This review may contain spoilers
I wanted to love it :(
Came in with high expectations knowing that Netflix would deliver on the pretty shots and the actors would be a joy to watch. Premise was interesting, cheesiness was anticipated...Ummm...what did I watch?The show did indeed look beautiful but the writing left much to be desired. Despite anticipating there to be some silly, over-the-top lines, a lot of the execution felt too elementary (some of it may have been due to translation but the dialogue had me grimacing). Having watched various dramas about the topic of infidelity, I felt like it wasn't handled well in this drama- there were ways they could have redeemed the storyline or at least created more nuance to the situation but instead, I only felt sorry for the wife. Would have also loved if they had gone with and developed the plotline of them writing to each other despite it being a no-no (but hey, you know what else is a no-no? CHEATING ON YOUR SPOUSE?....), but just my personal take.
The main cast did great and definitely carried me through the end of the series as I began questioning my life decisions. Some of the scenes with background characters were kind of awkward but again, that could've just been the script lol.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
When someone dies, are they really gone?
Well well that was a visually pleasing ride.Story: I think the coffee being a large part of the story makes sense thematically. Coffee is an acquired taste that to some can taste very bitter. But some people have the ability to be able to discern those bitter flavors. It's a learned skill to understand the positives of the acidic and bitter flavours. Finding the positives in an otherwise negative like Yusuke said. Not to mention the circular motion you use to pour drip coffee for a perfect cup. This is another nod to Yusuke speaking about how the world is a circle and you eventually everyone ends up together again. The apples representing longevity speak to the movies message about the courage to live on no matter how many seasons pass.
Another thing that was enjoyable for me was the reinterpreted dialogue . I like that they came back to lines to really tug on your heart. As the story progresses it gets muddy in a good way. You can't really root for anyone here. It's actually so hard. You just want them all to be happy somehow. There just needed some creamer and sugar to really make this special.
Characters:
Saeko is immediately likeable with her struggles at the forefront. Kasumi always chooses to play characters who are gentle but will lock in and berate you when need be. It's a trait I look forward to in all her roles. Not to mention how her decisions are made with just her eyes. With expression and long dialogue cues, Kasumi is the star of the show.
Yusuke's consistent laughter felt a little fake, so it was hard to like him at first. I think they needed to build this character a little more to make the overall feeling more intense. I think this is one of the reasons why I didn't feel too strongly about the plot.
Naruse's character starts out kind of bland and boring but he opens up as the series goes on as it's one of the plot points lol. Although he says he changed personalities but it doesn't feel like it at all lol. He's at his best when he's conflicted. I think his character got better midway due to the various imposing forces on his mind but it didn't sit well with how sometime his dialogue was just “ah“
Miki, Nauruse's wife, seems to just all of a sudden be worried about change without much happening. It seemed kind of sudden. I felt that needed more time before her reacting. I can understand if you are seeing little changes and start to worry about your SO. But the initial worried reaction she had didn't feel deserved yet. You feel so bad for her though throughout the story. And also half the time you wonder where she is lol
Cinematography:
The show has movie quality shots.
I like how they chose Hawaii to film the initial episode. Not only is it beautiful, but to me it's meant to be a little insight into the feelings of the characters. A vast endless gorgeous world yet it feels a little lonely and isolated. There was a mirror like shot on the beach in the first episode that showed this sentiment. Throughout the episodes they go back to this feeling a lot with these scenic shots. It really establishes the mood of the series. There's also great balance of night and day sequences. I cannot stress how good the lighting is in so many shots.
Set design and music:
I enjoyed all the sets. I just wanted to mention how lived in they looked. The cafes, coffee plant and both homes were very picturesque with so much set dressing. Each set didn't feel barren, they were brimming with life. I loved the piano motifs in the movie. I'm sure many of you will now feel nostalgic hearing Jackson's fives "I want you back. " I enjoyed the theme song too.
Overall a decent series but I think some of the characters needed more scenes or dialogue to flesh out their motivations and impact.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A very original story telling and great Actor!
This story is beautifully executed and a very easy to binge watch.
I felt all the emotions watching.
The ML going through the rest of his life feeling someone else's past life
and the woman is attracted to the ML because of her late husband heart
inside of the ML which brought them closer but he was already married
which made things complicated. I felt it for the other woman as she earns for
her husband's attention while he only care to learn about the heart of the man
he is living with. I enjoyed it and as I love watching the ML in series it was easy
on my eyes lol. He is just so flawless with his acting skills that he makes everything
so natural. I recommend if you like series with no action in a country side setting.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
J-Drama ***Beyond Goodbye***: Excellent Heart Shaker
J-Drama featuring Life & Romance, always has me looking ways to stitch up my heart while drying my tears. Just as my heart is stitched & tears dried.... they push above the limit... like this "Beyond Goodbye"!!!I strongly feel that this drama is completely underrated... but then again that's my personal opinion.
