Kimi no Hana ni Naru (2022)

I don't watch a lot of Jdramas because if I am honest they almost never score higher than a 7.5 as a rating for me. I can't even completely pinpoint why I always feel that way, maybe because they always feel like something is missing? This one is no exception. I liked this in a lot of ways. It is an easy mini series and I liked the characters and music. I enjoy the delve into the entertainment industry and the brotherhood portrayed not just within the band but with the support from their 'rival' band as well.

If you go into this story thinking it will be a romance then you won't find that here. Romance it just kind of grazed and only with one of the band members. The romance also did not work for me in two ways. First the only chemistry I saw between the two was the teacher student relationship amd the second is in the age gap which is very unclear and never really said in the series but I assume she is between 6-10 years older than him. Asuka was portrayed very well as the housemother that gave advice and helped to support all the boys and to me I saw the same energy from her with all the members and never got a romantic vibe from her for Dan. On Dan's end I could easily see his crush but it did not feel reciprocated to me.

I did think this had a somewhat realistic portrayal of the pressure and hardships put on pop bands in the industry with these hard to live up to expectations put on them. But I also think that it was glossed over as well. You are exposed to the 'downfall' of the band due to a scandal but then barely given any context or follow through about it. Same with the rise in their success. Maybe it was because it was a miniseries but it felt incomplete.

I did enjoy watching this; loved the acting and performances given by the cast, and enjoyed the music.

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A Warm and Unforgettable Journey

This drama starts off as a 9.5 to 10 experience—filled with warmth, sincerity, and emotional depth—before settling into a solid 7.5 to 8 by the end. While the latter half may not have hit as hard, the first half was truly something special, an experience I wouldn’t want to forget.

The story follows Asuka, a former teacher who once encouraged her student Dan to pursue music. Years later, she becomes the matron of 8loom, the struggling idol group he now leads. With the group on the verge of disbandment, Asuka once again becomes their guiding light, standing by them and helping them find motivation. The challenge? They must rank first on a music site to renew their contract.

What made this drama stand out was its heart. The warmth in its storytelling, the way it normalized queer relationships without making a spectacle of them, and the deep bonds between the characters made it feel like more than just another idol story. The performances weren’t just implied—they were fully shown—making it feel almost like a real group’s journey rather than just a scripted drama.

The 8loom members—Dan, Naru, Yuki, Eiji, Ryusei, Takumi, and Takara—each had their own strengths, insecurities, and struggles, bringing a realistic portrayal of the highs and lows of being in a group. Ryusei and Takara’s friendship in Episode 5 was a standout, truly wholesome and touching. Takara, in particular, was a character I deeply related to. He gave off aroace vibes, and as someone who has never been interested in romance or dating, that resonated with me. It’s rare to see a character like that so naturally integrated into a story.

Another standout moment was when Asuka threw a bunch of laundry on Dan when he was overwhelmed by the pressure of making 8loom rise again. She told him that responsibilities are not as heavy if you share them with others. As each member took a piece of clothing, they also took on a responsibility they could handle, reinforcing the idea that they weren’t alone in this fight. It was such a simple yet meaningful way to show teamwork and support

Asuka was a wonderful protagonist—kind, supportive, and someone you couldn’t help but root for. And Kousaka, the initially intimidating manager, had a surprising depth to her character, revealing that her "scary" demeanor was actually her own insecurity.

The romance was a subplot, but I honestly adored the main couple. Even though I'm not usually a fan of student×teacher dynamics, it was handled in a way that felt genuine and respectful rather than problematic. Their relationship wasn’t the main focus, which helped keep the story balanced.

One of the most satisfying moments was watching the group decide not to disband. Seeing them come together as a team, determined to keep going despite all the challenges, was incredibly heartwarming. It wasn’t just about the music; it was about the bonds they’d formed and how much they meant to each other.

I'll have to mention the track "Come Again" as I can see myself cry to the song whenever i hear it from now on!

Overall, while the drama had some ups and downs in pacing and intensity, its heart never wavered. It’s a story about perseverance, passion, and the impact one person’s belief can have on others. Even with its flaws, it left a lasting impression—and that’s what truly matters.
Final Verdict: A heartfelt, warm drama that delivers an unforgettable first half and a solid, meaningful conclusion.

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let's bloom again someday????

