The script is simply marvelous, the direction and photography absolutely top notch (I normally am wary of special effects, as I don't like how they've come to monopolize Western cinematography; but when they solely serve the script, as they do here, they're welcome ^__-), the acting fantastic (Tong Li Ya, whom I had previously admired - alas, too briefly, as her role there was important storywise, but minor as for screentime - in the drama "Waiting For You In The Future", is the very definition of "gorgeous"; and Lei Jia Yin manages to accomplish the not-so-easy feat of portraying two "different" characters and *actually* making it seem like they're different)...last but not least, the music is lovely and contributes greatly to give this lil' gem a kind of "Amélie" feeling.
Perfect 10! ^____^
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Such a pure, refreshing little masterpiece!
What a lovely dorama! In the short span of four episodes, the authors managed to craft a wonderful, heartwarming, delicate, touching and poetic story that deals with deep issues like loss, guilt, tragedy, family, friendship, love. The main character is often called a "ghost picture detective", but "soul detective" would probably be a more precise definition. I literally loved every single minute of this hidden gem! Perfect script, great acting, nice score...such a pure, refreshing little masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned!Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
After this, I feel like I desperately need the soul equivalent of a long, warm shower!
I'll start with a warning: there was no way for me to properly review this dorama and explain why I loved it at first and ended up hating it (and believe me, I don't use this word lightly), without some spoilers.So, before you keep on reading, let me ask you a question: have you watched "Full Metal Jacket"? If you haven't, then maybe play it safe and stop reading. But if you have, here's one more question for you: would you say that Sergeant Hartman was a fine educator or a rotten S.O.B.?
If your answer is the former, then stop reading and start watching this dorama, there's a high chance you'll love it! But if your answer is the latter, then you might want to keep reading - spoilers included - so as to avoid wasting 9 hours or so of your life (over 12 if you include the SP) on this.
And now I'll proceed explaining why I think so (spoilers from now on, consider yourselves warned):
I was captured right away by the thought-provoking premise, and it kept me thinking and (probably over-)thinking for the first few episodes. I even thought, for a brief moment, that maybe the scriptwriter had had an incredibly prophetic view of his future (and our tragic present), thus using this dorama's distopian classroom to portray a society where those in charge seem to have loads of evil fun pitting us "commoners" against each other and even unleashing chaos - the only thing they care about being that we obey, don't think and follow their rules which are more and more absurd each day - and clearly counterproductive, at that. Ok, I was seeing too much into it, LOL, but that's just to show you how intrigued I was!
Slowly but progressively, though, the story kept getting sillier and sillier with every episode. Short after the middle of the series, I started suspecting where it was heading: to an utterly insulting ending where they'd say that this monster (Amami Yuki's character couldn't deserve titles like "teacher" or "educator", and sorry if you disagree, but this is my informed opinion as someone who's worked in this field!), I repeat, where they'd say that this monster had actually been a "good (hell, even great) teacher", that it had all been just some "tough love" and that it had all "turned out well after all".
And that's where I started hating it.
Because I believe that if you treat people badly (Akuma-sensei - sorry, Akutsu-sensei - pun intended - traumatizes her pupils day in and day out, and her behavior sums up to psychological torture in my book!), I repeat, if you treat people this badly, no good *whatsoever* could *ever* come from that. To even imagine such an idiotic development is total BS, sorry.
If you treat people like this, some bad sh*t is bound to happen instead! Just like with Sergeant Hartman and Private "Gomer Pyle" in "Full Metal Jacket", you know...?
Approaching the end of the series, each episode unfortunately confirmed my suspicion, and I was more and more disappointed, and then really *disgusted* by the lousy, idiotic last episode (*every single scene* of it felt like an insult to my intelligence: the commercial-like family scene, the fight with the punks - nani sore?!? Where the hell did those crawl out from? A Chuck Norris movie maybe?!? And then again, the 180° U-turn from monster to ideal teacher / hero, even lecturing the kids on how it's wrong to hurt others - true, of course! But....how dare *she* say that?!? You gotta be f***ing kiddin' me, c'mon! And I could go on and on but I guess you got the picture...in one word: "BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!").
