Well, this movie is not really "hidden" anymore since the cast (and even the director) have now all made it big in the industry but it sure was a "gem". As for why it got such a low rating, I'm guessing a lot of viewers expected to see a typical cute romance with a typical "happy-ending", which I can assure you that it's all true but in no way "typical" lol As I see it, it was more about growth than about romance.
I loved the subtle humor, the metaphors and the tiny little details they put in the rooms which added a lot to the characters' personalities but you have to really pay attention to notice them (e.g. the shelves and the cans on Yui's desk were made from recycled paper but they never showed a full view of her desk)
Lovely music, I had listened to Memories by Aragaki Yui many times before but I didn't know it was a movie's theme song.
I'm at Ep7 so far and I just realized that all the scientists that invented something great in this drama were all women and all ended up either being arrested or giving up their research or even... dead.
I thought this was a light movie. And indeed it was pretty light at first but then it slowly grew heavier the longer I watched and the climax was a little extreme and hard to watch. The story kinda reminded me of Saka no Tochu no Ie (2019). Outstanding performances from the cast. Shibazaki Fuga, one of the kids in this movie, is an actor to look out for.
So, I bought the official doujinshi book of this drama (I guess you can call me a diehard fan of Shijukara now…
1. The drama production took place for 15 months. A part of that process was a lot of meetings (mostly thru Zoom) between the drama team and various manga artists in order to discuss all the manga that would be featured in the drama. This was because the story of those manga weren’t fully mentioned in Shijukara's original manga, so they had to start from scratch.
2. Chiaki’s character visual was decided after the “I was bought by the old lady next door” manga was drawn (the one Shinobu read in Ep6). And the manga artist had to edit the manga in order to adjust to the heartbreaking setting behind Chiaki’s hairstyle in the 1st half of the drama: because Chiaki didn’t have any money so he always had to cut his own hair with scissors every time he needed a haircut.
3. What was the actual plot of “I won’t follow the rabbit” (IWFTR)? As we all know, IWFTR was the most important manga in Shijukara, everything was built on it. But what was it really about? In fact, when they showed IWFTR in Ep2, they had already cut out some parts of the manga, making it a little hard to understand. But trust me, it actually had a proper meaning. Here’s the full story of IWFTR (retold with my words, the full manga is much more amazing of course): Haruta was going to follow the white rabbit into the cave with other boring students and salary office workers but Alice stopped him and took him to a castle in the fairytale kingdom. In that castle, through a big film screen, Alice showed him the dull lives and future of those people who followed the rabbit. There they met Dorothy (another fairytale character from Oz) and Dorothy complained that Alice had taken another kid again (lol). And then Dorothy told Peter Pan that this kid had forgotten how to talk or walk… which we have already seen in the drama. The story ended with Peter Pan showing Haruta an island where people of all ages and genders are much happier not following a boring life path (aka chasing the rabbit). Haruta was colored and could finally talk. And that is why it was named “I won’t follow the rabbit”. My interpretation at this point is: the rabbit was a symbol of a dull and conventional way of life and the shijukara bird, as I said before, stood for dreams, freedom and love. And the moral of the IWFTR story, I’ll leave it to your interpretation ^^
4. The sequel of IWFTR If you link the full story of IWFTR to its sequel Shinobu drew in the final episode, you’ll see that Haruta had been staying in that kingdom for too long, he had gotten greater than the kingdom itself. So Alice pushed him away and told him to find himself his own kingdom. I think it means that Shinobu was telling both Chiaki and herself to find their own “creativeness” and stop being stuck at the same place. That was why Shinobu said to her editor: “I drew it just for myself and the one person I wish they could read it”. Now for more info about this sequel of IWFTR, its plot idea was credited to the drama’s director Ohku Akiko, drafted by Shijukara’s original author Sakai Eri and final illustration by another manga artist. They confirmed here that Alice is Shinobu and Haruta is Chiaki. And apparently, in the original draft from Sakai Eri, Alice had the expression of a mother trying to suppress her loneliness when she sent Haruta off. But Ohku Akiko told the manga artist to edit Alice’s expression so that she looked like she was forcing an innocent smile, this change gave the characters a sense of a relationship in which they maintain their independence as individuals.
