This review may contain spoilers
My Strawberry Film — When Love Exists Only in the Eyes
Many viewers claim My Strawberry Film is “not really BL or GL.”But this reaction says more about what we expect from the genre than about what this drama truly is. This is not a story about labels, kisses, or confessions shouted into the rain. It is a story about people who don’t yet have the words to name what they feel. And because of that, it is one of the most emotionally honest dramas I have watched in years.
A Story Built on Echoes, Not Declarations:
At its heart, My Strawberry Film is about how love is inherited, not biologically, but emotionally. Minami discovers that her mother, Mizuki, was once in love with her best friend Kaoru, now married to a man. When an old video of Mizuki is exposed online, Minami is forced to face the truth: her mother’s first love was a woman. This revelation doesn’t feel like a plot twist. It feels like a quiet earthquake. Minami begins to recognize herself in her mother. The same sensitivity. The same emotional intensity. The same instinct to care too deeply, too quickly. Her feelings toward Chika are not random; they are a reflection, a continuation of a story that was never allowed to finish. The series does not frame this as tragedy, but as inheritance: love passing through time, reshaped by a society that has only recently begun to allow it to exist.
Ryo and Hikaru: Love Without a Vocabulary
The emotional core of the drama belongs to Ryo. Ryo is an introvert who has been in love with Hikaru for a long time. But instead of confessing, he does what many queer people learn to do early: he supports from a distance. He hides. He waits.
For six episodes, he encourages Hikaru’s attraction to Minami, even though it quietly breaks him. The camera often places Ryo on the edges of the frame, watching from doorways, corners, behind glass. His emotional isolation becomes visual language.
Hikaru, meanwhile, does not understand himself. He is drawn to Minami because he projects onto her the look he once saw in Mizuki’s eyes in that old video—the look of someone deeply in love. But Minami never looks at him that way. The person who does is Ryo. The playground scene, where Hikaru finally asks Ryo if he has feelings for him, is one of the most painful moments of the series. Ryo hesitates. Hikaru’s eyes fill with fear. So Ryo lies. Not because he doesn’t love him—but because he does.
The Past as a Mirror
Episode 7 recontextualizes everything. Hikaru realizes that Mizuki’s gaze in the video was the gaze of a woman in love with another woman. He understands, perhaps for the first time, that love like this had no safe place to exist 25 years ago. And suddenly, he understands Ryo. When Hikaru finally says that Ryo looks at him the same way Mizuki looked at Kaoru, the series completes its emotional circle. Love has traveled through time, waiting for a moment where it can finally be named.
The final scene is not a spectacle. No kiss. No music swelling. Only two hands holding each other. And that is more than enough.
Why Some Viewers “Didn’t See It”
Many online reactions describe the series as “one-sided” or “not really BL.” But My Strawberry Film is not about resolution. It is about recognition. This drama belongs to the same cinematic family as His (2019), Taiikukan Baby (2008), and Asymmetry (2008)—stories where desire is expressed through silence, through gaze, through what is never said. It trusts the audience to feel. And if you were waiting for visible confirmation, you missed the emotional language the show is written in.
Final Thought
My Strawberry Film is not about who ends up together. It is about the moment someone finally understands why their heart has always been restless. If you thought nothing happened, then maybe you weren’t watching the faces. Because in this series, every silence is a confession.
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slice of life with three friends and a newcomer
Overall: a more realistic/angsty vibe. Think of this as a slice of life/coming of age rather than a BL series (because it is not a BL series, see my spoiler comment). 8 episodes about 25 minutes each. Aired on GagaOOLala.Content Warning: manipulation
What I Liked
- a few central characters
- glad the guy was interrupted as the other guy was sleeping
- mystery element
- production value (color scheme in particular)
Room For Improvement
- was disappointed because a character knew it was no use but had really high expectations and then had a public breakdown when things went exactly as they knew it would go
- a bit too slow without the mutual tension needed to sustain it
- where did they get that key from, random ropes hanging with a sign which anyone can ignore
- there were opportunities for some clever plot twists but there was nothing
- should not have had this as (especially the last) in the BL time slot
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This is not a Romance
It's definitely not a BL and not really a highschool drama even though most of the action takes place inside a highschool.It is coming of age drama that conveys the teenage angst and thoughtless cruelty born from it perfectly and as such has a realistic feel.
In the end I thoroughly enjoyed it as an assessment of the teenage experience .
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BL, GL and internalized homophobia: Characters and different points of view on love about to collide
'My Strawberry Film' is a Japanese youth romantic crowd drama about the intertwined feelings of four high school students with very different personalities and views on love, attracted by a mysterious movie.This is a coming-of-age drama about four teenagers, ages 17 or so, realistically observing moments in their lives, moments that all of us could have experienced or will experience at one point or another.
