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This review may contain spoilers
Some seas are better admired from the shore.
I really tried with this drama. I gave it my best sleepy-eyed effort, but this drama had me dozing off every ten minutes like clockwork. It took me longer to crawl through three episodes of this than it did to binge a 40-episode melodrama with five love triangles and a reincarnation subplot. At some point, I realized I wasn’t watching—I was surviving. And then I gave up.
To be fair, I’m not here to drag the entire production. I could feel the directorial intent—there’s a quiet, deliberate artistry to the pacing, the framing, the pauses. But had I actually checked the tags before hitting play, I would’ve spotted “slice of life” and politely backed away. That genre and I have an unspoken agreement: I don’t touch it, and it doesn’t bore me into a coma. The one thing that kept me chugging through the first 25% was Umi. The child actor playing her? A revelation. Precocious without being cloying, emotionally intuitive, and just plain adorable—she’s the kind of kid who could carry a drama on her tiny shoulders. And here, she basically does.
Mizuki, her mother, is another story entirely. The show frames her as a free-spirited woman in control of her own life, but her choices land more as selfish detours dressed up as independence. Giving birth without telling the father isn’t some whimsical quirk—it’s a seismic decision. The ripple effects hit everyone around her, years later, and the drama treats it like a poetic mystery instead of the emotional grenade it truly is. Autonomy is valid; accountability is not optional.
Between the snooze-fest pacing and the ethical frustration, I couldn’t go further. Beautifully shot? Absolutely. Quietly poignant in parts? Sure. But I need more than aesthetic sadness and soft piano to keep my eyes open.
To be fair, I’m not here to drag the entire production. I could feel the directorial intent—there’s a quiet, deliberate artistry to the pacing, the framing, the pauses. But had I actually checked the tags before hitting play, I would’ve spotted “slice of life” and politely backed away. That genre and I have an unspoken agreement: I don’t touch it, and it doesn’t bore me into a coma. The one thing that kept me chugging through the first 25% was Umi. The child actor playing her? A revelation. Precocious without being cloying, emotionally intuitive, and just plain adorable—she’s the kind of kid who could carry a drama on her tiny shoulders. And here, she basically does.
Mizuki, her mother, is another story entirely. The show frames her as a free-spirited woman in control of her own life, but her choices land more as selfish detours dressed up as independence. Giving birth without telling the father isn’t some whimsical quirk—it’s a seismic decision. The ripple effects hit everyone around her, years later, and the drama treats it like a poetic mystery instead of the emotional grenade it truly is. Autonomy is valid; accountability is not optional.
Between the snooze-fest pacing and the ethical frustration, I couldn’t go further. Beautifully shot? Absolutely. Quietly poignant in parts? Sure. But I need more than aesthetic sadness and soft piano to keep my eyes open.
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