The storyline did its job with tugging at the heart strings & the leading casts did an amazing job pulling me into their feelings that their character felt.
I rated this a 9.5/10 due to .. 2 things: in my personal opinion, I felt that some of the wife's actions was totally unnecessary. Especially when she was putting to much fault .. where fault didn't belong.
the 2nd thing, was the ending ... in my opinion, Saeko didn't owe anything to this woman... since it was the husbands' decision on how he felt would be best to handle the situation he was facing with his life ending. The one important person he wanted to see before he left this earth... was someone who made him feel alive through a heart of her lover. Not only that, the wife from the beginning she didn't want him to tell her anything about what he found out regarding the donor. So, if she needs to blame anyone.. she needs to look in the mirror & realize that she shut her husband out in a time he felt confused & needed her to listen and understand what he is going through & sacrifice a bit of her feelings to help him through his turmoil. I think that angered me the most about the wife.. is she apologized to him and he just let her without truly telling her that her refusing his feelings was painful. (If you can't have an open discussion with the person you say you love deeply or have restrictions of what you ...YOU... want to hear, then your love is bogus.. Period!) So... NO... Saeko didn't need to apologize to her for Miki husbands' decisions. The ending for Saeko getting a text to apple pick just dropped the rating .5, because it was not necessary at all... I saw & felt no point in it.
I just have one critique ... my personal choice would have been to end the drama where she sees the coffee trees beans that Yusuke planted have grown. That would have been a powerful ending of a heartfelt story.
Was this review helpful to you?
Good Enough
Japanese Drama '' Sayonara no Tsuzuki '' is a romantic melodrama with a tragic story and tragic characters.The drama incorporates the idea that the body has memory, but it is not that well presented, as the story is more focused on the romance and builds its story up from there.
As for the romance, it was odd, as the one person was wracked with grief and was trying to hold on to any spec of hope, and the other had an identity crisis at best. Most tragic of them all was the wife who was trying to figure things out.
The performances, on the other hand, were all great by everyone in the cast.
So, overall, five out of ten.
Was this review helpful to you?
The cast is amazing. The story, not so much.
I got hooked on this drama from the very first scene with Toma and Kasumi in the train and the snowy background. I love their chemistry and the mischievous back-and-forth of a couple in love.Kentaro played his role well as a stoic self-described "boring" person who suddenly became filled with more personality due to his heart transplant. While I initially started this series for Kentaro, I have to say that Toma's character really captured me from the beginning. The flashback scenes were always very heartwarming but also bittersweet knowing the outcome of their story.
Despite Kasumi losing her fiance from the beginning, I was hoping that she and Kentaro would be able to find their own love story and conquer the unspeakable. Sadly, somewhere around episode 5, I started losing interest because I didn't see the same chemistry between Kentaro and Kasumi that I saw with her and Toma. The story also didn't really move forward from the time that they both discovered he was the recipient of her fiance's heart.
The ending was very lackluster and it just felt like the writer wanted to take the story down a route that was unnecessarily sad. Overall, I don't think I would recommend this drama, only because it could have been so much better. I don't regret watching it, but I also wouldn't watch this a second time.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A Most Beautiful Love Story of Loss
I just finished watching Beyond Goodbye or Sayonara no Tsuzuki and I was in a puddle of tears by the end. The thing is, what made me cry is not just that people die, but the depth, love, beauty, and sacredness that this J drama brought into the topic- it’s like something about it touches me so deeply that it brings me to tears. In the very first episode, when Yusuke was playing “I Want You Back” on the piano, and that scene repeats in variations two more times in the same setting, it touched me and I could feel the tears even in the first episode. I can’t explain it or why. And then as the series went on, Naruse, talking about how his own heart had reached its limit and so Yusuke’s boundless love and joy came into him to breathe new life into him, and how he was opened by it and it felt like the divine love of Spirit is just pouring through him and the whole series. What seemed at first as a love that was contained only in Yusuke, in the end was released from all forms and showed up everywhere. That’s what was so beautiful- it showed that forms are impermanent, but the love can melt anyone’s heart and dissolve conflicts and divisions, even if they’re not supposed to get along according to the world. I loved how emotionally honest and open the characters were in this J Drama compared to others that I’ve seen, and they expressed what was on their heart instead of holding everything in and that certainly helped to move the story along. The bond explored between Naruse