Star no Koi (2001)

Well, to be honest I am surprised I am writing a review for this. I normally am not appealed to this kind of show but I was hooked onto the first episode, it took me forever to get the rest but as soon as I had them I was pretty quick about watching them.

I felt goosebumps all over several times and I was even inspired a few times. This show is great for someone looking for an innocent love story, the "get together and break up then back together" story line most of these dramas portray was either not found or felt by me in this drama. I felt the actress really played her role well, it was elegant. That was, until I hit episode 10, I literally got so frustrated I just turned it off and walked away. A spur of the moment decision made me decide to finish episode 10 and move onto the final episode, 11. I am glad I did, the last episode was not a let down. I was lifted and thrilled as I watched the last episode, as corny as it may have been, the way they ended it was just so ironic I loved it. I really am glad I finished it.

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I am happily watching one after another of these early 2000's Japanese dramas! This was truly a unique story and did remind you in some ways Notting Hill but the two lead actors we just wonderful together. I am slowly learning what I have been missing. Even though the romances are very toned down, I think the romance is stronger in just the conversations, the looks and the actors feelings as they portray them. I thoroughly enjoyed this drama from beginning to end. There was a time I wanted to choke Sousuke in his ultimate noble idiocy sacrifice but would this be any different than other dramas? I think not. But with only 11 episodes, it will be a quick but enjoyable watch.

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Perfect, Until the End

Prefacing this by saying that I watched this with 0 subs of anykind, though I was able to understand ~70% of the words alone (intuition fills the gaps).

Star no Koi was genuinely an amazing watch, a true diamond in the rough, nearly everything about it was unique about it for the time and even now (especially the camera work, very similar to IWGP) and was on track to getting a 9.5 (10 is reserved in my rating scheme) all the way until the final ~4 episodes.

The story was genuinely interesting through and through, I REALLY liked how Sosuke's work life wasn't immediately cast to the background in favour of the more "special" person (we see this all the time, the higher profile person gets more screen time for their profession, which in turn makes it less "special") and despite it being so average of a job, it was genuinely interesting, same can be said for his workmates who had depth.
This isn't to say Hikaruko's work lacked depth, her profession was equally televised and people like her bodyguard had good character depth.
The thing that immediately caught my eye though was the camera work. Out of all the J-Drama and other Asian dramas I've seen, only ONE, has had a similar out of the ordinary camera work (previously mentioned IWGP) that really added life and uniqueness to the entire experience.

Now for the thing I disliked: the unexplained drama. As far as I know this could be just a discrepancy in my Japanese knowledge, but I really doubt that. First we have the mandatory love triangle, in anime I'm fine with that, not live action, partly because it's more unrealistic, but mainly because it's hardly done right, and this is no exception. Tsubomi all of a sudden fears competition and decides to really pursuit Sosuke after being in the company for x amount of years, yeah ok, and naturally of course she has to state the obvious that suddenly makes the ML reconsider and allow the way for more drama to ensue. Because I'm so used to this trope by now it alone doesn't bother me, but this time it did because of the fact that Sosuke SITS on that fact and misses signals that are more blinding than staring at a solar eclipse, and when practically confronted with it, he somehow manages to gaslight himself into believing otherwise. Doing this made it so painfully obvious they had to pad for time, especially considering this all occurred 2 episodes before the finale. Update after finishing the show: Yeah got even more annoying in the final 2 episodes, because both reasons are related to the climax I won't spoil it, but this one more happening alone dropped its score even more.

Regardless of that, I still think this is a 8.5, the technical aspects of the show saved it (music, top tier acting, camera work, etc.) Along with my general interest in it prior to the final arc and the genuinely funny comedic moments throughout.
If you can understand Japanese then I 100% recommend this show to you.

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Almost Great But Still Sweet

On the surface this is a sweet tale of love crossing the boundaries of class/fame with a Japanese twist.

Much of the action revolves around the workplaces of the protagonists giving it an episodic structure with an overreaching story arc. When it works this a warm and very human love story when it doesn't it becomes trite and a little problematic.

Story: The underlying tale is simple and individual episodes are used for life lessons and moving the story slowly forward. Sometimes the plot gets a little 2D to teach those lessons and sometimes some quite startling anachronisms show up. I found the chap slapping his wife (which of course brought her to her 'senses') particularly hard to stomach.
The addition of a Love Triangle and Noble Stupidity in the last episodes didn't help matters and I found myself just skipping through to finish.
There are though plenty of laughs and sweet moments.

Acting: The two leads were excellent both bringing their characters to life for me. Fujiwara Noriko's Hikaruko had a child like simplicity and honesty which I found endearing rather than irritating., which is quite a feat.
The main support characters played their parts well.

Music: Was OK

Rewatch: Maybe parts of it - or at least the first 8 maybe 9 episodes I don't think I would bother with the last two ever again.

TLDR sweet little take on Notting Hill but showing it's age.

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