Hajimete Koi wo Shita Hi ni Yomu Hanashi (2019)

A Reverse Harem packed with study tips!

There are two ways to look at this show, one, it is a reverse harem story, with a female protagonist who is so dumb at relationships that you might feel the need to break the fourth wall and flick her head and two, it is such a motivating show filled with study tips and quotes, that you might wanna drop everything and start studying or working towards your dream. And I was very much fascinated by the latter part that I graciously ignored the former aspect, howsoever, the cliched and outlandish romance of a teacher and student. Although she waits till he joins Todai, it was just too unrealistic for me. I might wanna rewatch this again for the numerous motivating quotes.
I really loved the "Happy Birthday" by Back Number which depicts the sadness and yearning of the Male lead.
Overall, it is a very enjoyable show given that I haven't found the substitute jdrama which gives so much motivation to excel in life.

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List of Favourite quotes
1. What are you going to do if you can focus only when you’re comfortable? A human brain can’t understand the word “no”.
2. Life being hard is not the same as being unhappy. You both worked hard in your own way. There’s no point in comparing like that.
3. People who’ve worked hard in sports, people who’ve studied hard, people who worked hard finding their purpose in life, people who’ve worked hard to make their parents proud, and people who’ve worked hard to overcome loneliness. Everyone takes the same exam and your result determines your path. That’s what makes it an exam. There are no excuses.
4. Raising your score is like going on a diet. You don’t just raise it a little bit at a time. If you reinforce your foundations and keep practising, you’ll see a drastic change one day. It’ll come even more drastically if you haven’t studied much before so look forward to it!
5. This world isn’t always filled with good people, but if you keep trying, I promise you’ll always find people who will become your allies.
6. But regardless of work or something else, as long as you’re striving to reach the top, you’ll always have to make tough decisions.
7. Your dream will come true if you work hard. That’s not something I want to lie about. Everyone is working just as hard but only a fixed number of students can pass.

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I admit, the first time I watched it, it was super cute and I was in a romantic mood, and it just seemed so enticing.

But guess what, people, there's still the insane craziness of a high schooler falling in love with his tutor who is FOURTEEN YEARS older than him. Only in fiction would this ever be remotely thought of as okay. In real life, it's not okay, will never be okay, and shouldn't be okay. If he was 24 and she was 38, yes, probably, because at least then he's an adult. But he's barely 16 when they meet. It doesn't matter that Junko is the most clueless female lead on the planet. It means I don't hate her, but it doesn't make it okay.

And I wholeheartedly disagree with folks who want to pretend this is just a drama for entertainment purposes. Entertainment shapes our thinking and before you know it, we've compromised. So no, despite the cuteness of the drama and the actors, this drama is not okay. It's helping to spread the lies that relationships between students and teachers might be fine under certain circumstances. Which means it's actually lowering the expectation of child protection.

In a real-life circumstances, Junko and Yamashita would have been together because they're the only actual LOGICAL match. And he would be so damn easy to fall in love with for practically any woman. She wouldn't have been such a nitwit, and she would have caught on to Yuri's feelings long before and set him straight or found him another tutor. But nope, we're in dramaland which means reality can sometimes take a break at the door, like in this instance.

I wanted to keep loving this drama, but I can't. Which depresses me slightly, but is also freeing in that I can now discern what I will accept and won't in dramaland based on my own moral center.

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Hajimete Koi wo Shita Hi Ni Yomu Hanashi or commonly known as "A Story to Read When You First Fall in Love" to us international fans is a 10 episode drama, based on the manga by the same name. On the surface, it would seem like just another 'love square' or a 'revere harem' themed story. However, there is more to this series than meets the eye. It is a drama that tackles the concept of pursuing one's dreams and doing whatever it takes to reach those goals. Plus, it further explores the theme of love and loving someone despite the age barrier.

Honestly, I loved everything about this drama: the plot, the cast and their chemistry, production and even the OST. The only aspect I wasn't a huge fan of was the ending. The ending despite being complete seemed a little incomplete. Part of reason behind my dissatisfaction was because it all seemed unrealistic and left me wondering whether things would truly work out the way they have planned. In my view, it would have been better and even practical if the drama had explored this aspect as well before giving us the 'happily ever after'. Other than this, I don't have many complains nor could I find any major flaws.

