Koi no tsuki

First of all, if you're coming to this drama after Kdramas, like I did, be prepared to be a bit shocked and surprised. The love/sex scenes would never make it to Korean dramas.

Other than that, this drama deals with a fictional, out of the ordinary love story. All the actors did an amazing job. There are many issues presented, mostly about what's supposed to be the definition of a successful/adequate adult and about living life on auto mode versus being creative/out of the norm.

I'd just like to make a note after reading some of the reviews. There are still countries around the world that marry off their kids at 12 years old or maybe even younger. This fact is real. This drama is fiction. Choose what upsets you most. Personally I saw it as an allegory of how even though we grow up, some of us find adult living and expectations overwhelming. And even in cases where we do know what we want and don't want, these might be contradictory and require a different perspective/effort in order to fit in with the rest of the world.

Imagine the storyline where the sexes are flipped. In other words, the lead character is a 30-something male, bored with life with a steady girlfriend, who decides to have a fling with a female high schooler. I'm not sure which culture would find this premise acceptable.

But for some reason, as long as the lead character is female, then it's OK and we go into a fantasy storyline.

As depicted in the story, the female lead is just bored of the mundane life she's leading and so goes looking for a hot, underaged pickup. Again, imagine if this was a male lead--any sympathies then?

Then we get into the psychologies of the various characters. I cannot fathom how the 30-something female lead acts like a 30 year old. She's more like a stunted 20 year old. Unhappy with life, she is not able to talk with her boyfriend about their relationship issues and instead decides to have a fling. Doesn't this sound more like what a high schooler or college couple would do?

As with many J-dramas these days, the original story came from a manga series that's geared towards young female audiences. Hence the main female lead feels like a 20 year old.

J-dramas in my experience always mean some sort of cliché-adhering, trope-involving affairs, mixing romantic themes and coming-of-age themes, etc., that moset of the time barely make it above the cut.

This show however really struck me as departing from all of that and honestly presenting a premise of: what if a 30y+ old girl got "stuck" in her relationship that seemed to not go nowhere and met someone who's 15y old and made all her life feelings in question? It's naive and dramatic on so many levels, starting with the age gap, but sadly if you're like me you can relate to the dimension of being older and seemingly all the sparks of life are diluted into nothingness and though you're not even 40 you feel like you're dead... SO... this one premise really moves you.

Together with all this, the cinematography on this show is WAY above average. In many of the multiple 25 min episodes I felt like I was watching a masterpiece movie from a respected cinematographer - this never happens on an american TV show. It's a TV series that feels like a succession of very good quality indie movies with great taste.

It may start as just another japanese romantic show but it's incredibly WAY more deeper than that. So many things nowadays purport to be "feminist", whatever that means. Besides all that I've written above, this show has got to be one of few times I felt something true about that. Highly recommended.

One of the best dramas i seen in a very long time. The cinematography, music and the main leads makes this drama something really special and memorable. It makes you feel so many emotions and you feel for the characters. This was movie quality and the best Jdrama that has come out. I wish more jdramas looked and was written as good like this drama.

Japanese storytelling is characteristic to be downtempo. There are no big plot twists on it. Instead, they focus on concrete feelings or fears and they develop them. This series is not the exception. But the way in which it is told and how the story grows with the main character, Wako, is really engaging. Wako is a woman on her thirties that is concerned about marriage, having a child and having a job. She's in a solid ground but that doesn't make her happy. She wants to turn around her life but she fears to lose all and never get to that situation again. That's because she's getting older and, in the context of the Japanese society, it's every time more difficult to fulfil those goals from scratch. When she feels surpassed, founds a way to escape from that difficult reality, which to society's standard point of view can result disgusting. In fact, these ignominious situations are really well portraited on the series, being sometimes difficult to keep watching since you are observing the moral decadence of a woman, but in the other hand, it's overwhelming to see her neverending pursuit of happiness.