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Kimi ni wa Todokanai. japanese drama review
Completed
Kimi ni wa Todokanai.
3 people found this review helpful
by jpny01
Apr 28, 2024
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 5.5
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 1.0

Wasted Time

I'll start with a positive - the actors are really cute, and the guy playing Ohara is talented, with good subtlety of expression, and his eyes are beyond stunning. The guy playing Yamato is less impressive, although I doubt that's his fault as he was clearly directed to act like a manga character, which didn't work in live action. It rarely does.

The writing is abyssmal, stuffed with every possible cliche, and lazy beyond belief, with EVERY SINGLE important conversation or almost-kiss interrupted, often by the very people trying to get them together. This happened several times per episode, to the point I stopped caring and wondered where Godzilla is when you need him.

When everything is driven (or rather tha brakes applied) by ridiculous, contrived external events, some unbelievably coincidental - as if Tokyo is so small that you can't go anywhere without running into someone that wil ruin your relationship - there is no character development or organic development of the relationship, which was already there because of the childhood friends cliche. The only thing about this that I liked is that Yamato knew Ohara liked him, but consciously tried to deny to himself that he knew because he was afraid it would mess up their friendship.

I get that this is a chaste high-school drama, but there's a point where something is so devoid of heat that it's hard to understand why they should change their status as best friends. There are a couple of kisses, which were awful and destroyed by the obession with cliches, so that Yamato always had to have his eyes wide with shock, even when he was expecting to be kissed, which made it come off as vaguely non-consensual - not so much so that it was disturbing, but it left them totally without any quality that made it something I wanted to watch.

This is frustrating and ultimately boring and is the last JBL I will ever attempt to watch. I would pass, altough most otherpeople seemed to like it.
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