Overall, I loved this drama and even found it very motivating (being a student myself). I know many of us were/are hesitant to watch this drama because the 'student-teacher relationship' tag but let me reassure you that this drama does NOT romanticise nor involve paedophilia. So do give this light-hearted drama a chance and I'm sure you won't regret it.

Enjoy the Drama :)

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Exams, lots and lots of exams...

This is a drama about the failed 32 year old who is a pretty cool adult but way, way, way to obsessed with getting a guy with pink hair accepted to the University of Tokyo... Bringing new meaning to the idea of it takes a village to raise a child and apparently it takes half of them to try to get one delinquent to get accepted in to the University of Tokyo. Or just one obsessed lady with a pretty smile and a bunch of people who will do pretty much anything to see that smile of hers.

Unfortunately the plot gets both repetitive and draggy,...

The male leads are all interesting, the female lead is a blast and her bestie has a charm of her own. However it is just not enough to keep me interested trough out the endless ups and downs of exams...

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A pleasant surprise

I've watched this show a couple of times and have really enjoyed it. The acting was good, the characters were interesting and it was a nice change from the long, drawn out Chinese drama or the angst-filled Korean drama.

I know that some people had a problem with the age difference of Harumi and Yuri. I didn't, mostly because I felt that she was very immature, and he seemed to be very mature for his age. I think the Asian cultures can get away with wider age differences, because you can't tell what age they really are, and they age so well.

Let's start with Harumi. She was a mess. She called herself a failure, everyone else called her a failure and I think that, in a way, it became kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy. I think there was an element of her being desperate for Yuri to succeed because she wanted to live vicariously through his victory. I thought the writers overplayed the back problems - sometimes she acted more like an 80-year-old lady, walking in an ungainly way with a cane (yet still wearing high heels at times!). And could she BE any more clueless about the men that like her?!?!

Yuri - I loved that they gave him that beautiful pink hair. He was all hard edges until he started working with Harumi. He was, for the most part, very unemotional, which made the steamy looks he gave Harumi so special. And the couple of times he cried I really felt for him, because you know he had to be in the depths of despair to have that kind of reaction.

Harumi and Yuri's relationship was, for the most part, platonic. I would have liked to have seem more romance, but I think the writers played it that way because of the age difference. The obligatory separation toward the end was short-lived: I really appreciated that they didn't drag it out over a couple of episodes.

Masashi and Yamashita, both interested in Harumi. I didn't feel that Masashi deserved her, he wasn't strong enough to tell her how he felt. Yamashita had some issues of his own. I really liked how the writers wrote the three main male characters. They all wanted her love, but they still supported each other when needed, and didn't resort to dirty tricks.

I felt the same way about Eta Mika, the student that liked Yuri. She was upfront about liking him, but they didn't make her an evil character. I really appreciated that.

Miwa, Harumi's best friend, was lovely. She was trying to help Masashi as best she could, she was always supportive of Harumi and wanted her to be happy, and I loved when she decided to try and help Yuri. I also enjoyed her taking Yuri's friends under her wing and trying to teach them about group dating.

I especially liked that the writers didn't use either of the storylines that I was afraid they were going to use 1) evil young girlfriend making up a story about an inappropriate relationship between Harumi and Yuri 2) Yuri's father getting Harumi fired because he thought there was something going on between them.

I thought this was a fun, light, easy and enjoyable show to watch. It's one of those shows that you can watch between the more intense shows.

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It has been a while since I watched a drama so sweet and makes my heart flutter! Might be the casts' visuals but I have not fast forwarded any second and I binged-watched all episodes in a night. Character development is on point, how both Yuri and Junko came to realize their feelings towards each other... though really unrealistic in this modern world, somehow it just manage to make my heart flutter like a teenager-in-love again. 100% recommend if you are into romance, high school, pure love genre.

The music is nice too. I am addicted to Black Number's Happy Birthday. The lyrics fits so well too!

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One of those dramas I actually wish I didn’t watch

Out of the three potential relationships, one is paedophilic, an other features ‘fun’ moment of non-consensual sexual touching, and the other is incest. The female lead had potential to show a woman who isn’t perfect trying her best, but they made her so emotionally unintelligent and 1 dimensional. The biggest growth for her character is between episode 1 and 2. I genuinely was almost unable to stomach the second half of the show, but kept going because I just couldn’t believe they were actually going to make the final decision they did.
Lastly, if like me you despise watching a character that is so nice (to the point of self-destruction)and that deserves to be happy getting treated like dirt, then you will not enjoy this at all.