Essa série é como uma carta de amor aos fãs de jpop, kpop e cia. Se você é fã de algum grupo musical, com certeza vai conseguir se conectar imediatamente com a história e com os personagens. Ela me conquistou nos primeiros segundos e eu juro que não vi o tempo passar enquanto assistia, óbvio que alguns episódios foram melhores que outros, mas de uma forma geral a experiência foi maravilhosa.
Foi muito interessante ver como os integrantes se sentiam em relação ao papel deles como membros do grupo, todos os medos e desejos que eles tinham. Desejos esses que às vezes eles precisavam abrir mão pelo bem do grupo. Eu acredito que todas essas situações são bem próximas da realidade. A exaustão, a frustração, o desânimo, a felicidade quando as coisas começam a dar certo, quando seu esforço traz algum resultado, a esperança de que tudo vai ficar bem e de que eles estão finalmente tendo reconhecimento pelo trabalho duro.
O arco da protagonista também é muito bom, na verdade me identifiquei muito com ela, uma pessoa que está tentando superar um trauma e que busca a auto aceitação. Ela sempre tentava trazer alegria e conforto para todos ao seu redor, nunca reclamava de nada, ela era tão forte e admirável, eu me apaixonei completamente pela Asuka. Ela trouxe ânimo e força de vontade para os meninos em um momento que eles estavam completamente sem esperança.
Eu tenho muitas coisas para falar sobre o drama, mas basicamente eu chorei, me estressei, comemorei, gritei, fiquei frustrada em alguns momentos, fiquei emocionada, fiquei com raiva de alguns personagens, enfim... eu senti! E eu acho isso tão importante quando você assiste algo. É essencial que a trama e os personagens sejam capazes de te tocar de alguma forma e I will be your bloom fez isso com maestria.

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This is an engaging short series exploring the experiences of a young woman who has failed in her dream to become a teacher in circumstances which seem to have resulted in her having a breakdown. As a teacher she was excellent with the pupils and supported them strongly but had to leave the profession and stayed with her sister for a time. When she felt stronger she secured a position as a live-in house mother for a struggling idol group who were facing losing their contract in six months. She commits herself to supporting them to become successful. One of the trainees is an old pupil of hers and they develop a close relationship which never actually oversteps boundaries.
This is genuinely feel-good series. There is conflict and people fight, there are jealousies and malice at times, but issues are usually resolved very easily and quite quickly. For me, they young ML, supposed to be something of a romantic lead did not work as such: he was very moody and crap at communicating - with anyone - but was supposed to be a great songwriter. Well, that happens sometimes. The House mother was efficient and cheerful - in fact she was determined to be cheerful and supportive at all times. People would downright insult her, or try to, and she accepted their words and promised to do better. A little hard to stomach, but it was well handled.
I enjoyed this series. Most of the characters were well written and pretty well-rounded, even f a lot of the writing seemed saccharine sometimes. The storyline did a good job of approximating a believable idol experience, though it was a little too smooth sailing in my view. But it made an enjoyable easy watch.
One disappointment was the music and performance levels of the band. They didn't work for me - the music production values were much too soft and lacked any impact and as a result, the choreo and dance skills (which were a bit stronger) didn't match the songs.

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A mixed bag of something I love and frustration