and Saeko was truly something beyond words, beyond labels. It wasn’t “an affair,” in the classic sense although it could have turned into that. Neither party was looking for that, as noble as they were, and yet the love of Spirit brought them together in beautiful moments, to feel the divine love of God that wants nothing more than to see you happy and smiling, and never sad. That whole piano song of Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”, was the premise- it was the vehicle to deliver this message from Spirit to lift one up- the world is not so heavy and low, so smile. The whole series, the whole point of Yusuke’s existence as the symbol of love was to see that smile on Saeko’s face, and to wash away the tears of her sorrows. And this is the hidden message of the whole drama- to allow Spirit to wash away the grief of our sorrows and to bring the smile of God to our face, knowing that we are loved. “You are loved.” No matter what the loss, and how big the loss, even in the midst of it, in the heaviness of grief, “You are loved no matter what.” This is what the series points to. And love is bigger than all the people and forms in this world- it can appear as a rainbow, or berries on a plant, or a new life in someone’s womb. If you keep your heart open, even in the grief of loss, the Spirit will show you love and heal you from the inside out. That’s what this series did for me. It had a profound healing effect when I was going through my own losses and I allowed my heart to be opened up by this story.The rewatch value of this series is high- the first 5 or so episodes are amazing. But at some point, it starts to drag a little, and the low point was when Saeko encounters a bear and ends up on the news … like why? That was so unnecessary. They could have cut that whole part out. But I’ll be forgiving and still say it’s one of the best J Dramas I’ve ever watched (I feel this way after watching each one, that every Japanese drama is even better than the last!).
Was this review helpful to you?
Lacklustre
I don’t even remember watching this but I remember because it was the first drama I have watched that had Kentaro sakaguchi. I knew the FL from call me chihiro.Anyways I think I dropped this drama cause the chemistry between FL and ML (with the heart transplant) is so off. She had more chemistry with MLher fiancée. I don’t really drop a drama if the chemistry is off between the actors but come on this is a romance drama. I felt so tragically bad for his (ML heart transplant). Like okay now he is developing feels for FL due to past memories but it felt so hurtful to see that. I feel like maybe remove the fact that he is still married or maybe let her be a recent ex wife he divorced. Doing all that while still married is kinda a crazy script. I don’t know like could’ve also went with that she left him before and then she met him again and saw that he was more upbeat and outgoing so she went to pursue him again. And the fact that he knows how to play the piano without any previous knowledge about that is crazy work bro. Like maybe just make share the previous ML traits and personality but talent too… also they keep talking about coffee ahh. I think I would’ve ignored some of this if it wasn’t for the lack of chemistry between the actors like both of them yk like it’s not that one is not giving they both aren’t.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Tristeza do Coração 'Depois do Adeus'
Só tristeza, terminei a série 'Mr. Plankton' e fui assistir 'Depois do Adeus' na Netflix. A série é emocionante e toca profundamente nas dores e alegrias dos reencontros. Os personagens são reais e cativantes, e a história é envolvente. A trilha sonora é boa e combina perfeitamente com cada cena, aumentando ainda mais as emoções. 'Depois do Adeus' é uma série que fala sobre amor, perda e os laços que nos unem, deixando uma marca em quem assiste.Não é o tipo de série que eu curto, mas a cada vez está me chamando mais atenção. Não é das minhas melhores, mas tem suas peculiaridades.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Achei o dorama xoxo, água com açúcar, tipo aqueles livros de literatura de cura, não se aprofundou nem no romance nem no drama. Isso quer dizer que é ruim? Não, apenas não era o que eu esperava. Estava esperando um romance com MUITO drama e um final pra me acabar em lágrimas, e o último episódio foi super levinho hahaha Foi bem feito, boas atuações, ótima trilha de sonora, vários takes maravilhosos, a cena da chuva em que ele fica observando o casal e depois entrega o guarda-chuva e as botas, e a dela levantando e vendo o arco íris no mesmo momento que ele morreu com certeza vai ficar na minha mente por um bom tempo ainda. Doramas em Hokkaido são sempre maravilhosos Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Memorias de un infiel.
con este drama tuve diferentes emociones . por el hecho de que es una buena historia pero una relación en específico lo arruina todo a como lo dice el titulo debió llamarse " memorias de un infiel", yo nunca voy a romantizar el hecho de una infidelidad.creo que hubiera sido una muy buena historia si el personaje principal no estuviera casado , pero al ser eso , arruina todo, no lo disfrutas de buena manera , sabiendo que el da todo por otra mujer y se sujeta de recuerdos que no son suyos , y su mujer haciendo de todo para verlo feliz. si el hecho de que el no estuviera casado , le doy un 9/10.
por otra parte extrañe ver dramas japoneses.
Was this review helpful to you?
