Pending Train (2023)

Wasted casts

Pending Train starts off with a good premise but was totally disappointing.

Not gonna lie, Yuki and Eiji already attracted the audiences when this dorama was announced (at least for me). The 3 main leads go pretty well. The heroic one, the naive one, and the realistic one. Their dynamics complete each other. The triangle love is pretty unnecessary. Yuki and Eiji bromance and just giving one of them a love line will be enough. I also got fed up with Yuto past scene. His past complex and his one-sided love were just too much (I mean I get it you love that girl but the scene is too repetitive). Could be better that some scenes went to Sae. This gurl is lack her back story. Her presence at first is just as the love interest of Yuto.

Other cast perfectly portrayed their own character. Some went wild, some went rational. However, perhaps due to limited episodes, there were so many unanswered questions. The missing person (who is still alive in this case) was completely forgotten except for Tanaka. And the open ending does not always mean good. In the end, you might find yourself cursing after watching the ending.

Perfect cast, as well as its ost. BUT a bad-executed storyline.

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Interesting concept, kinda disappointing

Let's be real, I watched this for Yamada Yuki (and was more excited when I saw Akaso Eiji was in it too). The first few episodes intrigued me and the quality of the drama seemed better than what I expected, unfortunately that wore off the longer the drama went on (with one exception).

I'm not sure if this is based on anything, but it either needed a tighter story line - which they could've had if the obligatory romance/love triangle part of it was written off (alas) - or more episodes to focus on some of the "returned from the future" life or reactions - as it was it felt glossed over and overly simplistic. Granted, that's true of most of the drama. What are the odds the cable they need for power was buried so close to the surface and how is that backup generator still in working order following a massive destruction event? Ahem. Let's not mention that the other passengers are completely written off after the clash, they had a few come over, the 'ruffians' steal the bag, and aside the two assholes at the end... the rest are??? Like not even the guy who helped you find the meteorites came back with you?? Okayyyy. (The cops mention 50ish of the 133 missing returned, which seems like a huge chunk missing but sure. Whatever.) Also why wouldn't Kayashima go to the hospital about his hand? They didn't anything different about him when he got back?? Sure, I guess.

I did appreciate the *cause* of the event, because space debris is a real problem, but they didn't really... do anything with that. Most of the "we'll clear some/shoot the meteor" narrative was off screen and summarized, and I'd have loved for them to be more vocal?? I don't know, it kind of fell flat - let's just go back to normal, hah. I think the focus was on interior changes in people but I'm also not... very convinced of them? That narrative sounded hollow, rather than resonate, maybe because the message is the same it always is: have heart to hearts with people and speak your mind and your life will be amazing.

tl; dr: a pretty cool concept, but the execution and focus of the story was not what I expected/wanted.

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