After watching Arimura Kasumi no Satsukyu" I had felt...cleansed, that's the word!
After watching this series to its end...I feel like I desperately need the soul equivalent of a long, warm, scrubbing-all-over shower! Such a terrible feeling it has left me with!!!
The acting was good (I mean, the kids' acting, as Amami Yuki's character being the expressionless monster she was, the poor actress couldn't show her acting skills, unfortunately. And the rest of the cast, alas, were little more than extras, so it's hard to judge them - except to praise Kaho for her adorable "onee-san"). The music was okay. I'll go with a 4/10, also considering that to correctly asses the "rewatch value" I'd need negative numbers...
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Terrible script
I decided to watch this dorama since Tanabe Momoko, whom I had really liked both for her looks and for her acting skills in "Yuru Camp", starred in it. And indeed, she didn't disappoint me; she was absolutely gorgeous-looking in this "Konna Mirai wa Kiitenai", and she also did very well acting-wise, given the totally lousy material she had to work with (I'll elaborate more on that in a moment). The rest of the cast was also ok, with the exception of Noro Kayo (she had me climbing the walls every time she was on screen...and whenever she'd ad-lib some of those überlousy "rap lines", I seriously felt the urge to throw something at the display).The seaside setting (my other reason for watching this, btw) was nice, but apart from the opening and ending credits, it wasn't used much, unfortunately.
The big problem this dorama had was the script, which was as terrible as they come. It reminded me of an exercise I'd have my students do in order to show them how bad a script turns out to be, without the proper planning (the exercise consisted in having them write a story where every single students could contribute only with a few lines, and what's worse, every student could only know the few lines written by the previous one, not having the slightest idea about the rest of the story; of course, with those premises, the stories turned out to be plainly terrible, lacking all coherence and structure! Well, that's totally how this dorama felt: a bunch of extremely poorly written scenes, chaotically thrown together without any logic nor any sense of how to write a script - and should I add, without any respect for the viewers. 2/10
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That is not to say that it's absolutely perfect, alas. Indeed, the script had its moments but also a coupla sloppy passages (like for example the übertrite subplot involving the ML's ex). The cast did well as a whole, but we're honestly not talking of award-granting performances. As for the production value / "packaging", the level was completely fine, but at the same time nothing worth calling home about it.
A decent 8/10 in my book!
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Crazy and hilarious? Yeah, you bet! ^____^
Huge congrats to Odagiri Joe in his triple role as actor, director and screenwriter! This "Oliver na Inu, (Gosh!!) Konoyarou" is exquisitely creative (starting with the usual "This drama is a work of fiction" warning, aptly modified as "This drama is a *great* work of fiction", LOL), without *ever* feeling pretentiously artsy.
The cast did an excellent job, with honorable mentions for Odagiri himself, Ikematsu Sosuke and Aso Kumiko (great actress AND screenwriter herself, BTW).
The production value is pretty high, and the jazzy OST simply fabulous (EGO-WRAPPIN'!...'nuff said! ^___-)
So why don't I give this a "perfect 10" rating?
Well, one of the (many!) reasons that made me choose Asian dramas over Western TV series is that with dramas, 99% of the time, you get to watch a complete series made of a finite number of episodes, with a beginning, a story development and a (more or less proper) ending, rather than the usual Western approach of "well, let's leave things hanging at the end of the first season; if it's very successful you'll get many more seasons and we'll ruin everything good we had previously done by the end of the second one; if it's unpopular, you'll never see how it ends; pray that it's only averagely successful so that you'll get a second season with some kind of ending".
Unfortunately, this dorama is left unfinished as is; I have no idea of the production circumstances or whether a second season or a SP is in the making or at least planned. Fingers crossed!
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