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I really enjoyed this, I hope you do to.
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Let's start with the things I liked. First and foremost, I appreciate that the growth of the characters (from High School to College) was paired with a bit more emotional complexity when it came to sentimental conundrums. The side characters, which I liked a lot in the last season, were a delight again in this one, but mainly for three new additions: Natsume, played by Sugino Yosuke, Saeko, played by Takahashi Maryjun, and Nanase, played by Sagara Itsuki. Natsume might have been my favorite character from the whole season, but the other two were also very interesting, and here lies my main problem with this drama: the side characters seem more like leads than the actual leads, for the narrative of the story, because a lead isn't made of likability or charm, it's made of development and action.
While the main leads, Nao and Uehara, go around in circles and have issues that always end up being resolved by going back to where they started, it's these side characters the ones that are put through tests that develop their personalities and make them evolve in the story. These side characters are allowed to make mistakes, which are seen as mistakes by the story, and learn new things to end up in a different place than where they used to be in the start. Natsume has to go through a very interesting path between falling in love and being loyal to his best friend by acknowledging that his best friend is making bad choices regarding the girl they both love; Saeko faces what might be her first real love while managing her career and dreams and trying to fit both in her life and Nanase has to choose whether to tell the guy she loves how she feels or remaining friends, knowing his heart possibly lies elsewhere. These situations add a level of narrative complexity to what we had seen in the previous season, following the age of the characters (and maybe the target audience) with issues and questions that are also more grown up. That, like I said, I'm very appreciative of.
The leads, though, I can't say much for them. I feel that because of the need to keep this trope alive and to keep these two in the dynamic that is so popular with romantic dramas (happening since the days of Hotaru No Hikari or Hana Yori Dango and remaining nowadays), they lose the agency to change and evolve as characters. The issues in their relationship are mainly about self-esteem (which is a topic that transcends these two, it also involves Natsume, Saeko, Nanase, Marina and Mitsuishi), but the ultimate idea, as stated in the drama, it that "trusting the other one loves you is more important than trusting yourself", which I'm absolutely not fond of, but regardless of my personal opinion on the idea, what it does for the story is that the changes and actions that Nao and Uehara do are incredibly small compared to the rest of the characters, which shouldn't be so because they are the leads. They do have issues and they do make choices, but remain more or less in the same places without having to change much at all.
I feel that this drama has the intention to go much further but ultimately the need to keep this trope alive, as well as the "will they won't they" (which should have been dust by now by having them in an actual relationship, but remains there because that's their dynamic), is setting it back. There are ways of making them evolve without changing the essence of their character dynamic, but I don't feel the drama achieves it.
Ultimately, I really like the dimension of the characters and the fact that, finally, we've moved past this "I hate this girl because the guy I like likes her instead" and we have a lot more complex and realistic relationships, where friendship is explored just as much as romance, for the male and female characters, and that's a great thing to see indeed and worth the watch.
If you liked the first season, I'm sure you'll love this one, and if you didn't, maybe give it a chance because it has a bit more in store than you'd expect.
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Pointless
It was such an achievement to somehow make this even worse than the first season, mainly because it's completely pointless. Characters have zero developement personally, you don't learn anything new about them, side characters of the 1st season are not as much in the picture and the only plot device used in the whole series consists on chucking some new characters to the main couple to create drama.I'm not sure if they actually used anything from the Good Morning Kiss manga (the sequel to Good Morning Call) to make the 2nd season but generally it's just nothing like the manga, at least not the first 4 volumes (the only ones in English), where they are mostly planning to get married and they have already been together for about 5 years.
I found most of the characters introduced very annoying, especially Saeko and especially when she was having a tantrum. Generally they all acted very childish for being university students, and in fact in the manga there is progression in terms of maturity with the characters at that point, they could have explored that in this series but they just decided to keep it as superficial as the first season, or even worse. I don't get the point of Nanase, totally plot filler. Thing is though, they had the chance of exploring the crush Ota had in Abe in the manga, but instead they just did whatever that was between Nanase and Daichi.
When Natsume started having the feelings for Nao I rooted for him really, he was so much nicer than Uehara with his single emotion face and paired better with Nao. I knew it was not going to happen at all, but I almost wished. Sadly though, they couldn't even do that well and made Natsume super pushy later on. How is it that basically Natsume and Saeko push the main leads to break up and suffer absolutely no consequences for their actions, they're all super dupey friends in the end like nothing happened. It was so weird to watch the whole thing.
