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piranhapicked this up because i got into a yamapi mood.
iwase ken (yamashita tomohisa) and yoshida rei (nagasawa masami) have been friends from elementary school through university. rei is about to get married. ken, who is attending the wedding ceremony, is filled with regrets that he never expressed his true feelings to rei while there was time, that he naively thought they would continue to always be together. just then a somewhat unconventional fairy (mikami hiroshi) appears and sends ken back in time, giving him another chance to do things differently.
if you think you know how this goes, you'll probably be wrong. ;) i certainly was. fortunately, against my expectations, it was unusually well done, not at all formulaic, and it managed to surprise me until the very end.
ken is shy, emotionally clumsy, and often slow to clue in to emotional undercurrents. especially when it comes to rei, who's carried a torch for him pretty much since they met in elementary school and he shared his eraser with her. but rei, who is usually quite outspoken, never quite manages to tell ken truthfully how she feels either; instead she covers up by teasing or nagging him. both have accumulated a lot of regrets over missed opportunities.
as he stands in the back of the room at her wedding reception, he recognizes that it's all coming to an end, that with her marrying they won't be together as they have always been. it's one of those "you don't really know what you got until you lose it" moments. it pretty much breaks his heart, and he wishes he could go back in time and do it all over -- and that catches the attention of the fairy who thinks him so pitiful that he (yup; male fairy, and not at all tinkerbell-like) decides to grant him his wish.
the plot device of sending him back in time is a slide show of pictures depicting important moments in rei's life, put together by their mutual friend mikio. ken is in almost all of the pictures, and rei does not always look happy, so many of those pictures indicate times when ken disappointed her. the fairy can let him go back to the day a picture was taken, so he can try and do better than he did back then. he doesn't have much time; at the moment when the picture is taken, he gets pulled back to the wedding reception. let's not talk about believability of the mechanism, shall we? ;)
ken is pretty chuffed, convinced he'll be able to change history so that rei won't get married, if he only says/does the right thing at exactly the right time instead of disappointing her. but it soon turns out that for one, his personality and habits of so many years are not easily changed, and for another, that any single, small change does not necessarily change the final outcome.
i was expecting a light romantic comedy with ken going back and redoing a number of things, and that changing the outcome to rei and ken happily riding off into the sunset -- but that's not what happened. in fact as we progressed through time (the pictures are in chronological order from earliest to latest) i started to think that the outcome might not be what ken wanted at all. he does change some things, mind, he does better than he did the first time around, but still, he fumbles just about every chance he is given, because even with the best intentions he is not able to turn himself from a shy, clumsy guy into a person who grabs life with both hands at crucial moments. he keeps waiting for just the right time to tell rei of his feelings, and inevitably something interrupts, and he gets sidetracked for too long.
there were times i just wanted to grab and shake him and yell at him to GET WITH IT, because whenever he does get a chance to talk to rei he always hesitates until it's too late, and usually he can't make up his mind what to concentrate on, his own situation with rei, or the various misfortunes that befall friends of his. i kept wanting him to do better, to think through what the best thing to do would be, to damnit, COMMUNICATE BETTER, but he just didn't. it was frustrating (i could understand rei pretty well). but his choices also showed that underneath that totally dorky and clueless behaviour, his heart was in the right place; at times he sacrificed his own opportunities to help his friends instead, and he was more concerned with making rei happy than he was with furthering his own interests. when he had a chance to get between them, he even helped the man whom he knew rei would marry -- because he empathized with him, and it was the right thing to do. for me, this became a show much more about friendship and personal growth than about romance. because while ken can't change himself from one moment to the next, he does grow, he does learn, and he does a lot of things right.
honestly, if i were in his position and got tossed back in time to a few minutes before an important moment, would i actually do better? could i change that much? more precisely, could i have changed that much at 23? maybe today i could, but then? probably not. i was still so stuck in many ways, and it took much longer to free myself from really stupid inhibitions. so i stopped being mad at ken, and just watched him continue to do his fumbling best.
so yeah, it's a show about friendship -- not just about ken and rei, but also about mikio and eri and tsuru, who're the kind of friends anyone might have; nothing special, even a bit annoying at times, but always there with you, creating the sort of memories you'll look back on fondly when you're old and grey. and it's a show about perseverance; not giving up no matter what the odds, and how hard it might be, because if it's worth fighting for, it's worth giving it your best -- even if your best might not win you the prize. both seem to be perennial favourites in japan, and concepts where i connect well with the culture.
