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Naho and Hitomi are living in the rural Japanese town of Ibaraki and are more than just classmates. As Naho gets the chance to fulfill her dream to become a K-Pop Idol in Korea, the talent agency forces the 16-year-old to cut ties with her girlfriend. Set back by Naho’s ambitions, Hitomi tries to find ways to deal with her feelings. Continuing their lives in two different worlds, Hitomi is able to transition the grief into a loveable act of farewell that leaves both of them on good terms.

Farewell, Saranghae, Farewell is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

Korean director Sunhye Hong, who won the grand prize at the Japan New Screenplay Competition for the feature screenplay “Mountain Fuji is Watching Us”, delivers a heartfelt love story about the hardships of growing up. The graduate of Japan Institute of Moving Image portrays the cold mechanism of the K-Pop...

Over the last three years, Netflix has steadily expanded its Young Adult (YA) slate across the Asia-Pacific region, including the recent premiere of its first YA series in Japan, Chastity High.

The streamer’s YA slate includes school dramas like India’s Class and Kota Factory, Korea’s Hierarchy, Australia’s Heartbreak High and Japan’s youth-focused romance drama Drawing Closer. Themes revolve around high school life, academic pressures, relationships and self-discovery.

The streamer announced in May that Heartbreak High will be renewed for a third and final season. The first season debuted at number six on Netflix’s global top 10 English series list in September 2022, remaining in the list for three weeks. The second season also ranked in the same list in April 2024.

Netflix’s first YA series in Japan, Chastity High, ranked in the streamer’s global top 10 list for non-English series in the first week of September,...

Imagine being in a school where every move you make is watched, not just in the classroom but even outside of it. Coming from an all-girls school myself, I know it very well. The rules were strict, especially when it came to interacting with boys. Even at events where boys from other schools were present, we had to follow a strict code—how to sit, how to dress, how to talk—always polite, never show any romance, or there’d be consequences. It might sound like something from medieval times, but that was our reality. Now, Netflix’s new series Chastity High dives into a similar world. It introduces us to Asuran Academy, a school that recently went co-ed after years of separating boys and girls. But with this change came even stricter rules, laid down by a principal Ikushima, who was dead serious about maintaining discipline. No romance, dating,...

Chastity High is the story of a girl who is battling her own circumstances and who becomes a victim of the absurd and oppressive policies made by her school. The narrative seems stretched, and I believe that the writers did not need 8 episodes, with a runtime of 50 minutes each, to say what they wanted to. I personally didn’t find the plot to be interesting or intriguing, and moreover, the conflicts failed to capture my attention. I mean, even if you skip a couple of episodes in the middle, you wouldn’t miss out on much. So, let’s find out what happened in Chastity High season 1 and if our protagonist is able to overcome the obstacles that come her way.

Spoiler Alert

How did Ichica become the Love Keeper?

Ichica didn’t come from a very affluent background. Her father had left her and her mother with a lot of debt,...

Things really went out of hand at the end of Chastity High season 1. Ichica was not able to undermine her own feelings. She fell in love with Maki, and her first instinct was to suppress her emotions, as she knew that she didn’t want to get expelled from her school and spoil her own career. But with time, she realized that it was not fair for the other students to go through that ordeal. Their private lives were being violated by the school when, lawfully, they didn’t have the right to do so. So let’s find out what happened with Ichica, what she decided to do, and what we could possibly expect from her if there is a Chastity High season 2.

Spoiler Alert

Why did Ichica sue the school?

During Chastity High’s ending, Ichica finally (after 7 long episodes) decided to sue the school. Her photos with Maki had been leaked,...

With a new season comes a new batch of TV premieres, from returning broadcast favorites like “Abbott Elementary” and “Found” to long-awaited streaming releases like Prime Video’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 2 and Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4.

Broadcast TV’s fall slate is full of spin-offs and prequels, including “Young Sheldon” spin-off series “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” and “NCIS” prequel show “NCIS: Origins,” both on CBS. The fall broadcast season will usher in several new leading ladies, including Kaitlin Olson on ABC’s new dramedy “High Potential,” Kathy Bates on CBS’ reboot of “Matlock” and “The Golden Bachelor” alum Joan Vassos as she leads the inaugural season of ABC’s “The Golden Bachelorette.”

On the streaming side of things, series set to make their debut before the end of 2024 include Netflix’s “Emily in Paris” Season 4 and “The Perfect Couple,...

Even though Japan is mostly known for its culture, technology and its hard-working individuals, we often forget that such a strict society has its costs. At times, the country can be pretty conservative, especially when it comes to its youngest members. The new Netflix series Chastity High the first Japanese YA series from the streamer centers around a school where students are forbidden from engaging in romantic relationships. The story is allegedly based on real-life events.

Apparently based on real-world events in which a Japanese school was sued by a pupil after it banned romantic liaisons between students, “Chastity High” is poised to be Netflix’s first young adult series from Japan.

The series, which premiers on Aug. 29, takes a glimpse into a world where a prestigious high school bans dating between students and chaos follows. Some students rebel against the school rules, while others expose one another.

Produced by Robot Communications, the series follows two students, portrayed by Mikami Ai and Miyase Ryubi.

One is a so-called Love Keeper, who uses her wits to secretly help other students caught violating the no-dating rule. She makes money in the process, helping her hard-working single mother pay for her tuition. The other, the son of a governor, seeks to escape his abusive father and sees the love keeper’s mission as a means to earn the money he needs.

Look, there’s no way around this: August is a slow month for TV, and Netflix isn’t any different. Splashy fall TV is right around the corner, but August seems best designed to catch up on some of the best TV of the year so far that you may have missed.

It’s not a total wasteland, however: “Emily in Paris” returns this month for Season 4 Part 1. The internet loves to make fun of it, but the dreamed is truly one of the best brain-dead shows to watch when it’s too hot to do much of anything else. Lily Collins wears the most amazing outfits! There’s lots of kissing! Why do you think you’re better than it?! Much like other recent Netflix hits such as “Bridgerton,” “Emily in Paris” Season 4 will be divided into two parts, with Part 1 dropping August 15 and Part 2 debuting a month later.