Hatsukoi (2022)

A contemporary take on 90s melodramas that doesn't quite capture what made the classics great

Before someone complains to me that I should be judging the drama on it’s own merits rather than comparing it to 90s melodramas … it’s clear that this drama was attempting to be a 90s-style melodrama; an updated version of course, but the fact that it was inspired by Utada Hikaru’s “First Love” is enough to indicate what the main influence was, even without all the other elements adapted from the genre (major plot lines, emphasis on the idea of fate, etc.). This is also why I think it's misguided to criticize this drama for having a cliché story; that's literally the point. Personally, I feel it was only partially successful in making a contemporary version of the classic genre.

I have to say that I was hoping this would feel a bit more like 90s melodrama than it did. It does have the plot of a 90s or early 00s melodrama (you have to wait until the end of episode 3 for the melodrama to kick in), but the tone and atmosphere of the drama was a more contemporary take on the classic melancholy that was a bit too mellow for my taste. I have really enjoyed some dramas with very mellow atmospheres, but a melodrama really ought to have more painful angst. It was also strangely lacking in dramatic scenes … and I don’t mean that I needed hair-pulling or anything like that, but everyone just seemed so calm all the time. I think they were probably trying to update the genre by giving it more understated stylings … I’m not sure it entirely succeeded. I definitely believe it’s possible to convey a rollercoaster of emotions with subtlety, but in this drama I sometimes felt that I was on a kiddiecoaster instead.

The one aspect of the drama that 100% worked for me was the storyline portrayed by the younger versions of the leads. The youthful romance was so cute and charming, and I really enjoyed the dynamic between the younger actors (Yagi Rikako, Kido Taisei). Those parts were also set in the late 90s and early 00s, which means they had the most classic feel. But this is not to say that I think the contemporary setting was the biggest problem with the storyline of the adult characters; the more recent storylines seemed slightly bland or a little lacking in depth at times. I don’t think this was the fault of the actors (Mitsushima Hikari and Satoh Takeru were good) as much as the writing (Kanchiku Yuri). We probably needed more interactions and relationship development between the older versions of the leads, because there’s only so much you can rely on a backstory played by different actors, especially when that backstory happened 20 years ago and the people concerned have changed drastically in that time. Although there were a few scenes that did really work for me, more often than not I felt the 2018 storyline had little impact (the last couple episodes in particular were pretty underwhelming; rather than a heart-wrenching climax, it was just … meh). The amount of focus the story placed on the son’s romance with the dancer girl didn't help either. Although I think this drama had quite even pacing, there were times when it felt slow (and this was always in parts with the older actors), because I wasn’t equally invested in all aspects.

I’ve seen a few complaints about how the flashbacks were done, but personally I think the nonlinear storytelling was executed quite well. It managed to reveal the past gradually over the course of the nine episodes without leaving the viewer feeling as if they’re missing necessary background information that had not yet been provided at any point. It also managed to draw some parallels between the past and present, so the flashbacks often seemed to have purpose beyond just dumping information on the viewer. Although they used more than two timelines, I never found it confusing.

Though this may be somewhat a matter of personal taste, I wish the soundtrack (Iwasaki Taisei) had used more classic ballads, either from the 90s and 00s or new songs written in that style. I think perhaps they avoided this so that Utada Hikaru’s “First Love” would stand out, but old dramas typically relied a lot on their music for their atmosphere, so using a soundtrack of predominantly more contemporary music took away from the classic feeling. This is not to say the music was bad, but I think there’s not much that can replace a poignant ballad if you’re looking for emotional impact, and emotional impact was often just the thing this drama was lacking. The way the music was edited into the drama was done very well, though.

The cinematography (Shinde Kazuma, Nakamura Junichi) was beautiful; almost certainly the most gorgeous cinematography I’ve seen in a J-drama.

Overall, this drama was well-made, and although I would have liked to see it bring out the classic atmosphere more, others might be happy that it leaned more towards the contemporary style. Emotional poignancy is the aspect that I really found to be missing. It was there at times, but not throughout. Unfortunately, some aspects of the story were rather lackluster, so despite certain moments that I loved, it didn't leave as lasting an impression as I think I think it had the potential to.

Content warning: There was a really random, out-of-nowhere sex scene (I think in episode 5?), and there was zero reason it needed to be as explicit as it was.

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Captivating story that made me feel stuff...

