charlsthefirst

So they've been in love with each other since they were five, and when he realizes that she likes him he sweeps her away from getting into an arranged marriage to live with him, but somehow TWICE he mistakenly thinks she's cheating on him, so he turns around and immediately starts dating another girl just to then break up with that girl when he realizes he still loves Reiko, so he gets back together with her without clearing up the misunderstanding? There are only 10 episodes, all under a half hour, yet they still had to repeat such a shitty plotline?

My heart aches every time I see that poor turtle. Diew is supposed to love this turtle so much, but it's always in that tragically tiny tank with just pebbles and water, walking into/up the walls. That is not a happy turtle. I hope it got a good home after filming this, because it was horribly mistreated on the set of this show.

Fansubbers put in hours of free labor so people like you and me who don't speak japanese can also watch these shows. Be grateful or keep your opinions to yourself.

Well, it is and it isn't. From a legal perspective, it would technically be considering kidnapping since she's a minor. The fact she went with him willingly doesn't matter since her parents didn't agree to it. Also, he seems to really look down on himself about the bad or morally gray things he's done (as I recall, it's been a long time since I watched it), so it makes sense he would view it through that harsher lens as kidnapping, even though she took absolutely no issue with it.

With Mishima's enjoyment of being perceived as a girl and Kirino's extreme joy at referring to themself using feminine pronouns in the second episode, it just seems highly possible that they're trans. Sure, they might just be feminine gay guys. I don't know queer culture in Japan well enough to be 100% confident either way, but I definitely think it's something worth examining.

It's interesting watching this given the cultural barrier. Like, it seems Mishima and Kirino are supposed to be trans women, but they are referred to as boys in the description and Mishima says she(?) crossdresses. This seems to be consistent with other trans representation I've seen from Japan as well, which makes me wonder whether this is the correct language to use there or whether it's a matter of cis writers messing it up. If anyone has any insight into this, I would love to hear it.

I think she already knows that to some extent and it's not so much a literal question as much as her trying to express complicated feelings about this major change in her life. She never felt the absence of Natsu because she never knew him, and thus he was never there, but she feels such pain at the loss of her mom, and thus will always be there in her heart and memories. I think Natsu understands that she isn't asking literally but is just expressing her hurt that he's only here now that Mizuki is gone and that she could never have them both in her life at the same time.

God, I hope they took the best care in the world of the kids acting in this show. Even if it's fiction, some of those scenes can be traumatizing to act in if not handled properly.

I'm not a big fan of the casting choice of a lead actress who is 20 and a lead actor who is 27 for this. It's very obvious looking at them that she's a good bit younger than him, so it makes it feel like there's a creepy age gap in the show, especially given that the girl is in high school and the guy isn't, when really the characters are only a year or two apart in age. I like both of the actors, but I don't think pairing them together on this was a good choice.

I agree that Yayoi's main feeling throughout the episode is being an outsider to Umi and Natsu's relationship, but I think part of that comes with her wanting to be Umi's mom. When I say she wants to replace Mizuki, I don't mean she wants it to be as if Mizuki never existed but rather that she wants to fill that mom roll and doesn't seem to fully understand that she can't fully do that. She can definitely become someone Umi views as a mother, but the fact that she can't fill the same spot in Umi's heart and life as Mizuki doesn't seem to be something she's quite accepted yet. My intention wasn't to say she is trying to take that spot from Mizuki, but rather that she wants to have that same role that Mizuki did, and not being able to fill that same roll while Natsu is able to fill the father role, even if he's still figuring out how to do that, makes that distance between her and them feel all the greater.

In that scene, the way she's kind of trying to reassure Umi that she's happy like she pretends to be came across to me as her not being ready to accept they can't become a happy little family as simply as she would like them to. Natsu and especially Umi need to grieve, and no matter how much she tries to make them happy, that's not something that any amount of love and care can change. Hence why I say she wants to be Umi's mom rather than second mother. She tries to allow space for them to process their feelings, but she also wants to be enough on her own, so even though she is trying, it's really difficult for her emotionally to allow that space and accept just how much space she needs to give that.

Also, I definitely think you can be in someone's life while sorting through your own issues, but that becomes a lot more dangerous when you are entering into a child's life when those issues can be actively damaging to the child. And even if she doesn't hurt Umi, she's certainly hurting herself.

That scene in episode 3 where Natsu is asking Umi why she's pretending to be happy and Yayoi just keeps trying to get him to stop really showed why Yayoi isn't ready for all this. She said she wanted to be Umi's mom, and the problem is that's EXACTLY what she wants to be. Yayoi is trying to make Umi a replacement for her own child, and in doing that, is trying to replace Umi's mom. And Umi needing to mourn Mizuki means that she hasn't replaced her. Until she's able to sort through her own trauma and recognize how important Mizuki will always be to Umi, Yayoi won't be ready to be a part of Umi's life.

I guess they mean that he's not married?

I'm so glad that this is looking like it's going to be really good. While I love the dramas Meen and Ping have done together in the past, I recognize that they aren't exactly good from a critical standpoint, so it's great to see them in something that really lets them shine.

I'm pretty sure they don't have joint custody in China, so I can get why she'd take only Xuan Xuan with her on the basis of her likely only being able to get custody of her had they divorced. However, the fact that she seemed to not think through for a second how this decision would affect the kids is awful. She separated each kid from a parent and sibling, but she only seemed to care about wanting to get away from Haoyu.
Obviously, staying in an unhappy marriage for the kids wouldn't be the best move, as ultimately the kids pick up on it and it would end up hurting them anyways, but she 100% should've taken time to actually think things through and figure out the best course of action rather than just acting on impulse.

Same. In most dramas I watch with a disabled character, they get cured by the end. So many writers seem to think the only way for a disabled character to get a happy ending is for them to no longer be disabled, even when it totally defeats the purpose of so much of the story. Like with this, so much of Day's story was about him learning to accept that he was blind, so when him finally accepting it soon turns to him being able to see again, it feels like we did all that character development for nothing.

Hoping that they chill on the nc scenes as the show goes on. I get it, sex sells, but we got like 5, maybe 10 minutes of story in the first episode (which is a little over an hour long, btw).

I think he didn't know that Yu Shi was 5 at the time? The flashback made the timeline confusing, but since he didn't seem to understand who Noah was or why Yu Shi would act so different at times until a bit in, I'm pretty sure the appointment with the doctor was after they had already been together for a while.

I feel like there were some places where the writing could've been better, as there are certain things that felt like they should've been explored more some things were included that didn't seem to actually add anything, but the concept and characters are so strong that I didn't really mind at all.

Like everyone else, I wish it had better subtitles, but it was pretty easy to follow (at least for me) in all but one or two scenes. It was annoying at first, but I got used to it,

Yeah, I'm guessing someone just ran it through some translation service and didn't bother to make any edits :/

Yeah, I'm guessing someone just ran it through some translation service and didn't bother to make any edits :/