Kimi ni Todoke: Llegando a ti

Oh well, k-dramas are something that westerners may become accustomed to, however Japanese movies/series may be a little too much. If you are educated in this spirit, you may very well end loving this series, because it's genuine, sentimental, powerful, visually stunning (a characteristic of Japanese movies/series). If you liked it, I strongly recommend 5 cm per second (oh well, it's an anime, but a very powerful one). Don't expect for one second a westerner type of show. Oh, no! It's a completely different artistic approach, with lots of introspection, genuine feelings exposed in a shocking way, and a completely new culture. I loved the show!!!!

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.

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.

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!

If you havent read the manga or watched the anime it might seem kinda fast and the characters might be kinda confusing at times. The manga ran for 30 Volumes and 123 chapters and even the anime had 36 episodes but only went to chapter 47 so 12 episodes at 30 minutes a piece doesnt really do the story justice. If they would have made the episodes longer and added more from the manga I think it would have been perfect.

At the end of the day it is a live adaptation of an anime so it can be pretty hard to nail certain characters and how they act in certain scenes. I feel like its a double edged sword. Either you follow the character to a T and the acting is a little awkward at times or you have to change the character a bit and potentially more to fit how real world people act which I feel like can be tough. I do feel like they had a good mix of both in this and were able to portray the characters how they were portrayed in the manga/anime pretty good.

All in all, I feel like they did a really good job with this show and the actors fit the character pretty well. Wish certain scenes that were pretty big in the manga/anime were also included in this but oh well.

Loved the show!