i thought it was touching and heartwarming. there's no big melodrama, no epic win, and no villain -- tada (fujiki naohito), the man rei is marrying on that day, isn't at all a bad guy, but very supportive and caring. one can easily see rei be happy with him. and maybe tada is even a more suitable match for her than ken, with whom she always bickers and is so often frustrated. as it turns out late in the show, tada is in fact a pretty amazing guy.
and while i bet a lot of people weren't happy with the ending, i actually like it. those who want something more shmoopy will want to watch the special, which takes place a year after tada and rei's wedding reception. the focus of the special wasn't to my liking, and the last shmoopy bit actually felt fake, but i also don't think this is a winnable contest, *heh*; specials are probably always doomed to not be as good as the show to which they're an afterthought.
the acting was quite decent; nobody was really horrible (well, ok, there are again a couple of people meant as pure comic relief, plus the inevitable cross-dressing guy, and they grate on me as usual, but they don't have much onscreen time). yamapi is a bit more stoically mopey than i would have liked, but less so than in kurosagi, and well, it fits the character, so i am ok with it (and he can't help that he has pouty lips). nagasawa masami has more expression than he does, but that could just be the character; she was good in any case. mikami hiroshi as the fairy was fun; i'll look for more shows with him.
highly recommended if you're in the mood for a romantic comedy that's not made from the same mold as so many, and if you don't mind fan subtitles, of course. the translation (by "love song") is clumsy in a lot of places (really, guys, 事 does not translate to "stuffs"), but it's good enough to understand, and i didn't notice any really serious mistakes.
iwase ken (yamashita tomohisa) and yoshida rei (nagasawa masami) have been friends from elementary school through university. rei is about to get married. ken, who is attending the wedding ceremony, is filled with regrets that he never expressed his true feelings to rei while there was time, that he naively thought they would continue to always be together. just then a somewhat unconventional fairy (mikami hiroshi) appears and sends ken back in time, giving him another chance to do things differently.
if you think you know how this goes, you'll probably be wrong. ;) i certainly was. fortunately, against my expectations, it was unusually well done, not at all formulaic, and it managed to surprise me until the very end.
ken is shy, emotionally clumsy, and often slow to clue in to emotional undercurrents. especially when it comes to rei, who's carried a torch for him pretty much since they met in elementary school and he shared his eraser with her. but rei, who is usually quite outspoken, never quite manages to tell ken truthfully how she feels either; instead she covers up by teasing or nagging him. both have accumulated a lot of regrets over missed opportunities.
as he stands in the back of the room at her wedding reception, he recognizes that it's all coming to an end, that with her marrying they won't be together as they have always been. it's one of those "you don't really know what you got until you lose it" moments. it pretty much breaks his heart, and he wishes he could go back in time and do it all over -- and that catches the attention of the fairy who thinks him so pitiful that he (yup; male fairy, and not at all tinkerbell-like) decides to grant him his wish.
the plot device of sending him back in time is a slide show of pictures depicting important moments in rei's life, put together by their mutual friend mikio. ken is in almost all of the pictures, and rei does not always look happy, so many of those pictures indicate times when ken disappointed her. the fairy can let him go back to the day a picture was taken, so he can try and do better than he did back then. he doesn't have much time; at the moment when the picture is taken, he gets pulled back to the wedding reception. let's not talk about believability of the mechanism, shall we? ;)
ken is pretty chuffed, convinced he'll be able to change history so that rei won't get married, if he only says/does the right thing at exactly the right time instead of disappointing her. but it soon turns out that for one, his personality and habits of so many years are not easily changed, and for another, that any single, small change does not necessarily change the final outcome.
i was expecting a light romantic comedy with ken going back and redoing a number of things, and that changing the outcome to rei and ken happily riding off into the sunset -- but that's not what happened. in fact as we progressed through time (the pictures are in chronological order from earliest to latest) i started to think that the outcome might not be what ken wanted at all. he does change some things, mind, he does better than he did the first time around, but still, he fumbles just about every chance he is given, because even with the best intentions he is not able to turn himself from a shy, clumsy guy into a person who grabs life with both hands at crucial moments. he keeps waiting for just the right time to tell rei of his feelings, and inevitably something interrupts, and he gets sidetracked for too long.