The drama, likewise, covers serious and mature themes while presenting them in a comedic and dramatic manner.
Screenwriters Kobayashi Keiichi and Takahashi Natsuki, and director Takeda Karin, manage to mix friendship, love and longing, while complex feelings cross the hearts of the characters.
Also appearing as director and screenwriter is Ryo Kawasaki, a proven master of BL, who was the director of the drama 'Minato Shoji Coin Laundry 2' and writer of the script for 'Zenra Meshi', both from 2023.
The music of Yuya Mori and the opening themes "Flashback Memories", by Kubota Kai, and "Cropping", by Quw, for the closing, converge to delight the audience with the story in which four high school students, each one with their own feelings, they face heartbreaking emotions as they pursue a mystery.
PLOT
In their second year of high school, Ryo Ichikawa (Ryusei Fukada), Hikaru Toyama (Rei Yabana) and Chika Nakamura (Mizuki Yoshida), live a seemingly peaceful school life while harboring hidden emotions.
One day, Hikaru and Chika are penalized for being late to class. To fulfill the punishment imposed, they must clean an old warehouse behind the gym. Faced with old and used items stored in the shed, Chika comes up with the idea that she could sell the valuables on an auction site. Immersed in his search, he finds an 8 mm film kept in a small metal box. As they pass the tape through the projector, the image of a dazzling girl appears before them. Hikaru is captivated by the beauty of the young girl (Ririka Tanabe) that could be seen even through the rough particles.
Perplexed and fascinated, Hikari declares to his best friend Ryo: "I want to meet the girl from the movie." Isn't he dancing and laughing on the same rooftop of the school where they go in their free time? Doesn't the film show images of an old building known to them? So, the young woman has to be a former student of the school. Didn't you also wear the same uniform as theirs? From this moment on, they will show her face to the former teachers to see if any of them recognize her.
If the girl must have been known by the most senior teachers, several were even students at the school decades ago and, therefore, they must know all the young people who passed through their classrooms, why does no one recognize her? What is the mystery surrounding the young woman? Why do they seem to prefer to remain silent and not identify the girl and tell them where to find her or tell them what happened to her?
Together with Hikaru, Ryo and Chika begin to search for clues about the enigmatic creature reflected in an 8 mm film. Are your feelings for that special person love, friendship or respect? is the question that floats in the air.
The very next day a transfer student arrives at school. The three friends will be surprised when Minami Murasaki appears before them, a young woman who looked exactly like the girl in the movie.
The feelings of four people that are intertwined with the mysteries hidden in the film are represented in this youth group drama: Hikaru chases the shadow of the mysterious girl, Ryo worries about Hikaru and Chika has feelings for Ryo, while Minami's gaze seems pass by.
Finally, in an unexpected turn of events, the series also drifts towards Girl Love (GL) and internalized homophobia, since the girl in the video is actually Minami's mother, who was filmed by the student she loved. and this, despite loving her, could not reciprocate.
OF CHARACTERS AND STARS
This Fuji Television drama, with an original script, shows people with feelings that cannot be named in their hearts: they cry, fight, laugh and desperately try to seize the moment that is now.
Quattro, who plays Ryo Ichikawa, perfectly captures his role as a boy who is not good at interacting with people, is seen as cool by those around him and is popular among young girls for his beautiful appearance, but he does not like to stand out and does not show no interest in girls. His passion is making music.
His time in 'Kenisasu Life' (Nippon Television) and 'Dragon Zakura' (TBS) confirms the constant evolution of this popular actor, now in the role of giving life to a high school student in full struggle with many emotions such as love and friendship. The nostalgic and sensitive, but also romantic, audience can identify perfectly with the character.
Rei Yabana, the member of '7MEN Samurai', shines in his first leading role, playing Hikaru Onada, a beloved and energetic boy who is sometimes insensitive, with great communication skills and easy to get carried away, but also fickle when not having anything that excites him and without love experience.
Ductile playing a young man in his phase of discovering and describing the sweet and bittersweet youth that only a high school student can experience, his characterization makes the viewer live or relive, as the case may be, that "youth" as if he had lived it with previously or somewhere. I don't doubt that it will awaken memories and emotions that the audience may have had.
Who we saw in 'Nare no Hate no Bokura', on TV Tokyo, confirms with his performance that he is an artist who not only has the talent to play a wide range of instruments, such as the guitar.
