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Dylan Rodrigues

Mississauga, Canada

Dylan Rodrigues

Mississauga, Canada
Tokyo Love Story japanese drama review
Completed
Tokyo Love Story
3 people found this review helpful
by Dylan Rodrigues
Jun 10, 2021
11 of 11 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 8.5
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 8.5
This review may contain spoilers

One of the best melodrama/romance dramas I have seen

Despite the lacklustre plot summary here, the story was surprisingly good!! I binged all 11 episodes in a couple of days, I was enjoying my selves so much. There were more twists and turns in the romance between the three couples than a wending mountain road - couples formed and broke apart in what felt like the blink of an eye - but it was so damn interesting to watch and so much fun. The plot is also quite deep, investigating what in means to love, living for yourself, the spirit of Tokyo, the modern woman, and as one reviewer pointed out, a deconstruction of a manic pixie dream girl.

Speaking of Tokyo, the cinematography and production was definitely WOWOW level, not your avg made for TV graphics you get in jdramas. I loved all the beautiful shots of the city, I wanted to take screenshots all the time. The acting was amazing. Ishibashi Shizuka's acting skills has to be seen to be believed - she embodied Rika so damn well, from the strong, independent assertiveness, fun-loving childishness to the surprising vulnerability and loneliness. This was my second drama with Ito Kentaro, who also did an amazing job and he looked so young and cute here - did he age backwards from Ashi Girl??

The only problems I had were with That Incident and Satomi's character. The latter could have been written much better and Ishii Anna felt wasted in her role, even though she did what she could. Her character seemed to revolve around being obsessed with the men in her life and being treated like absolute garbage by them, leading to nothing but bouts of sobbing and depression. She needed to be more fleshed and given more strength or assertiveness? Also, the Incident - I do not want to spoil too much but there was a scene of rape in one of the later episodes. It felt extremely gratuitous and the way it was handled almost made me stop watching - no one in the story takes a literal sexual crime too seriously except for the victim and the offender gets a happy ending and everything?? I felt like I was watching a show from the 1940s not 2020! Regardless, the drama was still good and the story was engaging so I gave it a try again. Regardless, I do not like that scene or the character at all and I hope we never see anything like that in dramaland again.

The music was also simply amazing? I was surprised to see a couple of English language songs but they were are so well sung and pretty to listen to! I have everything in the OST saved on Spotify XD

I would give this drama a solid 8.7/10 and would recommend to anyone who likes extremely emotional or angsty romantic dramas. Just be careful of the sexual assault scene in one of the later episodes.
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