I’m not too well versed in review writing, and this is my first on MDL, so please bear with me!
I decided to watch this show because I am a fan of Co-ki, and the idol premise is something that I was really excited about, as a lover of all things idol. For the most part, I would say it’s enjoyable and fun, but I did find myself frustrated by a few spots.
I’ll start off with the characters. I absolutely adored Asuka, and I thought the portrayal was pretty good. I thought she was a fantastic and complex character, and spent the whole show rooting for her and wanting what was best for her. Dan on the other hand… I thought he was very well written, and was very interesting, but personally I found him to be very frustrating and unlikeable for most of the show. His acting was pretty good, though I do think his idol performance skills left a bit to be desired unfortunately. The other members of 8loom were all lively and fun and overall I found myself enjoying them a lot and wishing we got to see more of them. Naru was a very fascinating character and I liked the glimpses into his inner workings we got to see and really wish we could have looked closer. I was particularly frustrated by his sudden switch up in personality though, from being the gentle, mature mediator type to the complete opposite when the scandal arose. I think the motivations for the switch were very clear, and in theory it made sense, but it felt very out of the blue and I wish we had seen more of that kind of insecure, almost codependent nature make itself known earlier on in subtle ways so it wasn’t so blindsiding (as mentioned, spending more time with his character or just making it less dramatic of a switch would have helped). The others I don’t really have any issues with and found myself loving watching their dynamic the entire way. I suppose I found their weird bouts of immaturity weird, and would have found them all more believable as high schoolers rather than adults. My only other issue is, like with Fumiya/Dan, the idol performances were honestly… not great. Which strikes as odd to me and as someone who is familiar with a good portion of these actors/idols that play them, I know they can do better so it just leaves me confused. But more of that later. I really loved Kousaka, she was fantastic, genuinely no notes. I loved her character progression, performance, etc. I thought Kenji was hilarious and a fantastic part of the cast. Yuri was adorable and I loved her. The president, I absolutely adored as well, I thought she was a fantastic adversary/ally, depending on the moment. I love characters like her. Noa… was another source of frustration. Her existence felt like it was solely there to cause unnecessary tension and inconveniences, but not truly in ways that mattered, and honestly I feel like she could be written out and little of the story would change.
The idol performances, as mentioned, were lackluster. I enjoyed the songs themselves a lot, it’s the exact kind of thing I’m a fan of anyway, but when they performed them… they lacked body. At the beginning I excused it, but even by the end they are still lacking stage presence and that idol passion that you can find in any performance. The choreography was… I hate to say it but overall, mostly bad, and aside from when Ryusei and Takara were supposed to show how good of dancers they were, the moves all felt very half hearted and small. It didn’t seem like they tried to cast particularly good dancers, which if you know anything about male jpop idols, you know that typically, dancing capability tends to take priority over say, vocals. Unfortunately, I found the vocals to be pretty weak too. I found Naru and Takara’s characters to be the strongest performance wise, especially Naru when it came to steadiness (which makes sense given both of the actors idol professions and training). I feel like this show would have actually benefitted from more actual idols in the cast in this regard, at least for the more side-character members. The lip syncing was also almost always off, and it honestly looked really bad and weird, especially when combined with the shaky vocals. When they are obviously lip syncing though, I did wonder why they didn’t just record better sounding versions of the songs.
Before I get into things like the romance and the story, I want to mention that I absolutely adored the sets and the locations filmed at, especially the dorm. Additionally I found the costume design to be very nice, and liked that I could see the taste of the costumer frequently with those collarless button up shirts. There were a few moments where the sound was a little weird (mostly just outdoor scenes) but it was barely noticeable. Aside from the bad timing on the lip syncs, I think the technical side of things was, for the most part, very well done.
I will outright say I did not like the romance. I could give the teacher x former student thing a pass if it was done well but… it wasn’t really in my opinion. I was expecting the unethicalness of it to ignored like usual in this kind of show, but it was actually mentioned more than once, by Asuka, and that’s part of what drew me out. Don’t mention it if you’re not going to address it properly, otherwise it just draws attention to it and makes it feel more questionable. But that’s not my only issue. The truth is, the bond between Dan and Asuka, I adored it! I thought their connection was really special and great, but I wish it never progressed into romance, or at the very least never became two sided (I went into this knowing it was a romance too). Aside from the teacher x student, my main issue was the stakes. The very first episode we know there is the major stake of “do not engage in romance with any of these boys, or you will be fired.” This is a hefty stake that I feel like the romance doesn’t hold up to, and thus means the risk doesn’t feel worth it. Asuka is not passionate enough about her feelings for Dan that it feels frustrating watching her not shut him down even when she obviously knows how he feels. She knows it is unethical to date a former student, and her job will also be on the line if she does, and also this little family she has made while here. If her love for him were more intense, I’d find it more captivating and it would make more sense, and the struggle to choose would hold more weight. If this romance had to be reciprocated, I wish the writers committed to that a little more.
As for the plot, for most of the show, I loved it. I thought the concept was fresh, Asuka was a great protagonist, and it was a strong plot. However, at episode nine, I got really, really frustrated. Trying to avoid too much detail here, but the disbandment plot was extremely irritating, and felt like it was undermining everything we had watched previously. I genuinely don’t understand the choice to go here, but it happened I guess. I almost couldn’t get myself to finish the final episode because of my irritation, but I persisted and… I hated the final episode. It was a happy ending, sure, but it felt like a slap in the face. I knew after a certain point in the episode that they would have a big discussion and was just waiting for it, and I was lowkey kind of annoyed that they waited to have it until the moment they did. I have a lot of thoughts about this ending, but for the sake of not getting TOO spoilery, I won’t go that much into them. Essentially though, the last episode was extremely disappointing and I kept pausing it out of irritation… never have I said “seriously?!” And “are you for real?!” so many times over one episode of a drama. It was such a great story that ended on a flop. This last minute plot they added at the end had the potential in my opinion, to be an entire second season, that would’ve had way better pacing and would have worked SO much better.
I really did like this show, but the disappointments were really strong, especially the ending, which unfortunately left me on a sour note.

