Dried Flower: Our Room in July (2021)

A poignant love story as short-lived as a bouquet of fresh flowers

I've always looked forward to watching Dried Flower: Our Room in July ever since the cast and plot (Yuuri's songs as basis? Count me in!) were announced, and the drama delivered.

In three episodes, the drama was able to show the beginning and sadly, the end of a relationship. It made quick work of how Kaoru and Yurika met, their relationship developing offscreen, then showing how they decided to go with co-habitation. Their displays of love for each other are simple and endearing that watching their carefully-crafted safe haven slowly fall apart is devastating.

This isn't to say that their feelings aren't valid, though. I understand Kaoru's intentions of wanting Yurika to be happy, and how he felt cut-off with her suddenly leaving, but I understand Yurika as well, with her internal conflict and struggle with how Kaoru doesn't understand her. Both sides have their fault in that they haven't communicated entirely well with the other - communication is a two-way process, after all, but both of their feelings are valid.

Bando and Kana did well in showing the different shades of Kaoru and Yurika - curiosity and enchantment at the first meeting, love and fondness at the peak of their relationship, and the despair and pain at the slow unravelling at the end. Bando and Kana have a really cute chemistry as well that made me see how Kaoru and Yurika fell in love with each other, and tbh after watching this, I want to see more of Bando in romance genres haha.

Yuuri's songs at the end were a nice touch, I've always liked his voice and his songs and I like how they were incorporated into the series. I would like to say that I wanted more, but the length of the drama is just right - no draggy moments, each frame and each event adds to the story.

All in all, like what the title of this review says, Dried Flower: Our Room in July portrays a love story as beautiful as a bouquet of fresh flowers, but like all plants uprooted from the earth, it is similarly as short-lived.

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a beautiful little drama

Asian dramas have proved to me that timidity never moves a relationship forward. And what we have here is one person who voices everything and one person who voices next to nothing. It's tragic. Each of them is equally responsible for the failure of their relationship. I'm not sure who I feel worse for. Probably Kaoru since it hit him like a ton of bricks from out of nowhere. I just really, really wish that they could have talked and that Kaoru could have seen the real Yurika.

As for a rewatch, that's probably a No. Unless I'm feeling really blue and want to get myself into an even deeper funk.

The actors were phenomenal. Loved both Ryota Bando and Kana Kita as the leads. Their chemistry was undeniable and they gave truly solid performances.

And since the music is such an integral part of this drama, I did love it. Yuuri has a great talent for writing clearly tragic and forlorn love songs, and I love that the drama is pretty much based on some of his songs. That's pretty cool and actually filming him in the apartment singing for the end credits of each episode was brilliant.

Dried Flower really is a beautiful little drama, very bittersweet and melancholy, watching the slow decay of a relationship that began with such potential. Even though it makes me sad, I did love watching it. Not all stories have a happy ending because that really is life. It was a terrific way to spend 90 minutes.

And why did they break up? As Kaoru said, "probably because he didn't know why." And that was their problem in a nutshell.

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