My Diary (2024)

A well written story of 5 young adults as they finish off their college lives together.

Story - Young adults in college together who are making their way into the work force. Each character gets their own story about some issue that we learn can be solved with the support of your friends. Episodes are plotted out with foreshadowing from previous episodes or a non contextual beginning of an episode. While some ideas may seem silly, such as how meaningful a yawn can be, there is reason and there are lessons that can be learned from them. I would say that the first 7 episodes really cover this extremely well as we are introduced briefly to something seemingly small, but as the episode finishes we realize the importance of it. The level of drama in this series is more towards internal struggles and unwillingness to share for a variety of reasons. If that turns you away then this may not be the series for you. There are small moments of funny bits littered throughout as well! As a fan of the older series Orange Days, this has a similar feel due to the group and setting.

Acting/Cast - The cast is fairly large and everyone typically gets a decent amount to say. They are well written and the dialogue I found to be natural. I thought that characters could easily go on longer monologues to explain, but other characters would add in a question or comment to provide a more dynamic way of story telling. They really did seem like friends. There is a range from the more goofy to the more serious for the characters and I liked the mix. Kiyohara Kaya as the main and Mikami Ai as a support are stands outs in particular, but everyone has memorable pieces and contributions that it seems like they switch off being main characters with each episode.

Music - Had two memorable tracks. Insert song by Yamato Mori - Gunjounikki, and the ending song by Saucy Dog called Kusege. Pretty typical setup for a show. They were placed well and are memorable, so good job to the show for that.

Rewatch Value - I also found that upon a re-watch, there are a lot of little bits throughout the first few episodes that are addressed later, which is a good testament to writing the series as a whole. How characters may look at one another may not seem like much until later. What characters say are remembered and used again later. There are cute moments between our female and male leads, and even the secondary characters that enhance the relationships that can easily be rewatched.

To end, I truly think that one can learn a few things from the show, just like Yuki who was re-reading her diary.

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