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The overflowing words become a song

The drama follows the journey of a former teacher turned housemother steering her life and those of the idols under her care and their struggles from the bottom of the barrel to the top in the industry.

Things I liked:
- The plot and premise were good
- The lives and hardships of the idol industry as well as their remedies to the issues, some of which were a little over the top.
- Good perspective on trauma and how they dealt with it in the end.
- The narrative was intriguing, and each band member has a unique story to tell.
- The music and lyrics were fantastic.

Things I disliked:
- The female protagonist occasionally gave off the impression of being an adolescent rather than a teacher.
- Several characters' performances occasionally seemed overly strained and phoney, particularly at the crying moments.
- Sometimes I thought the characters were motivated only to further the plot. Certain plot lines felt like they came out nowhere.

Overall, a good one-time watch. Recommended if you want to watch a story with insider stuff on the entertainment industry.

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Well, that was a rollercoaster

I was really excited to with this show for multiple reasons. First of all, I've been a k-pop stan for years now and I've gotten into a few j-pop groups as well (INI being one of them, so the more reasons for me to watch this series), that's why I was really interested in the premise. Second of all, I saw there's a canon aroace-spec character here. It's not common to encounter aroace representation, so when I heard one of the characters is aroace I knew I had to watch it. It was the final push for me.

The thing that kept me from watching this show for so long was the romance, though. When I heard it's about an ex teacher and her ex student, it really bothered me. It just felt wrong in so many ways. That's why I checked multiple times if the romance was a major plot. Most people told me it's not really a major plot and I have nothing to worry about... Well, I feel like I've been kind of lied to. It made me quite uncomfortable a few times, but thankfully it wasn't too over the line so I was able to endure it, I guess. However, the romantic plot was one of the things I disliked in the series. To be honest, I shipped Asuka with two characters and none of which were the male lead she was supposed to end up with. I was not a big fan of Dan throughout the series anyways.

There were many moments when I got tired of the series and wanted to give it up, but I watched it mostly because I loved Takara (he's definitely my favourite character) and I didn't have anything better to do anyways. That's another problem I had with the series - the characters just... didn't get their chance to shine, I guess. Sometimes I felt that something was extremely out of character for someone, but then I realised I didn't even know what kind of character they are. I know we only have ten episodes and at least eight characters who deserve a proper story or at least some... colour? It was hard for me to even remember the names of most of them - which I'm usually good at, by the way. I don't know, I just think the characters deserved to be more distinct? They needed more colour to them? I just couldn't really get attached to most of them. Even if I really loved Takara, I still ended up feeling that the series just did not do him justice.

An aspect of the series I definitely liked was the LGBTQ+ representation, though. Three of the more important characters are LGBTQ+, and I loved how that was introduced to the audience. They just didn't make a big deal out of it, and I think that was really heartwarming. The LGBTQ+ characters were not portrayed differently from the rest, other characters didn't see them any differently than if they were not LGBTQ+. Even if one of the 'comedic relief' characters turned out to be LGBTQ+, they didn't play it off as a joke or make fun of him for not being heterosexual. It was really comforting - and surprising, because it's probably the first time I'm met with an approach like this. I think it should happen more often in new series.

I enjoyed the acting, but it was nothing spectacular. As for the music, I liked all 8LOOM songs. However, sometimes the members sound awkward during the 'live performances' which is definitely a disadvantage. Many of the times 8LOOM just did not feel like a real group to me, but it might be just my personal problem. I still cried at the last episode though, but it's probably because I'm a k-pop and j-pop stan and these kinds of things just make me emotional.

Well, that's it for my review. It's probably my first review ever, so forgive me if it's awkward. I just wanted to express how I felt about the series.

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It is heavy when you carry everything at once

It is japan off course it is going to be a cute drama.

It shows how we all give up on our jobs beacuse we all fails sometime. But the important thing is we should always try one more time.

Its not very high budget drama, the visuals are just ok not bad but not the best. The story is also kind of weird like student hitting on teacher. But i mainly watched it for my boy dan cause i just love his visuals. And for sure he served. His cold attitude was so good and his acting was also good.

Overall the struggles of boy band in the drama was highlighted but they did it well alot of times.

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