To Heart: Koishite Shinitai (1999)

This was a hard drama to rate. Why? Because I felt the main female should have just giving up and moved on! As this is a drama that infuses sport of boxing, I was willing to give it a try. The constant stalker behavior of the poor lead and her unrequited love was kind of sad. There is one point where an antagonistic female character really introduced a whole new leave of sleaze and those moments were really interesting as you wanted to see just how far she would go. I think Fukada Kyoko as Toki and her slightly screeching voice started to wear on me at times because I had to watch to see if they ever got together. Domoto Tsuyoshi as Yuri, I actually have no complaints. Overall, unless you are a fan of either, not sure I can consciously recommend this but if you like unconventional dramas, this one is for you. Not something I would watch again.

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The best drama I've ever seen by an absolute country mile

No drama comes close to the mastery of this one.
The plot is wonderfully well written, everything that happens in the drama has a precise meaning and purpose, the dialogues are probably some of the best I've ever seen in any media, the music is absolutely incredible, I with modern drama had music that is even 1% as good as the soundtrack of this drama.
The characters are complex, likeable and very relatable, but the main point is the efficacy of how the writing/direction manages to make you feel any emotions they want with absolute precision.
At no point in watching this drama I was disconnected with the intentions of the writing, they absolutely gained my trust and my emotions are completely under their control for the whole length of the show, and they don't make evil use of this power.
Thank you to whoever wrote this, for giving me some of the best experiences any media could ever manage to give me.

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