You can never really forget your first love

I loved the series. This is the first time I am actually writing a review for anything on this site. But when I finished watching this, it filled me with so much joy that I had to write one.

Story
It is about first love, which is kind of obvious from the title. But there are multiple plotlines covering this theme. It is about the young Yae and Himarumichi falling in love but also in recent times about Tsuzuru and Uta. I loved that the name of every episode ties in with the general theme of that episode and they show it visually. The cinematography, story and soundtrack are a great blend. There are nostalgic times and there are also moments about youth finding their path. It is not the most original story out there and is full of cliches. But I really enjoyed watching it and it made me smile.

Acting
I was originally interested in this series because of Satoh Takeru. I love watching him and I think he generally has good taste in choosing scripts. This one didn't disappoint either. I loved the whole cast. The main couple was utterly fabulous but their younger versions were the surprise factor for me. They were really good as well. The actor playing Tsuzru did an amazing job of balancing the young broodiness without turning out to be a jerk.

Soundtrack
The series is based on two songs which they used pretty well throughout as well. They have made me fall in love with the 'First love' song. I am definitely going to be listening to it on loop for sometime now. The other songs and background score were also pretty seamless and fit the scenes well.

Overall
Loved it and will definitely rewatch at a later date.

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This is my first drama review ever becasuse no other show has infuriated me like this one has. The first time I started watching this show just because I liked the male lead who was starring in Nirvana in Fire 2. But I dropped it after 2 episodes. Later I decided to give it a chance and binge watched the whole thing.

Plot:
The plot was not mundane. It kept things moving with no real central theme. The thing that irritated me the most is the romance arc. I think the romance angle wasn't developed to its best. The focus was more on all secondary relationships and characters. There wasn't enough for me to root for the ML. And it can be compared with 'A love so beautiful' because they share common premises. But where this drama fails is to wrap the high school arc at a considerable time and give the latter years enough screen time. The ending was rushed and completely unsatisfactory. But the story was kind of relatable. The main reason I kept watching was how adorable all the characters were and the story was mostly realistic ( Ahem, ahem, except the ending).

Acting/ Cast:
I a in love with the male lead. He does a fabulous potrayal of that all rounder, ambitious teenage without being a jerk about it. The female lead was annoying at some points but for the major part she was cute. The second lead is another character that was both written and acted out really well. The side actors also did a great job and I could remember many classmates despite of the large cast.

Music:
The music was appropriately included but none of it was memorable ot the kind you want to listen to again.

Rewatch value:
Based on my knowledge of how it ends, I may not watch it.

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I actually watched the Korean Drama before and I loved it. But after reading all the reviews about the movie being better, I decided to give it a try. I even started reading the manga because that is how much I loved the story. This was my first Japanese movie and I really liked it. The acting was spot on. The story followed the manga to the T in the beginning. But the K-drama includes more plot lines, I guess due to time restrictions. The problem was that there was very less music included as per my expectations. The female lead is supposed to be this amazing singer but I didn't really connect to that point here. Also, I didn't find her convincing. On the other hand, the male lead was perfect. The characterization matched the original manga. I hated the casting of Shinya, I feel that he was not what Shinya was supposed to be. It just didn't fit right. Even the CEO is potrayed as this completely evil character, which is not true. He is more grey than black.He has no redeeming scenes in the movie.
But, I liked the overall feel of the movie. I just wish it had a more concrete ending. I would totally rewatch it.

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