there were times i just wanted to grab and shake him and yell at him to GET WITH IT, because whenever he does get a chance to talk to rei he always hesitates until it's too late, and usually he can't make up his mind what to concentrate on, his own situation with rei, or the various misfortunes that befall friends of his. i kept wanting him to do better, to think through what the best thing to do would be, to damnit, COMMUNICATE BETTER, but he just didn't. it was frustrating (i could understand rei pretty well). but his choices also showed that underneath that totally dorky and clueless behaviour, his heart was in the right place; at times he sacrificed his own opportunities to help his friends instead, and he was more concerned with making rei happy than he was with furthering his own interests. when he had a chance to get between them, he even helped the man whom he knew rei would marry -- because he empathized with him, and it was the right thing to do. for me, this became a show much more about friendship and personal growth than about romance. because while ken can't change himself from one moment to the next, he does grow, he does learn, and he does a lot of things right.
honestly, if i were in his position and got tossed back in time to a few minutes before an important moment, would i actually do better? could i change that much? more precisely, could i have changed that much at 23? maybe today i could, but then? probably not. i was still so stuck in many ways, and it took much longer to free myself from really stupid inhibitions. so i stopped being mad at ken, and just watched him continue to do his fumbling best.
so yeah, it's a show about friendship -- not just about ken and rei, but also about mikio and eri and tsuru, who're the kind of friends anyone might have; nothing special, even a bit annoying at times, but always there with you, creating the sort of memories you'll look back on fondly when you're old and grey. and it's a show about perseverance; not giving up no matter what the odds, and how hard it might be, because if it's worth fighting for, it's worth giving it your best -- even if your best might not win you the prize. both seem to be perennial favourites in japan, and concepts where i connect well with the culture.
i thought it was touching and heartwarming. there's no big melodrama, no epic win, and no villain -- tada (fujiki naohito), the man rei is marrying on that day, isn't at all a bad guy, but very supportive and caring. one can easily see rei be happy with him. and maybe tada is even a more suitable match for her than ken, with whom she always bickers and is so often frustrated. as it turns out late in the show, tada is in fact a pretty amazing guy.
and while i bet a lot of people weren't happy with the ending, i actually like it. those who want something more shmoopy will want to watch the special, which takes place a year after tada and rei's wedding reception. the focus of the special wasn't to my liking, and the last shmoopy bit actually felt fake, but i also don't think this is a winnable contest, *heh*; specials are probably always doomed to not be as good as the show to which they're an afterthought.
the acting was quite decent; nobody was really horrible (well, ok, there are again a couple of people meant as pure comic relief, plus the inevitable cross-dressing guy, and they grate on me as usual, but they don't have much onscreen time). yamapi is a bit more stoically mopey than i would have liked, but less so than in kurosagi, and well, it fits the character, so i am ok with it (and he can't help that he has pouty lips). nagasawa masami has more expression than he does, but that could just be the character; she was good in any case. mikami hiroshi as the fairy was fun; i'll look for more shows with him.
highly recommended if you're in the mood for a romantic comedy that's not made from the same mold as so many, and if you don't mind fan subtitles, of course. the translation (by "love song") is clumsy in a lot of places (really, guys, 事 does not translate to "stuffs"), but it's good enough to understand, and i didn't notice any really serious mistakes.
no subject
on 2011-02-16 08:40 (UTC)Aw, I reckon that's an awesome translation! :-P
(There is actually one Korean TV show that's a bit frustrating for me because the subtitles are too good: being better English it makes it harder for me to follow how the Korean original is put together.)
no subject
on 2011-02-16 09:53 (UTC)hm. thinking back on learning other languages, i actually don't know that bad subtitles ever help me, even when the word order is the same. i think at the stage at which they might, i don't really understand the new language enough anyway, and just listen to the sound. and a bit later, when i do understand some phrases i don't really want to get those expressions into my mind with a crappy translation.
i'm always fascinated with how differently people learn. ;)
no subject
on 2011-02-17 08:06 (UTC)