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feeling: ...
listening to: old Recomen
I've decided that, since the post I was putting all my J-drama reviews in has gotten so long, I'm going to just create a new post for each new review I write (or batch thereof), and subsequently label that post my J-drama master post and add links for all newer reviews to it. Soooo, the first victim of this new system shall be...
Sekai no Chuushin de, Ai o Sakebu
Roughly translated to Crying Out Love from the Center of the World. From all I heard, this is supposed to be one of the saddest J-dramas of all time, and as such it's extremely well-known. Personally, though... I didn't really see it.
The whole idea of the story is that this guy, Matsumoto Sakutaro, is looking back on himself in high school 17 years ago and recalling his first true love, Hirose Aki, who died of leukemia. No, I didn't spoil anything with that. That much of the story is told flat-out in just the first couple minutes of the first episode. And every episode is set up the same way - Present Day Sakutaro is trudging through his daily adult life, STILL a miserable shell of a human 17 years after Aki died, on some kind of "mission" to find the perfect place to scatter a little vial of her ashes. After a few minutes of this, he stumbles across something that reminds him of something that happened 17 years ago in his life with Aki, which leads to the flashback portion of the episode (which is the majority of its length, of course). Then somewhere in the middle it cuts back to the present for a few minutes, then back to the past, then back to the present again at the end of the episode. Every episode is the same format and you already know the girl is going to die; it's just a matter of how long they can drag it out.
I'm not saying the drama is bad, though. It's well-made, with some gorgeous camerawork and scenery, the actors are respectable, and I'll admit it - the way they built up Sakutaro and Aki's relationship really made you feel that they genuinely, truly loved each other. It's sweet and pure, and almost actually makes you hope they'll have a happy ending, despite knowing what's going to happen. When Sakutaro cries for her, it feels real. So that part is well-portrayed... but it doesn't really cover for the overall predictability. Maybe it's just me... I like to be kept guessing in a drama. Having something new to discover in every episode, or whatever.
Guess that's all I have to say about that one. My next one will be Maou, which I am watching in real time for the first time in my J-drama viewing history. Which means 1) no subtitles, 2) getting up by 9 every Friday morning to catch it in my time zone, and 3) it'll be another 10 weeks or so before I see the end and get to babble about it. Oh well. I could watch Zettai Kareshi in the meantime, but something about the idea of watching two drama series at once makes me twitch. Might change my mind though. Waiting for Maou #2 is already making me edgy.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 7/06/2008 11:44:00 PM
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