5. The “Who is to blame?” manga In Ep11, when Mihiro asked Shinobu “Is this Chiaki?” while helping with the manga, Shinobu replied with “No, it’s not” but she was quietly touching the character’s hands on her tablet. Apparently, the manga they were working on in that scene was “Who is to blame?” which we all know was inspired by Shinobu and Okano’s relationship. But for the story of that particular page they were drawing, it was when the protagonist’s ex-lover from long ago had to stay at her house because there was a sudden heavy rain outside, sounds familiar doesn’t it? lol That page ended with the protagonist thinking “Oh, I…” but the manga artist who was in charged of Shinobu’s drawing said that if she got the chance to draw the next page, the next line in the protagonist’s thoughts would be “I will fall in love with you over and over again”. Just from what the manga artist’s thought tho, not official xD
6. Shijukara’s original soundtrack This is kinda off the topic since it’s a piece of info not included in the book, but it might be helpful for some viewers. The OST composer, Takumi Hidetoshi, had been making a “Self-liner notes” thread on twitter to explain every track in great detail, including how the drama inspired him to use which instrumental and how the director Ohku Akiko was involved in it. My favorite detail in his thread is how they tried to sneak in the use of the number “40” in some of the tracks such as tempo 40, 40 bars and string quartet (written as 四重 and pronounced as “shiju” which also means 40) You can read his thread here: https://twitter.com/hidetakumi/status/1508774991810072576 (it’s purely written in Japanese though)
And these are just some parts I think are important. This drama is just so well-made that the amount of details is just amazing.
So, I bought the official doujinshi book of this drama (I guess you can call me a diehard fan of Shijukara now lol) and it’s called “Please follow the shijukara” (シジュウカラを追いかけて), a perfect name isn’t it? It contains a bunch of interesting things, including the trivia, timeline, bts stories, illustrations and all the manga featured in the drama, some of which were cut short when shown in the drama. The book is now sold out and they don’t have any plans to reprint in the future, so I thought I should sort out some details that I think are useful to understand the drama more and post them here.
Thank you Gabriel for the subs!Choosing episodes, I liked 3 and 7 the most, for different reasons—the former…
Did you know Ep 3 & 7 were directed by the same director or you just happened to like those 2 episodes? If you really didn't know then the director must have done a very good job lol. The drama was directed by 4 different directors and Ep 3 & 7 were by Ohku Akiko.
I'm at Ep3 and will be watching Ep4 live tonight but honestly the only thing I can appreciate about this drama is the acting of some of the cast, the rest is just weird. I'm not really into the investigation genre so I can't say much about the cases. All I can say is the directing is strange and out-of-date which makes me feel like I'm watching a 2010s jdrama filmed with high quality cameras. Music is out of place and the plot is just mediocre so far, there's not much progress. I will still stay around till the end of this drama though, for the cast ^^
Update: ok I just finished Ep4 and there was finally some progress. The directing and music were better and easier to watch this time. Hopefully they'll keep it this way in later eps.
It's me again. Just want to say that after months of trying, I've finally found decent raws of this drama and resurrected the dead batch on Avistaz, I've also uploaded it to JPTVclub and added Japanese subs on both sites. I will be seeding for as long as I can. I'm not going to upload on public hosts for now though since it wouldn't last long. Hopefully, this will increase the chance for this drama getting subbed. It's a pretty fun drama imo. If anyone wants to sub this but doesn't have access to the sites above, just PM me. I'd gladly provide the raws and the Jpn subs ^^
It's sad because a lot of the main cast are actually pretty popular now ! ^^For Tsubasa and Kuromiya, the other…
It's true. I've actually rewatched some of the episodes twice since the last comment I left here 4 months ago. Most of the characters were very charming. Sometimes I even scroll through the drama's official twitter to find bits and pieces of them xD
I loved the subtle humor, the metaphors and the tiny little details they put in the rooms which added a lot to the characters' personalities but you have to really pay attention to notice them (e.g. the shelves and the cans on Yui's desk were made from recycled paper but they never showed a full view of her desk)
Lovely music, I had listened to Memories by Aragaki Yui many times before but I didn't know it was a movie's theme song.
2. Chiaki’s character visual was decided after the “I was bought by the old lady next door” manga was drawn (the one Shinobu read in Ep6). And the manga artist had to edit the manga in order to adjust to the heartbreaking setting behind Chiaki’s hairstyle in the 1st half of the drama: because Chiaki didn’t have any money so he always had to cut his own hair with scissors every time he needed a haircut.
