the wine critic Shizuku and company cross swords with in Drops of God: Mariage, Volume 4-5.

I would recommend this series with caution if you enjoyed the manga. It spends an inordinate amount of time on the traumas that inform both Camille and Issei's lives. Issei's mother, Honoka (Makiko Watanabe), who, in the manga, was a respected wine expert and cheerfully cagey about whether Issei is Kanzaki's illegitimate child, here is an icily angry woman, driven to take revenge on Léger and his child for having left her. Very little of this series is devoted to the enjoyment of wine until the very end of the story.

In an important scene, in which the energy of the whole series changes, Issei makes dinner (after catching fish by hand!) for the gathered parties at the vineyard where one-third of the final test occurs. Free from the intensity of the contest for one moment, everyone is happy. Issei comments that this is what he always imagined dinner in France to be like—everyone talking at the same time, touching, laughing, as they drink and eat. Finally, he and we are given a glimpse of the soul of The Drops of God manga.

From this point on, the story changes, Camille and Issei are allies, siblings united against Alexandre and Luca and their deranged tests. In a climax that felt both forced and wholly in character with the self-absorbed asshole Alexandre Léger always was, it turns out that there was only ever one winner possible. As much as we'd loathed Alexandre and his stupid tests of loyalty up to this moment, at the end, we hate this fucking guy. And so do Camille and Issei. Thankfully, their journeys have put them past all this. The last few minutes of the series are full of joy and give me hope that the sequel will be as well.

There are enough differences between the manga Drops of God and the television series that it is simultaneously difficult to compare and not compare them. I went into this worried that a relationship between Issei and Camille might be the focus of the story, and in one way, that was true, but it was never a romantic relationship. Phew. Instead, they are given their own romances, both of which turn out happily ever after.

The acting was outstanding. Both characters are so cringe and miserable at the beginning that it's painful to watch, but by the end, you realize you have, almost miraculously, come to like them….even if you've learned absolutely nothing about wine.

Oh, wait! Yes, you did!

In one notable arc, Camille travels to Italy to discover one of the wines based on a clue left by her father. There, she learns that her father was a worse person than she thought and that there is a wine made by a woman and her father, which lead you learn of the real-world Elisabetta Foradori and her < ahref="https://www.agricolaforadori.com/en/wines/">Agricola Foradori, a winery focused on sustainability and biodiversity. So that's really cool.

Also very cool is this series multilingual script, which moved fluidly between French, English, Japanese, and Italian, as the scene demanded. The subtitles weren't always up to the challenge, but as that helped both Camille and Issei feel like outsiders, it was acceptable.