This was recommended to me by someone on My Drama List, and boy am I thankful they did! It was also my very first Japanese drama, as well as my first introduction to Haruma Miura (who will promptly be showing up on the Noona Killer list). I thoroughly enjoyed the entire show and really wanted more episodes! I would have been in drama heaven if there had been an episode showing the happy couple after she said yes to the marriage proposal! But even without that, this has made it into my top five favorite drams! I’m still so new to the dramaverse that I’m sure my ratings will change and evolve as my journey continues, and I’m still hesitant to give things a 10. However, I was really tempted to give this one all 10s. I’ve just completed watching this and so I’m riding the good drama high, but I’ll do my best to give a decent review that is only slightly tempered by my utter love for this show. As I’ve stated several times throughout my blog I’m a huge-huge fan of the Noona Romance. This satisfied all of my Noona Romance needs! So far of all the Noona Romances that I’ve watched this is absolutely my favorite! It easily and comfortably dealt with mature themes of attraction and sex. It addressed the concerns and obstacles that face a Noona Romance with great emotion and class. The budding romance between Sakura and Hiroto was so fantastically adorable, sweet, and just the perfect amount of awkward. It had everything that I’ve come to love in my Noona Romances, and all of it was very well done. Sakura was well written and well executed. I really loved that the part wasn’t portrayed as unattractive, they showed her as more just having given up on love and herself. She was both confident and bold, yet naïve and innocent. Sakura’s chemistry with Hiroto was so cute, it slowly built as she let herself fall in love with him. It was so good. The other male lead, Rintaro Tachibana, didn’t quite strike the same chord with me. I thought the role was nicely written, but I had trouble seeing his feelings as love for Sakura. Throughout the show the dialogue kept enforcing that being comfortable with a person could substitute love, but even so I wanted to feel more from him in regards to his feelings for Sakura. I did want to see a little bit more of an initial reaction when Sakura found out about the basis for her relationship with Hiroto. It seemed that she just brushed it off. I’m not saying I wanted a weepy main actress to throw herself into depression or anything, but I wanted more substance to that interaction. The supporting cast of Sakura’s friends and Chiyoko were very well done too. They were solid and interesting characters who I was very interested in seeing what happened. All of their stories intertwined nicely. I like how this drama addressed life lessons/choices that were very specific to women close to forty, and dealt with those issues in a great way. I also liked Chiyoko, well I loved to hate her, but she also grew and evolved on her own journey and I enjoyed watching that. All in all, if you are a fan of the Noona Romance genre then this is an absolute must see! Noona’s Rating Overall: 9 (rated 5 stars on DramaFever) Story/Writing: 10 Cast/Actors: 9 OST: 8 Sets/Costumes: 8 Feels: 10