This is the type of drama that will both keep you on your toes, and make you fell stuff... a lot of stuff... As we follow several people in several timelines giving us just enough to not be too confused but not enough to figure out the whole story letting bit by bit unravel as we go along. What we do know is that the two main characters were each others first love and that they somehow drifted, got torn, splitt, ended... All spiking my own curiosity.

The leads both young and less young are lovely, fun, relatable, human basically the type you want to get to know better and can not really get enough of. Their chemistry is great, their interactions both playful and deep Very well preformed as they managed to convey a whole lot of different emotions.

The kids in this drama ara adorable and so are most of the family bonds seen here and there, with the exception of a mother or two who I would gladly have shoved off a cliff. I truly loved the rest of the characters and wished them all happiness. Though I got to see mostly pain, and a bunch of life does not always turn out the way you want it kind of deal. I found myself rather relating to them and did not find myself overwhelmed by it but rather found it real in a way or as real as it can get, it is still a drama based on a song. The story is told in such a way that all the characters come off as real humans, with real fears, emotions, inner conflicts... and so on and so on...

One of the supporting characters has a hearing disability, she is there to move the story along, show us glimpses of the past and be part of the build up for the main characters she also gets to be portrayed as a caring sister, a mother and a lover giving us some deaf representation done right.

I love the OST in this and am fascinated by the idea of adapting a song to a drama, I do not think I have seen anything quite like that before.

To sum it up this is for the romance lovers out there who enjoy a mystery, and can take a bunch of pain, slice of life realism... And not a story for those in need of joy and fluff, so if you are just looking for fluff step away and look for something else. And though I did not fully cry I did get the lump and a tear so if you are sensitive you may just want to have some tissues nearby.

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"First Love" its a fantasy, isn't it?

Takeru Satho really needs to move on from committing to merlodrama scripts that involve his character's love interest suffering from amenesia (like his movie 8 Year Engagement had this same thing)
Cinematography becomes that one standout mark of this show that I cannot help but continously sing praises of (it was preety much evident from the trailers that they will excel in this department)
The plot sure is slow but its steady, could have been easily compressed into an 7 ep show rather than 9, the first 2 episodes are hard to sit through cause the story is building it's plotline causing it to feel slow but don’t quit because everything gets better from ep 3
Has few "cliché" tropes but that isn't underwhelming because "clichés" are called "clichés" because they work like a charm. The show is at it's strongest in the final 3 episodes.
The actor who played Young Harumichi is by far the strong link of this show, like his acting outshined Takeru Satoh's in some scenes and that is an achievement if you ask me (as if his acting wasn't an help already, he had to looks cute as well).
Takeru and the female lead actress both being veteran actors really benifit the acting department, there are few moments that come out to be sooo impactfull, solely because the actors gave it their all in making it look as if it happened in their own lives.
One final thing, they should raise bar of the age rating from 15 to 17+ (you'll know why I suggest this once anyone who decides to watch this is almost midway into the show)

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You can never really forget your first love

I loved the series. This is the first time I am actually writing a review for anything on this site. But when I finished watching this, it filled me with so much joy that I had to write one.

Story
It is about first love, which is kind of obvious from the title. But there are multiple plotlines covering this theme. It is about the young Yae and Himarumichi falling in love but also in recent times about Tsuzuru and Uta. I loved that the name of every episode ties in with the general theme of that episode and they show it visually. The cinematography, story and soundtrack are a great blend. There are nostalgic times and there are also moments about youth finding their path. It is not the most original story out there and is full of cliches. But I really enjoyed watching it and it made me smile.

Acting
I was originally interested in this series because of Satoh Takeru. I love watching him and I think he generally has good taste in choosing scripts. This one didn't disappoint either. I loved the whole cast. The main couple was utterly fabulous but their younger versions were the surprise factor for me. They were really good as well. The actor playing Tsuzru did an amazing job of balancing the young broodiness without turning out to be a jerk.

Soundtrack
The series is based on two songs which they used pretty well throughout as well. They have made me fall in love with the 'First love' song. I am definitely going to be listening to it on loop for sometime now. The other songs and background score were also pretty seamless and fit the scenes well.

Overall
Loved it and will definitely rewatch at a later date.

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The Best Rendition of Love I've Ever Seen

I've rated nearly 300 shows/movies on this website throughout the last few years but I've never felt more compelled to write a review. This show is incredible. It's not the most fast paced and exciting and I can understand if somebody doesn't like this sort of thing, but if you're looking for a story about love, this is it.