If you can stomach watching a 34 year old woman consistently lead on an emotionally-vulnerable child because she’s so dopey (but also maybe not) and prefer your dramas to disappoint you with an unintelligent and frankly stupid ending after promising better, then you might like this.

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The cutest romance I saw so far aka Hajikoi

Hajikoi is a drama that got me interested right away. When I watched this it felt so fresh and nice, the plot was flowing nicely and I was just really enjoying the drama and all it's surprises.
Right away when I started the first episode and the character of Harumi Junko appeared I literaly fell in love because damn the girl is so pretty! But despite her pretty looks Harumi is unlucky in both life and love. She was sometimes so clumsy but also she wasn't scared to speak up for herself and others at times, but mostly she was the perfect teacher for Yuri-kun that was an terible student at first but he improved with time and the help of Harumi. With time not only the studying spirit got stronger. There was another feeling that Yuri-kun found in himself. Love for Harumi.
The process of it went slowly and I loved all the stages. The jealousy of Yuri-kun and another male protagonists Masashi and Kazuma, the process of finding out what's going on for Harumi and then long hesitations. I really enjoyed the love triangel here, it was sometimes very chaotic but it added the right spice in the drama.
I loved how Harumi saw herself in our hard-trying Yuri and how helpful she was to him. They were great pair as student and teacher. And I think it was beautiful how Harumi confessed her feelings to Yuri-kun at the end.
Hajikoi was surely a good drama to watch!

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Dense and clueless is cute?

The Story To Read When You First Fall In Love is the title of a book Harumi, the FL, throws down in anger and is really seen for the first time by Yuri.

Harumi is, by all japanese standards, a failed individual. She was a smart studios pupil who failed to pas the prestigious Tokyo University entrance exam. She failed to get a good job and she failed to get married. Now she is 32 years old working without enthusiasm as a tutor in a low level cram school.
Yuri is a pink haired 16yr old high school student who is just waiting to grow up by sleeping on the desk in the worst high school. His father, in the last attempt to have him graduate at least from high school, takes him to Harumi's downtrodden cram school. Harumi is angered by the way he speaks of his son and throws the book down while telling the father off. Yuri is impressed and decides to start studying but only with Harumi. Because it was love at first sight for him.

Harumi is a woman lost, looking for the purpose in her life. Yuri gives her that and while teaching him, she starts to change as well. But not fast enough. Basically she's a sweet but completely dense, she's always been incapable of seeing what is right in front of her. There are three (maybe four) men in love with her and everyone around her noticed it except for her. While her being so dense was cute and adorable at the beginning it quickly became annoying and I kept wondering why do the man still insist on pursuing her!. She's rather straightforward, sweet and helpful, holds no grudges and does not really see anything bad in anyone. She is oblivious of other people's feelings though she is quick to see if someone is troubled (bullied etc.) and is quick to help: she is very clairvoyant in these situations. When it is about romantic feelings, she is totally ignorant! But she still lives with her parents and a huge fluffy dog (by far the best character in this drama!), she is pretty but dresses as a 50 year old spinster who had never dated (which is definitely her case!), wearing frilly blouses closed at the neck with huge ribbons. But on feet wearing stilettos. And some strange, asymmetrical coats. Ugly! On the other hand the pink haired guy was cool. Such an odd, unlikely pairing which probably will not last long: youthful arrogance will be soon replaced by adult reality!

While I was watching this, I liked it less and less as the story progresses. I kept saying to myself, it is a japanese drama, they are usually different, they tackle taboo themes, they are weird and original, you should not judge.... Still I could not help myself: the noona romance was not convincing enough: teacher/student and mother/son relationships were what I saw. And I love noona romances and have no problems with age differences but it did not work for me here. There are too many taboos broken by this drama for it to be convincing enough: 16 years age difference, a first cousin in love with Harumi, a divorced teacher who sacrifices his own happiness for a student....no, this was so wrong!

Apart from the FL and her three suitors, there was an interesting cast of support characters. Yuri's school friends were a strange lot: on the surface delinquents but not really. Supportive and kind and fun. Harumi's best friend Miwa, a no nonsense bar owner Harumi and her cousin both confide in. The parents were there as well but they worried more about work and exams than the romance. And of course, teachers in cram schools!

