First Love

Starring: Mitsushima Hikari, Satoh Takeru, Yagi Rikako, Kido Taisei, Kaho, Minami
Year Released: 2022
Number of Episodes: 9
Genre: Drama, Melodrama, Romance
Country: Japan
Director: Kanchiku
Where to Watch: Netflix

In the late 90’s, Yae and Harumichi met and fell in love. After graduating from high school, Yae went off to college in Tokyo, while Harumichi joined the Self-Defense forces as an aviation student, and like that they separated.

One day, Yae suffered a tragic accident, and 20 years passed without their lives intersecting again. Now, Yae works as a taxi driver and Harumichi has become an employee at a security company after serving in the Self-Defense forces, both in the same city. About 20 years after their unfulfilled first love, fate brings them together once again…

I’m too lazy to look for pictures so you get just my straight up thoughts on this one today. Therese and I watched this show last month and I had heard that it was such a great show and so I was pretty stoked to start it but we struggled with getting through it. As a whole, the show was good but each individual episode was kind of hard to get through and though we liked certain things about the show, it’s not a show that I’d say that I loved. The first few episodes set up the show and I thought they set up the show pretty well. We were curious about everyone and the way that they kept missing each other but literal seconds had us on the edge of our seat but the longer they went without connecting and then the longer they took to get their shit together and get together, the more frustrated we felt.

My favorite part of the show was seeing the two main leads as teenagers. I was much more invested in them when they were falling in love with each other and when they were in the midst of young love. When we see them again as adults, they’re completely different people and the male lead came off low key creepy to me. The way that he got close to the female leads son in the beginning and then the way that he did his girlfriend and the female lead left a sour taste in my mouth, especially considering I didn’t think it did anything to further the story.

This is my second Japanese drama, so I wasn’t familiar with any actors or actresses in this show and I can’t say that anyone outside of the teenagers in the cast caught my attention. I did think that the female lead was cute and super pretty but other than her, nobody stood out to me. That’s not going to stop me from watching more shows from Japan though.

Overall, this drama was good but it’s not a drama that I would watch again. It’s not a show that I can shout my love for from the rooftops but it wasn’t the worst drama ever. The story being told, one of first love is a good one and if the entire show was them when they were teenagers, I probably would have liked this one more. I liked some things but mostly, this one just didn’t hit for me as much as I thought it would. So…yeah, that’s what I thought.

Final Rating

3 out of 5