The story centers around two people; in present day as well as how they first fell in love in the past. Each episode revealing layers like an onion to show how things came to be. Great acting by all of the main cast, particularly the present day female lead. It doesn't feel like a show, but rather a real snapshot of a love story and how it unfolds.

If that's what you want to see in a show, it's simple really. This show is it for that kind of thing. I teared up quite a bit. Not sure if I would watch a 2nd time, but just phenomenal the first time.

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CLASSIC

A classic love story that will never be boring no matter how many times you watched it.
I love how they mix between the past and present to not boring us and gives us explanation on each moment that we’re wanting to know.

Takeru Satoh never disappoints us in any of his project choices. He did deliver the emotions really well.

Thought that we will be getting a tear-jerking classic love story from the start until the end, yet it’s a perfect combination of both sad and happiness in a drama.

The OST is really suited the drama well (well it based on the song afterall) BUT i really like the OST so much.

WOULD REALLY RECOMMEND EVERYONE TO WATCH THIS EVEN ONCE.

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Comfortably sad

You know when you look at some old photos and you just feel sad? That's what First Love:Hatsukoi made me feel from the very first episode to the last.

Even though there were funny moments, happy moments, this series always has this feeling of comfortable sadness all the time.

To be honest, this drama doesn't really offer much story-wise. It uses a clichéd plot device, but for me, they managed to make it work. The cast did a phenomenal job; they really made the characters feel alive.

The cinematography was absolutely beautiful. Love the use of the color blue, its adds to the ever-present feeling of sadness.

Anyways, this drama is great. Highly recommended.

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technically perfect drama with a weird definition of complex male lead character

i might be very late to the party but… yeah. i had been so excited for this, and i’ve been hearing absolute positive reviews from everyone. so yeah i admit i kinda have a high expectation for this. sigh i guess my expectation is a little bit on the higher side.

don’t get me wrong, i still love this jdorama aight. technically, i love everything about this jdorama. the color palettes, the cinematography, the frames, the acting, the chemistry, the scoring, the sound design. the technical aspects are all perfect. one thing that bummed me out is how they tried to potray the character Harumichi as a complex character, which he actually ISN’T. to me, he’s JUST a coward who clearly cannot move on from his past.

and in the process of finding his past, he abandons his present self. and abandoning his current relationship too wtf. like…. Tsunemi shouldn’t have gone through all of that, you bastard. i truly feel so bad for her like 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

he’s afraid to let go of tsunemi while still holding on to yae as his unfinished past smh. well at least they condemn his wishy-washy feelings for both women as he actually avoiding both and went abroad. i was going to be so freaking mad at Yuri Kanchiku if she ever did make Harumichi immediately go back to Yae after he broke up with Tsunemi. thankfully, she didn’t do that. she still made Harumichi feeling guilty.

anyways… i feel like i need to talk about the younger generation actors and actresses. THEY’RE REALLY REALLY GOOD WOW. at some point i think Taisei Kido’s performance outshoned Takeru Satoh on some of the scenes. he’s really REALLY good.

btw i expected i would get puffy eyes for all the angst and the crying. but surprise, surprise, i did not cry that bad lmao. rather than crying, i just feel so bad for Tsunemi and feeling rage for Harumichi’s wishy-washy feelings. i do cry at some points but rather than crying about their love story, i cried cause of their personal story instead. it’s just so sad…. especially Yae’s 😭

there’s this one moment when Yae said her life is like a rocket that failed its mission to mars, and now the rocket is just going everywhere, floating without purpose. and im crying so hard at this scene mannnnn 😭😭😭😭

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Romanticizing cheating is a huge no no for me!

I still remember the first time I watched Titanic and how it felt. Rewatching it several times gave me the same amount of heartbreak and jitters despite knowing the ending. Logically I know there was a good chance the ending could have been different yet it never stole the thunder of the movie for me. My emotions were still very strong.
I want to compare this experience it to this drama where the production, acting and music were superb to be compared to a classic. The initial 3-4 episodes I felt the sense of longing along with the characters. Though the story of a poor divorcee mother and her lost love is no unique plot, I was still invested in the episodes. Somewhere in the middle the story collapsed and it was just so bad I couldn’t like the show anymore.