This whole second season was a plotless filler of bad writing and main leads are exactly the same than when it started, Nao has evolved zero and Uehara only managed one smile.
I can't recommend, even worse than the first season.
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Story:
I feel that since this season was smaller, they started the storyline and went all-in with it. The first season felt like it had filler at the end but this one had a solid pace and the latter half is very on point. This season also felt a bit more serious than the first one with a lot more tense moments.
Acting/Cast
Personally, I really liked the cast. They bring back most of the actors from the first season and added four new characters. Personally I liked all the new characters a lot with Rin being my least favorite of the new ones.
Music
I think the music was played in good places and the music flowed well the scenes.
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Right of the bat, it's definitely not one of my must-see dramas or something that was really enjoyable. I kind of felt obligated to finish it because I've admired the first season a lot. The biggest problem might be that the plot is just too similar to Itazura na Kiss, literally. There are so many non-coincidental similarities in both of the second seasons of these two dramas. And I'm such a huge fan of the Mischievous Kiss franchise, I felt betrayed that Good Morning Call was a rip-off of the original series. I do see some positive things in this series though. For example, the main male lead Uehara had a better attitude in this season, it made me enjoy his character a bit more. Well, Yoshikawa's character was kind of unbelievable, seemed unreal to me. To add, I though the cinematography had improved a lot in this season too! You could see that the budget was higher to draw more people in.
But overall, with many negative and small positive things, I still rated this an 7* because it was fun and the story seems timeless. I only recommend watching season 1 if you haven't seen this series yet. Season 2 was a waste of precious time in my opinion.
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The second season was suggested to me on Netflix and I decided to give it a shot because it's the Holidays and I'm at home being a bum. I'm legit so happy I gave the second season a shot! Basically it's a vast improvement from the first season. The characters feel more real, the acting is a lot better and more believable, and I weirdly found myself rooting for the female protagonist! I absolutely adored her character growth this season and watching her become the character she became at the end was such a treat. Heck even the male lead and his character growth was wonderful to watch! Their acting as they mature into adults and fully understand their love for each other was the highlight of the last few episodes.
Be warned, the Second Lead Syndrome is SO powerful in this one. Good God the second male lead was such a gem! He had me rooting for him till the very end. What a delightful character.
All in all, I definitely recommend this. Even if you are turned off by the cold male lead-clingy and hopelessly romantic female lead trope, don't let that deter you. This show isn't what you think it'll be in the best way possibly.
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It's actually better than its rating here
Sometimes I skip all reviews and just watch the drama I want to watch. In the case of Good Morning Call: Our Campus Days, I am so glad I didn't read all of the negative reviews first. I loved it WAY more than I thought I was going to! I thought the first season was ok, but the second season hooked me almost from the beginning and then on to the end. I thought the acting was better, the writing was tighter, the characters were more developed, and they were less immature than when they were in high school. I loved the addition of cutie Sugino Yosuke as Natsume and I loved seeing characters from the first season like they were old friends.After I finished this, I read the reviews here and (slight spoiler but not really) people didn't like Natsume because he chased after Nao even though she had a boyfriend. But if you paid close attention, you could see that Natsume really didn't want to like Nao - he fought it and fought it, until he couldn't fight it any longer. That doesn't mean that he should have gotten the girl in the end - but it made his character more understandable than I think people gave him credit for.
I was rooting for Uehara and Nao to get their acts together and I think this season showed real growth for the couple. People grow up in fits and starts and none of us were fully formed humans right after we graduated high school - especially ones that basically had to raise themselves. Both Uehara and Nao showed real growth through this season, and I was here for their partnership. Both characters referenced needing to expand their worlds throughout this season - and that is often not easy. They both had to learn how to communicate better (and more often!) but that's life.
The first season was incomplete in my opinion, and that's why I like multiple seasons so much - we had more time to spend with these characters who just needed time to grow up.
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Builds well on Season 1
I enjoyed Season 1, but often found the characters to be very tedious. This, I think, was drawn out and made worse because of the 17 episode season length. I am happy to say that Season 2 does a great job of reducing this tedium and delivery it's story in a much more impactful and efficient way.The new side characters are enjoyable and fun, the two newest most prevalent support characters are both played incredibly well by Sugino Yosuke and Takahashi Maryjun. Although I am sad to say that Arai Miu get's much less screen time this season(she was the standout in Season 1 for me).
I think if you are like me and felt a little unsure of whether to proceed after Season 1 then I think you should give it your time.
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