autobuss

Tragic Love Story that could have a better ending

From the start I knew that this cannot have a "happy ending" because in a love triangle by definition one of the 3 must be rejected (there are some exceptions I know). However I cannot stop myself from feeling sad for Yuzu ! for some reason, I wanted him, not Chen, to end up with the girl.

Even if, after careful consideration, one cannot say who the childhood friend really was - both boys met Hsiao-Hsia as children, even if she (incredibly) totally forgot Chen. This is another unrealistic part. Since he remembered her so vividly AND there is so great attraction between BOTH of them, how could she forget him? even after seeing the dog SHE had named?

Anyway, the worst part in the movie is the conclusion... in the 10 years while Chen is in the US, it is shown Hsiao-Hsia has more than one boyfriend, but OTHER than Yuzu. Logically, since Yuzu is still very much in love with her, and constantly around her, and had no other girlfriend, then I see no reason for her and Yuzu not to end up together! Even if they split up at some point. Give at least a chance to Yuzu !

But, of course, the author decided that Yuzu must suffer, and that's it. Like he decided the dog had to die suddenly, even if the first vet said the medical test results are much better. There should be a warning for movies, similar for the ones for "Sex scenes" or "violence", called maybe "Needlessly Cruel Author".

But probably there is something masochistic in me, because every time I see a movie like this, I root for the other guy, not the one who gets the girl. There are also movies when he childhood friend gets the girl, like the Japanese "366 days", and I was soooo sad for the "new guy" (Chen's equivalent).

So be warned if you watch this. If you are too sensitive maybe it's a good option not to watch. Or at least watch knowing it's LESS sad than "Romeo and Juliet".

From all other points of view the movie was good: the actors, the acting, the cinematography, the music, etc.

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Frustrating in the end!

I enjoy watching everything Japanese, since their culture is so different from Europe/America but be warned, this is one of the many J-Dramas in which it's obvious the writers did everything to shock you ! This guarantees you don't forget the drama easily, but it also makes you angry and frustrated because the WRONG message it convenes, even if it has a "happy" ending.
Episodes 10, 11 are especially frustrating because of the inconsistency. Everybody seems to forget the clearly horrible and even illegal things Maya has done and instead she is remembered as such a great teacher, and all the kids cry when she is [justfully] dismissed.
What is the message here? would it be OK for a Army Sergeant to train soldiers as if they were 12-year girls ? NO ? Then, why is it ok to educate 12-years girls as they were soldiers going to the most vicious war? There is a line in which one of the teachers says about Maya: "Probably she received by mistake military training instead of teacher training?". No other teachers react, but it is one of the best lines in the show !
The idea seems to be, "Maya is educating them well because she is preparing them for the harsh realities of life". I DO NOT agree for 2 reasons:
1) she clearly crosses the line, for instance when she takes away the summer break and then punishes Kanda and her friends for missing the last summer classes, and in such an unprofessional way, she removes their desks and then makes 12-year old carry heavy desks on the stairs ?!? Or, while she knows who really stole the wallet, she allows Kanda to be viciously bullied for it, including the risk of death when her classmates try to drown her in the pool, or when she falls thru broken glass and is seriously injured ?!?!? Basically the teacher contributes to bullying ! These are almost criminal acts! For these, she could go to prison, not just to the Reeducation center !
However, all these terrible things are forgotten in eps. 10, 11 and she is just remembered to being "a strict teacher". This is unbelievable and, I say again, just wrong, immoral and unethical.

2) all this Maya speeches "society is bad and cruel, and I prepare you for it, only 6% of the Japanese are happy and in this class NONE of you will be happy", I believe is a chicken-and-egg problem. Society is bad because the are bad people, people who learn from childhood to be bad, and are allowed to be bad, and are even encouraged to be bad, because of teachers like Maya who basically contribute to the bullying and do nothing, and teach an evil system of values and rewards and punishments ["be my friend, spy for me and then all bullying will stop"] and of course, in the future, colleagues like Maya, bosses like Maya and so on. It even contradicts how she criticizes her husband in the prequel episode, after she discovers he did acts of corruption at his company - it is not an excuse to do bad things just because everybody does them!

The 2 prequel episodes transmit a weak message about how and why she becomes a "demon teacher". Her inadequacy in solving her initial class problems when she was a kind and caring teacher is just that - inadequacy, lack of training, lack of support (all the school Principals and Vice Principals in Japanese movies seem to be utterly incapable, spineless and only make things worse).
It's like an engine only has two speeds, 0 and Maximum RPM. You can only be a weak, ineffective teacher who tries (and fails) to love everybody, or a Demon teacher which actively bullies and mistreats everybody. This is the message of the movie.

