Hatsukoi / First Love jdorama review

 

I remember when Utada Hikaru's First Love came out and a lot of western media made a big deal about her. I thing I first came across her in Asiaweek or something. It was my introduction to Japanese music besides sentai shows and a friend who was a Sakai Noriko fan. I think everyone must have listened to her music at that time.

Hatsukoi is a Netflix dorama based on the song. The series stars Mitsushima Hikari and Kenshin as a couple who fell in love in high school and somehow in the present they are not together and Mitsushima Hikari is a taxi driver and Kenshin works as a security.

The story is mostly told through flashbacks as the audience is slowly told what happened in the past this Hatsukoi is basically a memory loss soap opera about love and destiny and similarly to Sakamoto Yuji's Itsuka Kono Koi wo Omoidashite Kitto Naite Shimau tried to be this epic love story to end all love story doramas.

To be honest, my reaction to most of Hatsukoi is ugh. Its soapy and slow and the dialogue is not anywhere close Sakamoto Yuji's writing. It felt like for most of the show, anyone could have done Mitsushima Hikari's role. Its not like Soredemo Ikite Yuku or Mother where I'm watching her acting and thinking, by the jdorama gods she is probably the best actress in Japan. I am watching Hatsukoi thinking Sasaki Nozomi could have done the role, except the cafe scene on the phone in the end where Mitsushima Hikari got to show why she's the best.

The  impressive acting for me was Kaho in the thankless role as Kenshin's psychiatrist. Kenshin is annoying. The story is supposed to be heart wrenching about him not telling Mitsushima Hikari who he is but I could not care because he could easily tell her.

The one other show I kept thinking about as I was watching Hatsukoi besides Itsuka Kono Koi wo Omoidashite Kitto Naite Shimau was Sasaki Nozomi's Tenshi no Koi. It was a really beautiful kmovie style romance story that was skin deep but fun and the funny thing is the writer and director of Hatsukoi Kantake Yuri also wrote Tenshi no Koi. I kept thinking Hatsukoi should look more like Tenshi no Koi. Its not that Hatsukoi looks bad but I guess I wanted Hatsukoi shot more like a romantic story with slow motion scenes in rain instead of a serious epic love story.

Ultimately, I did not feel the 'magic' from Hatsukoi. Some shows like Shitteru Wife or Koi ga Shitai just have this feeling while I didn't get it from Hatsukoi. I think it is because Mitsushima Hikari and Kenshin spent the whole series apart and their relationship was played by other actors as younger version of themselves. I guess there is no chemistry when your two main actors are hardly in scenes together.

I am happy that Netflix has put more money into jdoramas and that a lot of effort went into Hatsukoi but I could not get into it. Meh from me.