For his part, Yoshida Mizuki manages to convince the most demanding viewer in his role as Chika Nakamura, a young member of the badminton club with an active personality and knowledge of ancient tools. As a bright girl who cares deeply about her friends and sometimes has trouble expressing her true feelings, she makes the audience identify with the character.
Yoshida Mizuki, who has demonstrated her talent by starring in the films 'Atsui Chest Sawagi' and 'Kamuy no Uta', as well as her role in the Netflix series 'Alice in the Country', penetrates with conviction into the skin of an objectively girl cute but lacks self-confidence and has secret feelings for Ryo.
Ririka Tanabe, who like Mizuki Yoshida is an exclusive model for "Seventeen" and has also appeared in popular works such as the drama 'The Best Teacher: 1 Year Later, I Was Treated by a Student', shows great sensitivity when characterizing a devilish girl who has her own vision of the world and her own rhythm, and never tires of unconsciously manipulating everyone around her.
As Minami Murasaki, she shows her artistic skills as a transfer student who looks exactly like the beautiful girl in the film and seeks to unravel her late mother's past.
With her role in 'My Strawberry Film', Mitsuki Yoshida shows her extensive stage skills, as she did when starring in 'Alice in the Country' (Netflix), 'Dragon Zakura' (TBS) and the play 'Three Thousand Moles' Gather'.
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NOT a BL or GL but definitely an LGBT drama with interesting plot
This drama shows interesting relationship dynamics and realistic friendship, with one-sided love from each friend in the group. The drama shows how romantic feelings between straight and LGBT friends would realistically end as these friends are attracted to someone who could not love them romantically back (as they are not the gender that they are attracted to).I prefer good writing over being fed with meaningless/cliche romance. Taiwan and Japan have made some of the most out-of-the-box LGBT dramas out there, and this is one for me. I don't mind that it is unrequited love; it is one of the few dramas that actually shows a love complex where FL1 likes ML1, who likes ML2, who likes FL2, who cares for FL1 as friends, and not another love corner where FL1 and FL2 like ML1 while ML1 and ML2 like FL1.
It is definitely worth watching again for me because, even though it is not a happy ending, it still shows the love every character has for each other, whether it is romantically or as friends. And throughout the slow pacing, you can see that the characters struggle to reconcile their feelings between love and fear of losing a precious friendship. In fact, I am glad that they didn't make a character suddenly bi-curious or outright re-identify as bi just for a happy ending for one couple.
Overall, I would recommend watching the drama and judging it yourself rather than passing it by because of the rating.
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Eh
*The main leads do not end up together but it is not sad either.*Ah yes I love the smell of unrequited love in the morning! I absolutely love JBLs and their use of blue hues. I was sucked in the beginning so fast because of the directors and screenwriters were apart of some of my favorite dramas being eternal yesterday and my personal weatherman, Jack o’frost but apparently I jumped the gun*insert crying emoji*.
Within the show we have multiple one sided crushes and unrequited loves *insert crying emoji.”
The cinematography is beautiful and OST is super catchy and pleasing to the ear HOWEVER, many times I fear I kept calling to BL because it felt like she wasn’t in the room with us*insert crying emoji*. Felt a little too hetero for my liking at some point and not even a feeling of bromance was to be found.
The storyline is so nonsensical until the last episode and by then I didn’t even want or feel the need to finish it tbh. I was disappointed with this drama unfortunately but we can’t win them all lol.
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Its a chill watch
I am in the minority of the people that actually liked this show. It is a chill thing to watch, you can watch this when you have literally nothing else to do and is bored. First of all this is NOT A BL. This is an lgbt series at best. So if you are watching this series with the expectations for the boys to kiss, don't. But still it was a nice watch. I like the plot. This is more of a friendship/highschool story. Teenagers like other teenagers and get rejected and heart broken, tale as old as time. Nothing new. and the plot twist wasn't really a plot twist. I expected that from the very beginning. And was actually surprised why no one though of it. I like how in the last episode it tied it up all in a nice bow. The actors did pretty well. The ost was nice. Overall, it is good. But still I am gonna give this a 7/10 cause of the false advertisement. Either watch it or don't watch it, you don't lose/gain anything anyways.Was this review helpful to you?
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If you suffer with sleep plz consider watching this at night.
I knew it was a wrap up at the 5 ep but I kept going and so I kept dying I was hoping for some romance but I got nothing.The first ep had my interested but the more ep I watch the more I realize this is absolute trash.
Okay why I hate it slow, no romance, just characters pissing me off and the writer who lied. and honest nothing was fun interesting just “finding the girl who’s in the tape”
In dramalist it said LGBTQ, BL yk and more I watch it was like bitch where. Instead of BL they could of put slice of life friendship and misery and also mystery.