The only way to enjoy this movie is to try to detach from reality. I always try to think that probably all Japanese writers hold a meeting in which they say "this is the normal, expected course of action. How can we alter it so it is unexpected, shocking and utterly unbelievable, but will make everybody talk about it?". So you ditch morality for views and ratings.

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Everything is good except the story... which is so bad !

I have read many reviews telling "this is a great story about friendship and growing up" but I strongly disagree!

For Western viewers, this drama can be frustrating. It heavily follows the Japanese school of cinema dramatic concept of "gaman" which means, suffering in silence, abandoning one's love for the sake of friendship and for the group's harmony and peace. Just that this concept is applied in such an exaggerated way, broken on multiple occasions, especially in the end.

All characters forfeit their love stories for he sake of a great, great "friendship triangle".
The main problem is that this is utterly destroyed in the last episode when Suuji decides to leave. This makes no sense. It is clearly shown that his father allows him to remain behind in a boarding house. However, Shuuji comes with a very, very weak excuse "I need to be near my brother to make sure he gets dinner when Father comes home late". For this, he ABANDONS his fantastically close friends Akira and Nobuta, his love and everything he worked for. Who could believe this?

Then comes Akira's decision. He is in love with Nobuta, Suuji has just left, he has his chance with Nobuta. What does he do? He Abandons Nobuta, going after Suuji (in a Helicopter no less!). No wonder many viewers have written alternate endings in which Suuji and Akira are in fact a gay couple. This would make much more sense than the official ending.

All love stories in the movie are inconsistent. In the beginning Shuuji tells Nobuta "Mariko is not my girlfriend" signaling he may date Nobuta in the future. Next, there is an important moment when Nobuta is about to confess her love in public, and it is revealed Shuuji intends to answer positively by dumping flowers on her head. So all the premises are there. But they choose to completely forsake their feelings for the sake of Akira's friendship who "happens", later in the show, to realize he is also in love with Nobuta. Even if it happens later. Even if, in the first episodes, Akira and Shuuji do not seem really such good friends.

Also, Shuuji and Mariko. The way he dumps her is at least dubious. Because in the last episode, when they have a final date, he admits he likes her. It doesn't make much sense except for the made-up reason hat he HAD TO pretend to date her in order to be "popular". This sound 100% cinema and 0% reality.

The girl who is a sworn enemy of Nobuta (I forgo her name) is also unbelievable. She apparently has unlimited power, like a Ninja, to observe and affect everything Nobuta does, being completely invisible. Yet the reasons for hating Nobuta so much are just not there. It is another substory not well written.

All in all, I enjoy Japanese movies and how they feel so unreal, partly because of how they look and talk and behave, and partly because of these unbelievable stories, and I didn't hate this movie. But I don't agree that his is a film about "growing up". Nobuta does grow up and she is definitely a better person in he end. But the 2 boys Akira and Shuuji... no way ! And I cannot stand by so many inconsistencies and so many writer's decisions which are the opposite of what should really happen.

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Not bad but typically Japanese unrealistic

I kinda enjoyed the show up to a point. It is so... Japanese !

The conclusion is that it's impossible for the girls to "find happiness" but not for they own faults, but because the script writer artificially complicates the story ad infinitum. As he is probably paid to do. The irony is that even Rinko is portrayed as a script writer for love dramas, and her boss at some point says "nobody will cry over your script - I don't like it". So they make sure WE WILL cry over this one!

For instance, Kaori: at first, all she wants from Ryo is to drop his girlfriend Rina so she can become his "main girlfriend". When this happens at last, and he says he only loves her, she STILL is not happy, because now she finds Ryo too "womanizer" for her taste. And she dumps him a second time a year later, for no clear reason, although he is shown to still love her. Clearly, she is portrayed as a girl who doesn't know what she wants. Either he is the love of her life, or he is not. Nobody knows.

Next, Rinko: her break-up with Hayasaka is also greatly exaggerated. In fact, he lets her go MUCH too easily, and she says nothing, she just picks up her stuff and goes away. But there is nothing in her actions to suggest to him that Key is "her big love" - letting him sleep at her home at the death anniversary (just sleep on the couch, no sex) when he was clearly broken is no big deal! And then, Hayasaka makes up his mind to dump her when he just sees them talking, without any physical contact, on the street. This is not at all serious. Neither Hayasaka nor Rinko seem to have the smallest will to fight for their love. Probably because there is no love. This is not how a relationship is built.

