Lilaika

The next three paragraphs contain my overall opinion and no spoilers. After that follows a very long rant containing many spoilers about what didn’t work for me.

I really liked the cinematography and loved the music, but a big part of the plot and the characters were underdeveloped in my opinion. I did not need the romance and frankly, I think the story could have been better had that time been used to further develop other parts.

It had some really beautiful moments, but other parts I just didn't care about because the story spend too little time on them. Especially the character development disappointed me. There were several characters that were not just flawed, but simply unlikeable in my opinion, so I did not care about them and was glad whenever the story moved onto the next scene without them. Other characters showed up, then disappeared for a while and then suddenly showed up again when it was convenient. And this story did not feel like it had four main characters...

My initial reaction after finishing this drama was to not recommend it, but now about two weeks later I don’t feel that strongly about it anymore. If you like the actors and enjoy a well produced show and good music, you can give it a try, but if you are looking for a really good story with well developed characters, this is sadly not the one. Nonetheless, I don’t think it was a waste of my time to watch it, it just fell short in too many aspects to rate it higher.


SPOILERS or me ranting about what I did not like:

I did not care about the romance, especially not as a love triangle.
When Akane and Naoki confessed to each other, she told him that she wasn't sure at first if it was love, admiration or fear she felt. And the series never really convinced me that she was actually in love and not just admiring him and gobsmacked by his talent and passion. Which could be an interesting inner conflict if they actually showed that, does she love him or does she simply admire him, but apart from addressing it in one or two sentences the series never dives into this topic.
I also didn't believe Naoki had romantic feelings for Akane. Love, maybe, the same he had for Sho and Kazushi, but with how deeply his character was drawn to making music and getting lost in it, I just didn't see when and why he would suddenly develop romantic feelings for anyone.

And I am really annoyed at how the script treated Kazushi and Sho.
Apart from one or two brief moments about his relationship with Naoki, how he feels about Naoki's work and his ambition, and why he joined the band, Kazushi's only point of being in this story was seemingly so they could have a love triangle. Similar to the other two, this was underdeveloped. Setting aside the fact that I wouldn't have liked this part either way, I also don't think they did a good job at showing how he fell in love, he suddenly just liked Akane. Further exploring his reasons for joining the band, his admiration for Naoki while also struggling with Naoki's way of working, and being somewhat jealous of him could have made him a far more interesting character.

And Sho... this might be my biggest disappointment, he was barely present until the last few episodes. There were some good moments that showed how calm and caring he was (unlike many others I did not see a potential romance there (although I understand why some people did :D), because, as stated above, I didn’t see Naoki developing romantic feelings for anyone, he was married to his music and to his music alone), but Sho was mostly a background figure. Sure, he was in a lot of scenes because he is part of the band, but it didn't matter to the story that he was there. Had they shown sooner how he and Naoki met and decided to start the band, I might have cared about him more.

I didn't like Kai, and the conflict with her as well as her character itself felt redundant, I cared about it so little I wish they would have cut this out.
Toya as a character was a lot more interesting, or maybe just more charismatic, but also just there for that little bit of rivalry and then gone until that brief appearance at the end. Again a character that could have been utilised in a better way.
Isagi was also not fleshed out enough in my opinion. I am not sure the story actually needed this character, but the reason for that might be that I was constantly annoyed when he was on screen.

The part towards the end about whether to try and save Naoki's life and have him get treatment, but at the cost of his spirit and taking away his music, what he cares about most, could have been great and deserved more screen time. The moral conflict of wanting to save someone and what that actually means, the wish to keep him alive, which is so human, clashing with the question whether it would ultimately be selfish to save Naoki's life at the cost of keeping him from making music which would make him utterly unhappy and ultimately break him because he would then just survive, but not actually live, was interesting, but only touched upon briefly.
It’s not even that I think this is the best potential conflict for this drama, but it would have been a great opportunity to let all the band member characters shine and show more about their relationships with each other.

There were some moments, especially in the beginning, when I did not believe in the driven genius, whenever Naoki ran around with the notebook or drew notes in the sky or whatnot, but other moments worked incredibly well. When he stayed in the studio until exhaustion, when he played and played and replayed melodies on his instruments, it was terrifying and it was beautiful. Akane had a few similar moments, showing not the same obsession as Naoki has, but her passion and determination, those were also great. I could have watched more of that, especially for the other two band members, show me more of that passion, that sparkle, that willingness to push through and create something, show me people who don't just like music, but burn for it so much that they chose to make it their life.
Whenever the show had moments like that it worked incredibly well for me. Characters who live and breathe for their music, who are driven, who are not always likeable because of that… Had the show focused more on this aspect and cut out all the scheming (the scale of which was sometimes just laughable), I would have liked it a lot more.

As I mentioned above, what annoys me so much is mainly that this story had so much potential and some of the good parts were truly great, so to have it fall flat in others parts that I would have been more interested in, feels even more disappointing.