Initially, I was very wary on starting this drama, one; because it was made in 1996 and I wasn't sure what to expect, and two; because I was afraid that the story would be butchered.
Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the 90-feel it had, however, I had mixed feelings on the drama itself.
This version of the story/series has very strong points which weren't in the other versions, But, it does have some obvious downsides, so it strongly depends on the watchers preference, whether the good outweigh the bad or vice versa.

The Good:
Naoki, Yuki and Noriko (Machiko) were portrayed AMAZINGLY well in this version.
Unlike the other versions, Naoki seemed to have a bit more emotions, and his feelings were more clearly shown, additionally, Noriko's comments seemed to have some truth in them; "he's just embarrassed" was something I felt was most likely true.
The same can be said for Yuki, despite him being much more of a brat, we did get to see his side of the story, and understand his standpoint through the 'diary' he wrote, and we also got to see how he starts to somewhat like Kotoko.
I absolutely LOVED the relation ship between Noriko, Shigeki and Shigeo, you really felt that they were very close friends, and I really appreciated that they made Noriko part of the 'friend group' in this adaption.

*Small note, I also really liked the reason for Kotoko and Shigeo moving in with the Irie's; having their house burn down sounds much more feasible that having a meteor hit it, ISWAK did a god job here as well with the earthquake.

The Bad:
Quite contrary to the characters mentioned above, Kinnouske, Shigeki (Masaki) and Shigeo were less than good.
Kinnouske was more of a comic relief than an actual person/character with feelings, difficulties and struggles, and was taken very lightly in comparison to other adaptions, which was very disappointing.
Shigeki and Shigeo on the other hand were not horribly portrayed, for one, I really liked their take on Shigeo, but they both barely had a role in the drama, and were also not taken very seriously either.

My other biggest issue with this drama, is that they kept making the romance build up, it went on and on, and finally when the 'climax' happened, it was extremely underwhelming, unlike the other adaptions(I'm guessing its because they stuck to the original story and events), and you couldn't really see Naoki and Kotoko being sweet.

Conclusion:
Lots of people had great issue with Kotoko, but personally I did not mind her as much, I enjoyed the newer "Love in Tokyo" portrayal of her much more, but this Kotoko is definitely not the worst.
Additionally, in this adaption some issues were focused on more, in comparison to the newer adaptions, which I felt was interesting.
Overall, I think it's safe to say that I enjoyed this version of the story, despite all its shortcomings, and I would recommend it, if you don't mind its weaker aspects.

If you haven't watched any of the other adaptions however, I would recommend that you watch one of the others before this one, to actually enjoy it and see its worth.

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