And 3 years later, in season 2 episode 1, Hayasaka has the nerve to tell Rinko that she is the one who dumped him, which is the a total lie (he was the one who refused to sign and who asked to return to their "business partner" status when she was signing the papers to move together in the same house , and then he saw all too well that KEY left the country and had nothing to do with Rinko) .

All 3 girls would easily end up married much quicker in a real setting based on the original show premises. Creating artificial barriers and obstacles was obviously the writer's intent, so that marriage becomes all but impossible. The show seriously lacks consistency between the first episode and the last.

As for KEY, he is an asshole. And it really makes no sense that they say to each other "I like you" reciprocally at some point, and then he is shown to revert to being an asshole to her, for no reason at all.

In fact, all girls seem to easily find relationships, even Koyuki finds men to sleep with. Only she knows why "the next morning she feels lonelier than before" (no real reason for somebody who initially said how cute, how kind the man was).

However, this seems to be the general style of most Japanese love dramas. Even the ones with happy ending take a long time to get to that ending. So basically I can say I LIKED the show. I saw many J-dramas so I know this is their recipe. Period. Just don't make the mistake of rooting for the characters too much. We the viewers are wishing more for a happy ending than they are wishing themselves!

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Do not Watch !

I have watched probably around 30-40 K-dramas and I believe this is one of the worst. My recommendation: DO NOT WATCH for the following reasons:

1) much too long: 50 episodes. There are some other long dramas like "Empress Ki" but it doesn't compare. There is so much happening in Empress Ki. Here however there are only 2 things happening:

a) in the first half of the show everybody tries to break up the main 2 characters (and they partially succeed), and I mean EVERYBODY, and in turn, not all at once: the Grandma, the 2 evil characters, the 2 mother in laws, etc. Even the FL's own mother, which is so unrealistic since she turns her back to her daughter without warning and in an unbelievable way.

b) in the second half, they give up breaking them up, but they try in every way to take the child away from them, even if there is a lawyer who confirms what we all know, that the mother almost always keeps the child. However, they constantly try stupid moves to take the child away. There is even one scene where one of the mother in law takes the FL to the evil father and forcefully tries to take the crying child from her arms and give it to him, like she would give an object. It gets tiring.

Or, apparently the natural but unmarried father can show up at a random police station, 1 year after the birth, and without any proof, without any document, and of course without the child, just with his hands in his pockets, he can legally change the child's name to his family name, even if the child was previously registered by the mother at birth. Seriously? if this was true, any person could walk in and change any other person's name just by declaring "his is my son/daughter".

2) it is NOT A FEEL GOOD drama - probably the most important aspect. In most episodes the ML and FL are so sad, crying, feeling so bad, doing stupid things against their own interest, like the FL leaving the ML and running away just 5 minutes after telling him she needs him so much, and so on. This happens all the time in the show. Even more frustrating, because in the first episode both are shown to be fighters, and the start of the show is very promising. But soon they forget about any fighting and just allow anybody to treat them like shit. The ML at some point even comes with the stupid idea to remove himself from the family register! I was fed up seeing them SUFFERING with no end in sight. At the very end, when all resolves for the best, all the other family members brag about being "such a great family who support each other", forgetting how awfully they treated the ML and FL all along the show.

3) too many [stupid] coincidences. Yes, I know TV dramas heavily depend on them , but here it is too much! There is at least a bad, unfavorable coincidence in each episode (never a good one for the ML and FL - all bad for them and good only for their enemies). For instance, the evil female character just happens to pass by in her car THE EXACT SECOND when the FL is about to be hit by a bike and so, she takes her to the hospital and then brags about "saving" her, which is of course not true. Or, in a later episode it is revealed that, in all of Korea, the missing grandson is... no other than the evil male character ! Really ? And in general, everybody is shown to be related in the most incredible way to somebody else in the show.

4) too many inconsistencies. At the beginning they decide to do an arranged marriage, which will help both of them, including the FL on her job (not to be an unwed mother), and soon they completely abandon the idea, and they only pretend to be married, which of course leaves the FL jobless and mocked by her colleagues and superiors. The Grandma starts by being the most feared head of the family, but soon nobody listens to her anymore. The ML's mother is either on the brink of being cast away from the family, only to come back as the one badmouthing and persecuting her own son. And many, many more. It's like there were more than 1 writer, who did no effort to synchronize their scripts.

In conclusion: there are so many good K-dramas, watch something else. This one is a waste of time and will just make you frustrated.

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Not a great show. Had potential, which was not developed.

I tried this show after watching the EXCELLENT "The pride of the Temp" since it promised to be also a comedy about the Japanese workplace and its quirks. However, this show is much, much less funny.