The drama surreptitiously denounces the exam system in Japan and the pressure parents and society puts on the young to succeed showing at the same time that you can be successful even if you do not go to top schools. It all depends on you!

I had another problem with this drama, apart from unconvincing pairings, which was the perceived length of each episode. Let me explain. Each episode is about an hour long. There are a lot of things happening, nothing is ever boring, no useless and superfluous events. And still I had the impression of extremely long episodes, like over two hours long. During the episode I kept checking the time stamp and repeatedly being surprised by how much I had left to watch; Such a weird feeling!

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This drama was one of the best Jdramas I've seen so far. At first, I thought it would be your usual easy and uncomplicated "a student falls in love with his female teacher" story but, boy, was I wrong. It was really, truly amazing!

Why?

Because Junko was very much aware of the fact that a) Kyohei was her student, b) he was underage which meant no, never, not in your dream, it's illegal, I'm not doing it! and c) she was much, much older than him - 16 years! - which she never let him forget and even after he turned 18 and after he got accepted into the Todai university and after he openly confessed his feelings for her, she made sure, double sure, triple sure that he knew what he was doing, getting involved with her, what it would mean, their age gap among other things, she made sure he actually thought it through, that it wasn't just some boyish crush or temporary fancy. That was fantastic!

And because the friendships were just ah-amazing. Like between Junko and her nightclub owner friend Miwa - Miwa was always first and foremost on Junko's side! Or Kyohei's "delinquent" friends - the way they wholeheartedly supported his drive to get into Todai, the way they defended him against their schoolmates when his politician father got into trouble! And then Kyohei, Masashi and Yamashita!

The relationship among these three was simply fantastic. They were all rivals for Junko's attention but both Masashi and Yamashita really supported Kyohei's dream to get into Todai, they helped him and they took care of him - and when Junko rejected them, both Masashi and Yamashita stood by Kyohei, they wanted Junko to get together with him, they went as far as actually telling Junko to choose Kyohei and warning her that she would regret it if she didn't...

And the ending!!! That was *chef's kiss*

It was so good! It was inspiring and satisfying and there were no truly bad characters in this, just flawed people who learned and grew and it was fantastic to watch!

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Two full semesters of developmental psychology flashed before my eyes as I was watching…

And with that, I just could not with this romance. That said, the drama was still extremely entertaining and fun to watch and had a lot of other great elements working for me quite well.

What I loved about it was the whole supportive community around Yuri - each and every character trying to help him, putting aside their own feelings. It was heartwarming and extremely enjoyable to watch. I especially loved his interactions with two 2nd male leads.

I also appreciated Harumi Junko in the context of her work - slowly learning how to enjoy what she does, what her strengths are and how she can motivate her students to strive for improvement and enjoy learning.

Sadly, it was hard to watch her in terms of romance. Being indecisive when you don’t know how you feel about people around you is one thing, but with her, she knew she has little to no romantic interest for the guys, yet still did not set proper boundaries for quite some time. Not only the truly questionable age gap (the romance became legal literally almost at the end of the show), but also the female lead’s personality made me not really interested in her journey to a happy relationship. Not to mention the lack of chemistry between her and the male lead.

The acting was quite good. It’s a rare case when the cast truly matches the age of the characters they are playing (we all know that mid 20’ actors usually play all the characters in the late teens to 40’), which helped a lot with creating a realistic portrayal.

I don’t really have much to say about the production - it’s a rom-com and it fits the standards of the good quality one.

Overall, it works better as a motivational and heartwarming slice of life than romance drama.

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Gokusen but cheesier

More than the cheesy teacher-student relationship, I like how the story focused more on showing how Japanese education looked like. How people prepare and value it which impacts their moral compass. I find it very interesting and inspiring. As for the romantic side, the characters were dynamic and the love among the main leads slowly developed. It came out naturally and not forced. The actors just have that top tier chemistry despite the age gap in real life. I have watched a few Japanese dramas of the same theme and this is the most refreshing of all. Scenese were not depressing while situations were logically relatable. I like how it was able to balance the romance and the educational content. It’s like Gokusen but more cheesy and has lots of exams ❤️

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