Kimi ni Todoke

At first as I was very hesitant to watch it because I am not sure if this live-action's Kazehaya can top Haruma Miura on the movie's Kazehaya, but this live-action was so on point with the manga and the anime that I was so happy.

I loved the manga and the anime first so I am very grateful that they made a live action series out of it. All the casts gave justice to the characters and did a very good job expressing themselves. My feelings and reactions were very much the same back in 2006 when I started reading the manga and it's as if I was watching Kimi ni Todoke the first time. Thank you Netflix!

Ever since seeing young actor Oji Suzuka in the Japanese drama Silent I've been searching out everything else I can find that he has done, dramas and movies, because I think he is wonderful! I found From Me To You with excellent English subtitles and began watching it, and was so touched by the sweet wholesome story of two very different teens falling in love with one another against all odds. I actually watched it twice in a row because I missed all the characters so much when it ended. I sincerely hope they make a season two. I would love to see the characters working at their first jobs, being successful, getting married, and experiencing the joys of youth and growing maturity. This drama reminded me of what Korean dramas used to be like two decades ago when I first started watching them. True wholesome love stories that are unforgettable. Today too many of them are dark themed and I can't watch those. If I want to see dark themes I can put on the nightly news! When I go for entertainment I want to see sweetness and light.

It's my favorite japanese TV series. Beautiful plot, good actors, perfect in their roles, especially Ryu Sanada (great casting); the direction is more than good, and the musical accompaniment is centered and delightful; even the places where the events took place are attractive and perfect. Too bad it's only twelve episodes long, but perhaps this allowed the authors to keep the quality high without having to resort to unnecessary fillers. It doesn't seem to want to adhere to the most common reality of things, it seems rather the romantic vision of a female point of view, yet it's so beautiful as a whole that once you get to the end, you're sorry it ends. I want to recommend it to romantic souls looking for an optimistic vision of life, a clean and sincere story and that like to have characters that are easy to get attached to.

I'm a fan of both the OG manga and anime so I have some specific and biased opinions based off of those comparisons.

It's cute and fluffy enough to keep most romance-lovers entertained, especially those who are not familiar with the source material. For those who are, there are absolutely some things that may be lacking (as they were for me).

The lead actress plays Sawako well, but is absolutely gorgeous, at no fault of her own. However, Sawako is supposed to be a rather plain and ghostly-looking girl, with much of the plot pulling from that. Kazehaya is supposed to be extremely charismatic and I think they could have portrayed that better.

Larger than these smaller nit-picks though, is the humour that I feel was completely lost from the manga and anime. There were many truly adorable and funny moments that were lacking from this live-action adaptation. The attempted light humour that does exist in this version doesn't hit the mark for me at all.

If you're looking for a light and easy endearing high school romance, it still works. But if you haven't seen the anime, watch that first!!! Or even read the manga if you're feeling up to it. The anime is on Netflix though, so easy-peasy.

As the summary says, watching this live action series was like watching a Cliff's Notes version of the story. It's very high level with little detail, so it's hard to fully buy into any of the characters' emotions or motivations. Fortunately, I had just finished the 38 ep, 2 season anime series, so I knew a lot of what was going on in the background, at least for episodes 1 through 7. Once the series got to where the anime series ended, everything seemed rushed and a bit confusing, which stands to reason when you consider they were averaging 5 anime episodes per live action episode. This series definitely would have benefitted from being either a full 25 episode season or two 13 episode half seasons. I don't want to spoil anything, so suffice it to say that there are some character relationships that seem to come out of nowhere, and are really tough to accept, because there wasn't enough time to develop them, which is a shame. Still, it's a nice slice of life/coming of age story.