The Takano character is a kind of Forrest Gump, but much weaker. Not only talentless, but basically completely dumb, on the verge of autistic. She does absolutely nothing at work, except watching cat videos, she doesn't have any qualifications. However, when she is brought to business meetings, the potential customers cannot believe she is truly stupid, instead they think she did/said something really clever that they don't understand, or that she has a really original view on the topic, and she saves the day. The contract is signed!

However, the writers didn't try to much on this one. The humor is weak, the jokes are barely laughable and somewhat inconsistent. For instance, we witness her using the computer, at least to find cat videos on the Internet, but later when they try to teach her data input, she doesn't know what a mouse is, or what "double clicking" means.

Not much happens, in general. In the final episode there is a small Easter Egg in my opinion, in which Takano is assimilated to the whole show: After Takano has already left, they begin to talk fondly about her, and seem to remember how fun she was, and how great it was to work with her... until someone says "In fact, she was not so great" and everybody agrees and they drop the praises. This is exactly how the whole show is. You don't remember much about it, only that you smiled expecting a great scene to follow, because it did have great potential, and then... the scene is "meh". There were very few memorable jokes or well-developed situations. With some exceptions of course, but I don't believe they were worth of my time.

There are many other characters who are interesting but, like the rest of the show, their relations are weakly developed, there is some promising story about everyone, but most stories seem not to go to the expected end, they simply dilute and they do not really reach a conclusion.

My verdict after watching dozens of Japanese shows: Takano has one of the weakest scripts. Everything else is very nice, the actors, the acting, the environment, the filming, etc... except for the script. As if the script writer quit right before the start of the filming, and they have to improvise on the spot.

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Very well written story and very relatable characters !

I enjoyed this drama very much because, compared to the average k-Dramas:
-IT DOES NOT have impossible coincidences in order to create artificially suspenseful or dramatic situations; there still are some coincidences, like both leads having mothers who left them, or all the 3 friends crashing together at the same time at Tae-O's house, but those are acceptable since they don't affect the principal love story in a fundamental way.
- THERE ARE NOT unbelievable or just stupid dialogues or acting decisions, like you find in many dramas and shout at the TV "Why did you do/say this, STUPID?", whose purposes generally are to extend the action artificially
- THERE ARE NOT discontinuities or inconsistencies between episodes or seasons, to give you the impressions there are multiple writers who don't know about one another.

All in all, I liked very much that the action between the 3 main leads is very believable and all 3 are very relatable and their love story develops naturally. Everything that happens CAN happen in real life, but it is beautifully written and acted, and thus worth watching. They all make mistakes that everybody can make, especially for the first love. The way Tae-O and then Song-i gradually discover their feelings, and how Do-Hyeon understands this and "lets her go" are also well acted. I thought there will be a conflict between he two MLs, especially after Do-Hyeon says "I am confident she will choose me" but, this situation is resolved peacefully - yes, that means Do-Hyeon is much more mature than Tae-O, but this also is a good thing to have on the show. All characters have distinct personalities which are well put into acting.

Still, I liked Tae-O's character very much, there is nothing wrong he did from the perspective of an inexperienced teenager who witnessed 2 potential rejections from Song-I: first in hi school just before he scene when they "fight" in the rain, and then later when he asks her on the rooftop "The mysterious guy that you like, is it me?" and she says clearly no.

Also, I strongly disagree with those who pity Do-Hyeon for losing the girl, despite being the hard-working and charming and mature guy: at the beginning, HE HIDES the fact that he is dating Song-i from Tae-o who is his friend. Why would he do this? I believe it is because he knows/feels that Tae-o has SOME feelings for his longtime childhood friend. If there were any other girl he would have told Tae-O. So he knows he is taking a risk by starting this relationship.

Also he participates in Song-I's eviction at the beginning, which of course is a coincidence, but it is an ominous memory for her to start with. Or, when he doesn't respond to Song-I's call for help from the Observatory, it is not because he is working, but because he lets his phone unattended, which is a mistake. And his shouting at her when he is jealous. All these details were probably introduced by the writers in order to demote the character a little, and make him less perfect. Unlike other dramas where there comes a perfect, ideal, fantastic hero who easily snatches the girl away from the childhood friend, no questions asked.

The only quirk is that the 3 characters, being in the last year of college, are too old for first loves and first kisses. They could have moved the story to a high school environment. Also, the characters Ga-Rin and Hoon are exaggerated and silly but, for some reason, I kinda found them cute, maybe because of Ga-Rin's smile.

All in all, I loved that drama, especially after watching dozens of K-dramas and J-Dramas which most have major plotholes and unbelievable developments and/or endings, all for the sake of challenging the viewer and keeping him in a state of elevated excitement.

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