Will I be watching this again, hell no - Am I mad, YES - Was I stressing, YES
I hope they can do better because this done pissed me off if they were honest and say bitches y’all getting no romance I would been like cool imma drop it and I would save 23-24 mins of my life. For the people who dropped it earlier I wish you best and I’m so glad you made to outta there and we had to suffer Ovall chika was the realist character you can fight me but I say she is. She was the one keeping me up ty. And Ryo I feel real bad for you even after holding hikaru hand y'all still didn’t get together. Next time ion gon fall for this bs again.
TOODLES.!!
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Very Underrated Series
This starts out as a classic story of boy loves best friend and best friend has no clue, but everyone else does. I wasn't expecting too much out of this series ... I came away completely surprised how entertaining this turned out. Through the first few episodes the story kept improving. It did take a few twists and a little far fetched plots in the middle of the drama, but overall it was much better than expected.All the protagonists in this story are great, fitting a perfect puzzle to each other. The acting, especially by Ryusei Fukada is excellent. The final episode started to lose points with me a bit, BUT ... what saved this series as far as I'm concerned was the extremely POWERFUL & REALISTIC last five or so minutes at the end. I think the final scene between Ryo & Hikaru is absolutely amazing. You should watch that one scene maybe three times over to get the complete explanation and feel of the total understanding these two characters have toward each other. Hikaru shows us he's not as clueless as you think, and Ryo gives us the insight of how their friendship will go forward. Definitely a must watch.
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A Teenage Romance full of Angst & Yearning
The world is a diverse place full of myriad emotions, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Japanese drama Strawberry Film.Old film footage, nostalgic glimpses into the past, and growing friendships full of hidden desires lay the framework for a beautiful coming-of-age story that explores love in all its forms while accepting that love isn’t bound by societal rules. Instead, it belongs solely to the heart, to the person who holds it—to the joy love brings them and to the pain love causes.
From the opening scenes, Strawberry Film captivates with its evocative cinematography, transporting viewers into a world where individual emotions take center stage. Led by a talented cast including Fukada Ryusei (Ryo), Yabana Rei (Hikaru), Yoshida Mizuki (Chika), and Tanabe Ririka (Minami), the series seamlessly weaves together past and present, inviting audiences on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth.
Read the complete article here-
https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/04/10/my-strawberry-film-series-review-ep-3-to-8/
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INCREDIBLE !
Took me less than a day to watch it and honestly the best japanese so far. I don’t really like japanese series (except animes) because actors tend to ´overact’.It’s not really romance, more about making friends, enjoying youth and overcoming a one sided love.
It depicts both straight characters and queer characters (minami having a crush on chika, ryo having a crush on hikaru his bff and I lowkey feels like hikaru was starting to realize he actually had feelings for ryo).
The series might look light-hearted at the three first episodes (spent looking for hikaru’s crush and then getting to know her) but then it deals with facing one sided love, rejection and later on after minami’s first love is revealed to be a woman, the series tackles more in depth about how hard it’s to be queer (it was already there with ryo questionning whether to keep his feelings hidden or not).
The line of takashi saying ´it can’t be that kind of liking because we are both girls’ was so painful go watch considering she later explained she loved her back.
The last episode got me bawling my eyes out.
now the character :
- at the beginning I thought minami was being quite creepy when I realized quickly she was just being curious. plus she is so cute and genuinely caring, paying attention to others ans she even kept her feelings for chika for herself and helped her out as far as she could to overcome the rejection. Definetely one of my fav character and she even rejected properly and politely hikaru !
- Ryo and hikaru were so cute as well as their friendship. they really take the time to share if they think an issue between them needs tk be fixed. The only problem of the series would be that ryo’s confession tbh wasn’t explicit. It took me a while at the end to realize he actually expressed his feelings cuz they went from talking abt hikaru’s rejection to talking abt being friends better than having a romantic relationship 💀
The cast/acting/ OSTs were just LIT af omg
Btw I’m confused hikaru rejected ryo right ?
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Not a bl series
That's not a bl series, in the series the main characters looks like they were pressured by the society about who they should loveactors are good but the ending ruined the flow of the series. if you are a bl fan then don't expect it to be that it's going to end like with bl couple.
It's just another japanese drama nothing special, to me it's a waste of time i thought there is going to be something new but NO another boring series.
That's not a bl series, in the series the main characters looks like they were pressured by the society about who they should love
actors are good but the ending ruined the flow of the series. if you are a bl fan then don't expect it to be that it's going to end like with bl couple.
It's just another japanese drama nothing special, to me it's a waste of time i thought there is going to be something new but NO another boring series.
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