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On the Sunny Side of the Street
"Come Come Everybody" is my 40th asadora watched. Coincidentally, I also started it on the fifth anniversary of its premiere. This asadora has a unique premise since it follows three heroines instead of just one. Unfortunately, the premise leads to some stumbling blocks that I don't think it quite recovers from. That being said, I will cover both the bad and the good in this review. Prepare for spoilers since I will be covering some major plot points.
We start the asadora in Okayama 1925 with Yasuko (Kamishiraishi Mone) as the lead. From there, we witness her romance with Minoru (Matsumura Hokuto), the birth of daughter Rui, the death of her husband during the war, and her attempts to support Rui by herself. Yasuko is played perfectly by Kamishiraishi Mone in my opinion. In fact, the asadora is very near perfect until it switches over to Rui's point-of-view. Personally, I feel that Yasuko was done dirty by the narrative. Her "abandoning" her daughter is extremely out of character, even taking the circumstances into account. If this is really what they wanted to happen, then the writers should've planted more indicators early on.
The asadora then switches to Rui (Fukatsu Eri) in 1962. After graduation, Rui decides to cut ties with her father's family and moves to Osaka. There she starts a romance with Joichiro (Joe Odagiri), a trumpeter. He develops a mysterious illness (never explained) that stops him from playing his trumpet. They then move to Kyoto and open a kaiten-yaki (a Japanese pastry) shop. Eventually, Rui gives birth to Hinata (Kawaei Rina) who becomes our next protagonist. When Hinata grows up, she begins working at a samurai movie studio which becomes the focus of the latter half of the series. It's not that I dislike Rui or Hinata, but I never became as attached to them as I did Yasuko and, arguably, we spend way more time with them.
"Come Come Everybody" has several different plot threads that slowly tangle over time. Focusing on three different heroines was an interesting choice with huge potential, but the story suffers from their decision to boot out Yasuko early on. The asadora shifts to three different locations, which I think was unnecessary. Two locations at most, though I would've preferred it being just in Okayama. Furthermore, the story has an overabundance of topics. Japanese sweets, baseball, jazz, jidaigeki (period dramas), and English. English seems to be the main topic at first since the series is even named for the catchphrase of Tadaichi Hirakawa. Perhaps they couldn't write a full asadora on that premise alone, but the way they jump from one topic to the other feels disjointed and somehow they try to connect them all. I guess this is to say that by the end I had no idea what "Come Come Everybody" was supposed to be about.
Surprisingly, for a story that is all over the place, I still came away liking the characters. The acting is absolutely spot-on and really only the arcs of each character are hurt by the writing. This goes especially for characters like Yasuko, Santa, Joe, Rui, Isamu, Yukie, and to a smaller extent Hinata. I'm not sure why it takes so long to close-out these character arcs, but once they do, it was extremely touching. I just wish it had happened sooner in the narrative, instead of waiting to the end for almost everyone of them.
Anyway, to address the elephant. I was already kinda mad about what happened with Yasuko, but then the narrative stretches out her reuniting with Rui until nearly the last episode. When old lady Yasuko literally ran from her granddaughter Hinata, I screamed at the screen. Like I've met old people who don't want to face the music, but the jig is up. [Why I am speaking in idioms?] This just led to a less satisfying ending, and I'd say it was out of character but we don't really know old Yasuko. She's not as likable as Mone's Yasuko that's for sure.
"Come Come Everybody" is a somewhat unsatisfying asadora that I believe took several wrong turns in its writing. However, at the end of the day, it's a beautiful story about family and, as its frequent mentions of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" suggest, walking on a bright path in life. I will come away from this story remembering the touching moments over the parts that irritated me. "Grab your coat, grab your hat baby..."
My Asadora Ranking: https://kisskh.at/list/LAlqpp21
We start the asadora in Okayama 1925 with Yasuko (Kamishiraishi Mone) as the lead. From there, we witness her romance with Minoru (Matsumura Hokuto), the birth of daughter Rui, the death of her husband during the war, and her attempts to support Rui by herself. Yasuko is played perfectly by Kamishiraishi Mone in my opinion. In fact, the asadora is very near perfect until it switches over to Rui's point-of-view. Personally, I feel that Yasuko was done dirty by the narrative. Her "abandoning" her daughter is extremely out of character, even taking the circumstances into account. If this is really what they wanted to happen, then the writers should've planted more indicators early on.
The asadora then switches to Rui (Fukatsu Eri) in 1962. After graduation, Rui decides to cut ties with her father's family and moves to Osaka. There she starts a romance with Joichiro (Joe Odagiri), a trumpeter. He develops a mysterious illness (never explained) that stops him from playing his trumpet. They then move to Kyoto and open a kaiten-yaki (a Japanese pastry) shop. Eventually, Rui gives birth to Hinata (Kawaei Rina) who becomes our next protagonist. When Hinata grows up, she begins working at a samurai movie studio which becomes the focus of the latter half of the series. It's not that I dislike Rui or Hinata, but I never became as attached to them as I did Yasuko and, arguably, we spend way more time with them.
"Come Come Everybody" has several different plot threads that slowly tangle over time. Focusing on three different heroines was an interesting choice with huge potential, but the story suffers from their decision to boot out Yasuko early on. The asadora shifts to three different locations, which I think was unnecessary. Two locations at most, though I would've preferred it being just in Okayama. Furthermore, the story has an overabundance of topics. Japanese sweets, baseball, jazz, jidaigeki (period dramas), and English. English seems to be the main topic at first since the series is even named for the catchphrase of Tadaichi Hirakawa. Perhaps they couldn't write a full asadora on that premise alone, but the way they jump from one topic to the other feels disjointed and somehow they try to connect them all. I guess this is to say that by the end I had no idea what "Come Come Everybody" was supposed to be about.
Surprisingly, for a story that is all over the place, I still came away liking the characters. The acting is absolutely spot-on and really only the arcs of each character are hurt by the writing. This goes especially for characters like Yasuko, Santa, Joe, Rui, Isamu, Yukie, and to a smaller extent Hinata. I'm not sure why it takes so long to close-out these character arcs, but once they do, it was extremely touching. I just wish it had happened sooner in the narrative, instead of waiting to the end for almost everyone of them.
Anyway, to address the elephant. I was already kinda mad about what happened with Yasuko, but then the narrative stretches out her reuniting with Rui until nearly the last episode. When old lady Yasuko literally ran from her granddaughter Hinata, I screamed at the screen. Like I've met old people who don't want to face the music, but the jig is up. [Why I am speaking in idioms?] This just led to a less satisfying ending, and I'd say it was out of character but we don't really know old Yasuko. She's not as likable as Mone's Yasuko that's for sure.
"Come Come Everybody" is a somewhat unsatisfying asadora that I believe took several wrong turns in its writing. However, at the end of the day, it's a beautiful story about family and, as its frequent mentions of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" suggest, walking on a bright path in life. I will come away from this story remembering the touching moments over the parts that irritated me. "Grab your coat, grab your hat baby..."
My Asadora Ranking: https://kisskh.at/list/LAlqpp21
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