3. What was the actual plot of “I won’t follow the rabbit” (IWFTR)?
As we all know, IWFTR was the most important manga in Shijukara, everything was built on it. But what was it really about? In fact, when they showed IWFTR in Ep2, they had already cut out some parts of the manga, making it a little hard to understand. But trust me, it actually had a proper meaning.
Here’s the full story of IWFTR (retold with my words, the full manga is much more amazing of course): Haruta was going to follow the white rabbit into the cave with other boring students and salary office workers but Alice stopped him and took him to a castle in the fairytale kingdom. In that castle, through a big film screen, Alice showed him the dull lives and future of those people who followed the rabbit. There they met Dorothy (another fairytale character from Oz) and Dorothy complained that Alice had taken another kid again (lol). And then Dorothy told Peter Pan that this kid had forgotten how to talk or walk… which we have already seen in the drama. The story ended with Peter Pan showing Haruta an island where people of all ages and genders are much happier not following a boring life path (aka chasing the rabbit). Haruta was colored and could finally talk.
And that is why it was named “I won’t follow the rabbit”. My interpretation at this point is: the rabbit was a symbol of a dull and conventional way of life and the shijukara bird, as I said before, stood for dreams, freedom and love. And the moral of the IWFTR story, I’ll leave it to your interpretation ^^
4. The sequel of IWFTR
If you link the full story of IWFTR to its sequel Shinobu drew in the final episode, you’ll see that Haruta had been staying in that kingdom for too long, he had gotten greater than the kingdom itself. So Alice pushed him away and told him to find himself his own kingdom. I think it means that Shinobu was telling both Chiaki and herself to find their own “creativeness” and stop being stuck at the same place. That was why Shinobu said to her editor: “I drew it just for myself and the one person I wish they could read it”.
Now for more info about this sequel of IWFTR, its plot idea was credited to the drama’s director Ohku Akiko, drafted by Shijukara’s original author Sakai Eri and final illustration by another manga artist. They confirmed here that Alice is Shinobu and Haruta is Chiaki. And apparently, in the original draft from Sakai Eri, Alice had the expression of a mother trying to suppress her loneliness when she sent Haruta off. But Ohku Akiko told the manga artist to edit Alice’s expression so that she looked like she was forcing an innocent smile, this change gave the characters a sense of a relationship in which they maintain their independence as individuals.
5. The “Who is to blame?” manga
In Ep11, when Mihiro asked Shinobu “Is this Chiaki?” while helping with the manga, Shinobu replied with “No, it’s not” but she was quietly touching the character’s hands on her tablet. Apparently, the manga they were working on in that scene was “Who is to blame?” which we all know was inspired by Shinobu and Okano’s relationship. But for the story of that particular page they were drawing, it was when the protagonist’s ex-lover from long ago had to stay at her house because there was a sudden heavy rain outside, sounds familiar doesn’t it? lol
That page ended with the protagonist thinking “Oh, I…” but the manga artist who was in charged of Shinobu’s drawing said that if she got the chance to draw the next page, the next line in the protagonist’s thoughts would be “I will fall in love with you over and over again”. Just from what the manga artist’s thought tho, not official xD
6. Shijukara’s original soundtrack
This is kinda off the topic since it’s a piece of info not included in the book, but it might be helpful for some viewers. The OST composer, Takumi Hidetoshi, had been making a “Self-liner notes” thread on twitter to explain every track in great detail, including how the drama inspired him to use which instrumental and how the director Ohku Akiko was involved in it. My favorite detail in his thread is how they tried to sneak in the use of the number “40” in some of the tracks such as tempo 40, 40 bars and string quartet (written as 四重 and pronounced as “shiju” which also means 40)
You can read his thread here: https://twitter.com/hidetakumi/status/1508774991810072576 (it’s purely written in Japanese though)
And these are just some parts I think are important. This drama is just so well-made that the amount of details is just amazing.
I will still stay around till the end of this drama though, for the cast ^^
Update: ok I just finished Ep4 and there was finally some progress. The directing and music were better and easier to watch this time. Hopefully they'll keep it this way in later eps.
If anyone wants to sub this but doesn't have access to the sites above, just PM me. I'd gladly provide the raws and the Jpn subs ^^