Notes
As always, the narration is the star of the writing, but the exchanges get very repetitive. Most of it is the characters rehashing all the reasons why the main couple can or can't work.
It was Korean style pacing, which meant lots of slow conversations and pensive beauty shots. It's a calm pace that
just manages to escape being boring. Thankfully, all the side stories were watchable and relevant.
The Japanese have all but trademarked writing awesome supporting characters, and this drama had its fair share with Ko, Yuko, and Ayuta. As for the leads, Hiroto starts out like a cocky bastard, but we see his true colors pretty quickly. Nao is a standard heroine, meek enough to satisfy the conservatives and just resolute enough to make liberals like me tolerate her. No cardboards, because even the strict father/brother combo weren't completely without reason for their opinions.
It was nice to see a rich heroine and a poor hero, since Korea and Taiwan seem physically incapable of writing that combination. Kame delivered his humble role with all the necessary sincerity, but essentially, it's not a concept we need to write home about.
Yet again, folks, a time jump is completely useless if the characters just jump back into their feelings like nothing happened.
I did have a sense of, "that's it?" All the same complications are still there after four years, they're still just a poor guy and rich girl trying to make it, and they would still have to deal with her family again. The happy ending to the romance came with no real resolution.
Standard, but a few locations were pretty flashy. I LOVE the scene in the first episode when they fall into the pool. Water is always kind of sensual onscreen.
Most of this goes to the ending theme by KAT-TUN, since most of the BGM wasn't quite landing with me. They were going for some all-powerful, wind-based orchestral love theme that would be remembered for years, but they didn't achieve it.
Kame and Haruka made it to the Nines! Which I never would have expected in a million years, but thanks to KE's famous writing, these two had more couple moments than five J-dramas combined. Good kisses, good hugs, and good lines.
Apple's Tier Ranking: 2nd
