One thing that's definitely gone over-saturated in the medium is how over-the-top and over-dramatic everything is acted out. Sue, it makes for bugger stakes, larger-than-life storytelling, however, in today's world, there is so much like that's it's daring to stumble across an unassuming, unadulterated adaptation like Kimi Ni Todoke.

Kimi Ni Todoke is an innocent, wholesome, and pure romance told through the lens of a high school outcast, Sawako, buried deeply under stacks of rumors and deep-fried gossip. And you know how superstitious some of those remote rural Japanese towns can be. Until that is, she meets this pleasant, loved-by-everything high school sweetheart, Hazehaya, who breaks through the social cage keeping the FL away from any meaningful interaction.

The synopsis seems generic enough to pass you by in an instance, however, the approach and the execution are what kept me engaged. This is a family-friendly showing of innocent, coming-of-age romance with no vulgarity to show. Not even a single kissing scene and you know what? That's fine, in fact, it's what makes it stand out in my opinion because even without any intimacy of that kind, the direction of the movie makes it work, and beautifully so.

What drew me originally to watch this is Tabe Mikako herself, I'm so in love with her acting, she has such a way of expressing emotional frequencies through her talent as an actor but nobody told me I was in for discovering such an amazing male lead, Miura Haruma who stole my heart in this role. Unfortunately, I was hit by the news of him dying a couple of years earlier at such a young age of 30 too.