Inu to Kuzu (2023)

This story revolves around three people who were highschool friends, Sakuraba, Reika, and Shinji. What I liked about the story was that there wasn't any unnecessary scenes and the way the story progressed was exactly how I wanted it to be. The story makes you feel confused in every turn but also were able to make things clearer for the bigger picture. I was constantly saying "Huh?" and "Ahhh" . While things confused me, my initial thought on how the story progressed were on point. You can really predict which is which but the constant turn makes you think otherwise.

For the acting, Reika's loneliness and mysterious aura were perfectly acted. Mihara Ui were able to portray Reika as cheerful and as lonely as Reika would be. Kura Yuki did great in portraying Sakuraba's inferiority complex and anxious demeanor. Both of them had great delivery of speech and their facial expressions especially whenever Reika's whole aura change. Her eyes and expressions were able to pull me. Shinji's actor made it easy for me to have bad feelings for Shuji but at some point his delivery can feel flat. But it was good overall

I liked the OST, "Liar Life", which was the outro song. When it comes to these types of doramas, their outros usually hits hard.

I might rewatch this again, just to have a different POV, wherein the twists weren't twists but a secret that Reika was holding.

Overall, this is a story that makes you confused but still I liked the story even though I rarely watch thriller dramas/movies. I liked the acting of FL and I might check her other projects.

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Not a love story...

Two boys meet at a playground and since then are often together. Both can't communicate well. One is "docile" and bullied a lot - at least at the playground and the other is a "cool" boy but void of emotions. That's a typical J-Drama, full of misunderstandings and poor communication. In highschool they meet the same girl, and the "docile" boy falls in love but again no communication. The "cool" boy says bad stuff about the "docile" boy, but he seems to be jelous of his love and so he takes interest in the girl and after university they marry. You may think it's a love triangle, but it's not. And then all the bad stuff happens.

While the story is not as good as it could have been, it's consistent and logical. The acting is top notch, I guess you can say it's not natural and a bit over-acted for dramatic effect, but all chars are still believable. Camera, Lighting everthing was very good too giving this series a special vibe (which gets a bonus point in my rating). I would have wished, they would have expanded on the flashback as boys to see if the "cool" boy was always an asshole especially to the "docile" boy, but we will never know. For me it had some bromance vibes surpressed by the "cool" boy.

Overall a vey good show, but nothing "entertaining" in the usual sense.

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