Nekokaburi
Japan
This review may contain spoilers
Had great potential as a story, but was hampered by inflated drama and mediocre writing.
Note: This will more than likely be the only review I ever write as they take a significant amount of time for me to think through and formulate, but I felt that I needed to post this one as this show has merit, but is an extreme disservice to viewer.
To lay my cards out on the table before I dive into my review, I am a professional writer in my 20s, and I’ve been writing since I was nine years old. It is my job as a writer to critique other writers and find the flaws in their stories so that I can learn from their mistakes to improve my own writing.
I have seen Kitagawa—this show’s scriptwriter—’s work from the 90s, and she is by no stretch of the imagination a bad writer. She is quite talented, but every writer has a bad piece of work now and then, and that’s exactly what this shows is.
This show started off with a promising story, but it quickly derailed for a number of reasons, and it got progressively worse.
The first episode was absolutely perfect. Soramame and Oto’s introductions were fantastic, and the tragedy behind Soramame’s backstory was very well done.
I absolutely loved Soramame’s personality in the first episode. She was sweet, sensitive, adorable, and really meshed will with Oto’s character. However, the show starts to derail at the very beginning of the second episode.
Oto’s character stays exactly the same throughout the entire duration of the show, but Soramame’s character does a complete 180. She is no longer upset over her childhood first love breaking off his engagement to her because he found a new girl.
Soramame is no longer sweet and passive towards Oto. She is now aggressive, slightly irritating, and her character development makes absolutely no sense. She does, however, maintain an adorable personality throughout the rest of the show, but she never goes back to her original persona.
The rest of the show was somewhat interesting. I liked Oto’s passion for creating music, and Soramame’s backstory with her mother was utterly heartbreaking, but that’s it. Nothing else about the show was redeemable, save for the ending.
The writer attempted to introduce artificial, inflated drama by introducing a con artist. She worms her way into Oto’s head, then asks for money. Oto quickly realises that she’s conning him, but she has no friends and asks to be his. Knowing Oto’s character, he says yes, obviously.
Seira (the con artist) isn’t seen for a little while after this episode, but when she does show up, Soramame helps Oto recruit her for his two-piece band as the singer, and Seira almost immediately falls in love with Soramame.
There was absolutely no need to introduce a lesbian character in this story, and she was only used as a hollow plot filler to add additional, inflated drama to a story that did not need it. This love triangle eventually devolved into a love square for about two episodes.
Kitagawa also added the annoyingly overused tropes of missed timing, mistaken feelings, and a time jump.
The last episode was probably the only good episode besides the pilot. The first half was slow moving, and quite bland, but the last fifteen minutes were sweet and quite enjoyable.
Now, I’m going to go through a brief overview of how I would have fixed the story in this show.
Instead of having Soramame get over her first love in a period of literally one episode, I would have had the entire show centered on the grief of Soramame’s lost love and her newfound admiration of Oto. She would have fought through the grief she was feeling by using Oto as a shoulder to cry on.
Eventually, she’d realise that he was always there for her, and that he’d always been there to listen. I would have made it obvious from the start that she was a fasion designer and, lastly, I would have completely dropped Seira’s character from the show. Other than that, the rest of the plot with Oto’s career, Soramame’s mother abandoning her, and Soramame’s boss stealing her work, causing her to leave and reach out to her mother is perfect. The majority of the finale is also good as is.
All in all, the acting was fantastic, the soundtrack was great; I am a huge yorushika fan, so that was a nice surprise, and the production quality was phenomenal.
I do not recommend watching this show unless you’re interested in watching for the acting and some minor story beats.
To lay my cards out on the table before I dive into my review, I am a professional writer in my 20s, and I’ve been writing since I was nine years old. It is my job as a writer to critique other writers and find the flaws in their stories so that I can learn from their mistakes to improve my own writing.
I have seen Kitagawa—this show’s scriptwriter—’s work from the 90s, and she is by no stretch of the imagination a bad writer. She is quite talented, but every writer has a bad piece of work now and then, and that’s exactly what this shows is.
This show started off with a promising story, but it quickly derailed for a number of reasons, and it got progressively worse.
The first episode was absolutely perfect. Soramame and Oto’s introductions were fantastic, and the tragedy behind Soramame’s backstory was very well done.
I absolutely loved Soramame’s personality in the first episode. She was sweet, sensitive, adorable, and really meshed will with Oto’s character. However, the show starts to derail at the very beginning of the second episode.
Oto’s character stays exactly the same throughout the entire duration of the show, but Soramame’s character does a complete 180. She is no longer upset over her childhood first love breaking off his engagement to her because he found a new girl.
Soramame is no longer sweet and passive towards Oto. She is now aggressive, slightly irritating, and her character development makes absolutely no sense. She does, however, maintain an adorable personality throughout the rest of the show, but she never goes back to her original persona.
The rest of the show was somewhat interesting. I liked Oto’s passion for creating music, and Soramame’s backstory with her mother was utterly heartbreaking, but that’s it. Nothing else about the show was redeemable, save for the ending.
The writer attempted to introduce artificial, inflated drama by introducing a con artist. She worms her way into Oto’s head, then asks for money. Oto quickly realises that she’s conning him, but she has no friends and asks to be his. Knowing Oto’s character, he says yes, obviously.
Seira (the con artist) isn’t seen for a little while after this episode, but when she does show up, Soramame helps Oto recruit her for his two-piece band as the singer, and Seira almost immediately falls in love with Soramame.
There was absolutely no need to introduce a lesbian character in this story, and she was only used as a hollow plot filler to add additional, inflated drama to a story that did not need it. This love triangle eventually devolved into a love square for about two episodes.
Kitagawa also added the annoyingly overused tropes of missed timing, mistaken feelings, and a time jump.
The last episode was probably the only good episode besides the pilot. The first half was slow moving, and quite bland, but the last fifteen minutes were sweet and quite enjoyable.
Now, I’m going to go through a brief overview of how I would have fixed the story in this show.
Instead of having Soramame get over her first love in a period of literally one episode, I would have had the entire show centered on the grief of Soramame’s lost love and her newfound admiration of Oto. She would have fought through the grief she was feeling by using Oto as a shoulder to cry on.
Eventually, she’d realise that he was always there for her, and that he’d always been there to listen. I would have made it obvious from the start that she was a fasion designer and, lastly, I would have completely dropped Seira’s character from the show. Other than that, the rest of the plot with Oto’s career, Soramame’s mother abandoning her, and Soramame’s boss stealing her work, causing her to leave and reach out to her mother is perfect. The majority of the finale is also good as is.
All in all, the acting was fantastic, the soundtrack was great; I am a huge yorushika fan, so that was a nice surprise, and the production quality was phenomenal.
I do not recommend watching this show unless you’re interested in watching for the acting and some minor story beats.
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