Honey Lemon Soda (2021)

Not *that* bad, but not *that* good either...

I admit I was a little scared to watch this movie, as many of the comments I saw talking about this criticized it saying it wasn't good and that people dropped it like a hot pocket... BUT, being a reader of the original manga and knowing of Raul from Snow Man, I decided to give it a try. TL;DR: it wasn't good, but definitely not as bad some others made it out to be, as I've seen farrrr worse before in the shoujo genre. Let me explain:

STORY: If you're a fan of the genre, this will be nothing new, nor groundbreaking. If you're not a fan of the clichés and heart-pounding moments, I'd suggest you skip this one. The pacing of the story is very fast at the beginning, and then somehow towards the middle to 3/4 in, it gets a little slow and draggy. It follows the formula of a typical high school shoujo romance - ML protects the "weak" FL, both start dating, they break up for some random forced reason, and insert slow-mo chase scene with inspiring music and the FL/ML having an epiphany to tell the other person that WAIT they actually DO love them! But instead of one running scene, there's a whopping total of two. The director seemed to compile scenes from the manga that seemed a bit disjointed and forced, like one second there's a serious thing going on, and it hard cuts to the characters at the beach. There wasn't much of a solid flow or transition of the storyline, which is probably what turned a lot of viewers off.

ACTING: Raul definitely didn't suit the image of Kai for me, and same with Yoshikawa Ai for Uka. However, by the end of the film, they seemed more well-adjusted to the roles. Yoshikawa definitely outshined Raul with her acting as she was more natural in her role. The character of Kai isn't supposed to be greasy or cheesy, but it definitely felt like Raul was overdoing the "cool" factor, making his line delivery pretty greasy (which also wasn't his usual tone of voice, so it seemed forced).

MUSIC: I laughed a lot at the soundtrack (and that's not a good thing). I actually expected more Snow Man or Johnny's songs in general, but there was just the one at the very end, and instead we got a bunch of poorly made English songs that sounded like random royalty-free songs you'd find on Google. Especially the intro song.... iykyk. I thought they got some random, already-made song and just stuck it in, but then the singer proceeds to croon "Honey Lemon Soda" in the lyrics and I died inside. I was super confused and slightly awed that they actually made this song for the movie. And why English? Is this a trend now??

REWATCH VALUE: Hmm.. I probably won't rewatch this as there are plenty of shoujo movies that are better. But I won't judge if you do watch this because honestly it wasn't as bad as many others. Just be a little patient, let it take some time, and watch the credits til the end because that stuff was cute, man.

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Another girl ready to worship a guy and forget that she exists because he acted like a decent human

I feel like i saw this movie a 1000000 times over the years (some better than others) and as time goes by it gets harder to get it pass down my troath. I get so frustrated with the brainless nonsense passivity and stupid acting (or lack of it for that matter) and decision making...
And it's specially problematic when they write girl characters, it gets to my last nerve. It's not being shy or afraid of being bullied, it's just acting like they are 5 (i kinda know that some japanese guys like that girls act that way, stupid and immature so they fill their ego so i know why they write them that way, very problematic) a passivity to a level of being a blank paper that you can do anything with and leaving their entire selves to hopefully being ``saved´´ by a guy that will become their god just because they acted like any basic decent human would do.

I know shit about her but she had a freaking notebook asking every little thing about him or even his taste in hairstyles. He was the one that matter, she doesn't. She is almost empty to us.

And they act inconsistent and change their minds on and off without propper sense!! I cannot haha so frustrating.

I enjoy certain aspects of the tenderness of japanese romance, that's why i still come to watch time to time hopping for better, but please, get it together and stop with this characters that are brainless and have 0 personality other than following their love interest and throwing absurd pitty parties for themselves because is way too much to handle.

And lord, if you hear me, teach 99% of japanese live actions how to kiss, because the stamp is for the papers not the lips. Quite sure that the steamy kiss tag was a joke from someone, i refuse to believe otherwise.

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