Quand le coeur ne tombe pas très loin de l'arbre
J'ai longtemps reproché au drama de raconter toujours la même histoire, mais c'était sans l'arrivée des plateformes qui a encore amplifié le phénomène, en voulant toutes leur "Romance Killer" et cela une à deux fois dans l'année. Comptez alors le nombre de citernes de larme que vous allez remplir à vouloir visionner toutes ces histoires de couples impossibles, on n'est pas loin de la noyade. Et je ne parle que des block buster. Sayonara no tsuzuki est l'un deux. Production énorme entre Hokkaido, Hawaï et Nouvelle-Zélande. Couple, (ou trouple, plutôt ici) d'acteurs banquables et Kenshi Yonezu appelé pour l'ending, n'en jeté plus. Le succès de First Love a l'international a donné le tourni à Netflix qui ouvre les robinets à pognon, plongeant la romance dans le bling bling visuel, ce qui risque bien de donner l'indigestion à tous ceux qui appréciaient le drama japonais pour sa retenue, son non-dit et un principe de réalité qui permettait de s'identifier.Cool Japan
Alors que m'arrive-t-il, n'aurais-je pas apprécié ce Sayonara no tsuzuki pour être aussi rageux ? Moi qu'on arrive à faire pleurer avec un silence et un plan fixe sur une simple bouteille de lait. Il est peut-être là le problème, le manque de simplicité. Avec son très bel esthétisme, dès les premières secondes. Que ce soit pour les montagnes enneigées et ce feu d'artifice, ou ses paysages paradisiaques hawaïens, ça flatte la rétine. Certainement un peu trop. On se dit, il y a anguille dans le bentô. Car il va falloir tenir sur 8 épisodes le suspense du "Cœur qui a changé de corps, mais on ne sait pas que c'est lui qui l'a eu" Et le syndicat d'initiative d'Hawaï ou d'Hokkaido ne suffira pas à nous maintenir en haleine par ses montagnes, cet océan et ces couchers de soleil. Nul doute que ce drama amènera encore beaucoup d'étrangers au Japon, américains, mais pas que... Les couleurs, les plans drones et ce train, oui ce train qui fait effectivement penser à toutes ces images SNS qui donnent furieusement envie de s'y rendre. Kamakura, n'a qu'à bien se tenir, les touristes chinois vont encore plus le kiffer que celui de Slam Dunk. J'en connais une qui va avoir mal à son surtourisme, c'est la ville de Niseko et son mont Yotei. Car clairement, le drama fait de l'œil au monde entier. Pour toutes les raisons déjà évoquées et surtout pour cette histoire basique, aux protagonistes qui se comptent sur une main. Cinq personnages dont un disparu. Formant un carré amoureux des plus simples à comprendre pour nous, spectateurs un peu niais.
I want go back...
Les deux premiers épisodes ne m'ont pas aidé à rentrer dans l'histoire par le manque émotions provoqué. Mous du genou avec un Yusuke caricatural qui énerve par sa frime et des situations de rencontre tellement improbables. Ça Manque d'âmes et je retrouve les défauts inhérents aux productions Netflix. Des longueurs, du too much, avec ce choix de passer "I want you back" au piano en entier. On se croirait sur Instagram ou un clip de Mariah Carey. après le train, le piano dans la gare. Tout ça participe au creux de l'histoire. Si les autres acteurs et la prod sont parfaits, le scénario manque vraiment de profondeur, à ce moment-là. Comme pour First Love, on déroule sur un trop grand nombre d'épisodes le concept de l'amour par procuration. Impossible de verser ma larme au bout de deux heures de visionnage, étant prêt alors à abandonner. Trop de situations improbables, une surexposition du café, qui fait encore penser à des vidéos TikTok de tuto. Trop de cool tue le cool. J'ai quand même tenté l'épisode suivant et là, je me suis fait avoir…
... but i stay with you
La deuxième moitié de la série vous plonge alors dans les questionnements philosophiques et les choix de vie qu'on attendait. Fini le faux bonheur qu'ils avaient du mal à nous transmettre. Nos acteurs deviennent humains et révèlent tout leur potentiel. Le quatuor, qui n'est plus qu'un trio à ce moment-là, va vous faire vibrer. On est obligé de se prendre au jeu et chaque épisode devient poignant. La production se paye même le luxe de trouvailles scénaristiques pour le moins original au début de l'épisode 7, qui vont feront vibrer, disons différemment. L'esthétique et la musique se mettent au service des émotions et la série s'envole enfin. Arimura Kasumi et Sakaguchi Kentaro m'héritent alors leur statue de meilleurs acteurs de Netflix, que je leur décerne haut la main. Si bien que le dernier épisode, une fois mes larmes séchées, me fera crier "encore !".
Was this review helpful to you?