As many had already mentioned, using amnesia as a breakup plot device is overdone. Since nowadays I have watched a lot of dramas where “going to US” is a trendy breakup point, I certainly didn’t mind amnesia. Just she has been dating him for ages and everyone knew about it, obviously they would have pictures, mementos etc etc and it just didn’t made sense that she never found out about him.

Women are women’s worst enemy was evident in this drama as apparently every woman around Yae was there to create distress. Her greedy mother who passes the entire time safely for hiding such information and never been confronted upon. The MIL was just too disgusting and I want such people to rot in hell (wont waste my words on her). Her ex- husband was a wuss, mumma’s boy and cheater combined in one. I wanted him to face some kind of backlash and was so annoyed when he got a happy ending.

Harumichi’s love triangle was a tough one. I personally hate storyline that sugarcoats cheating. And when he cheated on her fiancé before their wedding, that moment I was completely turned off by the drama. I wanted to sympathize with Tsunemei’s character but girl had no backbone. Instead of standing up for herself, she threw herself into a marriage to avoid breakup at any cost. Please its 2023 (2022 for drama) for God sake can we please get some brainy females characters already?! I am tired of such characters where they throw themselves to support dickheads in the name of love. She should have left a long time back when the guy was running from commitment. The nuance of the “first love” was totally destroyed because of this.

The teenage romance between the son and the dancer was so-so. Coming to the main couple, the titanic scene was very cute. I liked how they spent time on their individual journey apart from the romance. However, they had very few scenes together and it was mostly in flashbacks. The young romance was good enough. The transitions, again as everyone mentioned, was too chaotic sometimes. There were barely any romantic moments between the older couples. She regaining her memories was underwhelming and the events following that was so cliché.
All in all, I don’t regret watching it but won’t recommend it to anyone. It could have been great if they worked on the logic in the script and had more balancing elements to suit the melo theme.

P.S. The random sex scene and Harumichi’s pilot scenes were cringy in my opinion. It was just added to make the hero look cool and didn’t suit the down to earth vibe of the drama at all.

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When love meets fate.

Every episode is about 1 hour and I spent all 9 hours in 1 day!

It's a beautiful story.

The back and forth scenes between the past and present are leading us to deeper feelings toward the characters and their stories.
What happened in the past, led us to the present. The choices we make in life, will take us to certain results.

I laughed, cried, smiled, blushed.. in whole 9 hours.

Being young is being in simple love, being pure, spontaneous, having fun and believing that all dreams can come true.
While being grown ups means love can be complicated, life is about making decisions, and dreams sometimes can't be accomplished.

First love, is something you'll remember forever. The love itself might be faded, but the feeling of having first love would stay.

Some people says that when you really love someone, even if you have amnesia, you would fall in love again when you see that person.

This drama shows you that. In beautiful way. I love it.

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Cliche... pensive for like 5 minutes...

The whole memory loss thing... why do writers still use such overused, cliche plot events??

Sooo... she gets her memories back. And she's so chill about it? She doesn't tell anyone? (I HATE WHEN CHARACTERS DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT A HUGE LIFE CHANGE IN A SHOW!!! SO UNREALISTIC) She doesn't contact Harumichi or confront her mother. Also, Harumichi's a bit of a slimeball. Poor Tsunemi, she is forreal just cast aside. He uses then dumps her.

This obsession with first love in so many dramas is lowkey depressing... life is a bountiful and diverse experience, through one's youth to their death. Love and meaningful experiences can be found and had at any age. Some people find their person at 45, 50, 80... no need to put love in youth on a pedestal.

I did like how Harumichi was like are you going to full send and go after what you want from life, or follow life's tail wind? or whatever. I was like so true. So many tail wind moments. She just finds him in a small Iceland airport? Why do dramas always have such a rushed lazy ending? They're so slow with development the entire show then cram a ton of stuff into the last episode. Like pace yourself...

Tsuzuru's music bangs though.

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For the million time I was deceived by the high rate

This drama was the worst ever
I couldn't push myself more to watch more than 03 episodes
Then I fast forward the episodes
The story was very slow pace
The events were disarranged
The plot was lame,boring and shallow
Sexual disgusting scenes literally with no need
And doesn't serve the story at all

The young couple
the FL acting was so bad

The directing was extremely bad and annoying
Jumping from present to past suddenly which make you confused
The flashbacks was disarranged
It took me a long time to figure out that the two couples (young and adults) were same but present and past
At the beginning I thought they were different couples in same period

Nothing encourages me to enjoy it even the comments or the high rates

Good luck for those who want to watch

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