Disappointing. (This really should have only been 8 episodes in length...)
Unfortunately-- given the fact that this is based on a work by one of my favorite BL mangaka, and was not something I'd ever expected to see adapted into live-action (because this particular manga was published around 10 years ago!), so I was originally pretty excited about it-- this was quite disappointing, because it didn't work well either as an adaptation *or* as its own standalone work. And most of the reason for this is because of its length.
This story could have been perfectly told in 8 episodes. However, since the producers decided to make it 12 ep.'s instead for some reason, that forced the pacing to drag out to an atrocious degree, *and* also made the writers completely invent a bunch of padding to fill that time out. Now, don't get me wrong, some of the extra stuff was okay-- for example, the extra few scenes with Wataru's friend group and coworker were sweet, at least-- however, unfortunately, most of it was instead just completely unnecessary nonsense (like that whole new invented school 'friend' of Chiharu's, who was literally only there to cause more trouble and misunderstandings between the leads {thanks to what seemed to be an unspoken one-sided crush, no less...?! For pity's sake, can we really not be free of stupid love triangles even when the original work it's based on didn't have any love triangles whatsoever??? 😬🤦🤦}). And all of the extra invented angst between the leads in the latter part of the show was completely unnecessary, too-- and, again, was literally only there to fill out airtime, not to improve anything about the characterization or plot.
Even looking at this show without adaptation in mind-- just as a standalone work-- the pacing is so frustrating that I don't know how anyone who was just going into this as-is (without first having read the manga) even managed the patience to finish it.
Now, that said, the reason I still have this rated at a 6.0 is because the first few ep.'s were actually pretty good (for context, I had originally thought that this was on track to be an 8.0 show, but unfortunately all the borked pacing and bad filler tanked that...), and the actors (particularly Wataru's actor), bless them, did try their best with what they had to work with. Unfortunately, though, I really can't recommend this even as a standalone (not to mention as an adaptation) because it was just really not well-done overall. 😕
This story could have been perfectly told in 8 episodes. However, since the producers decided to make it 12 ep.'s instead for some reason, that forced the pacing to drag out to an atrocious degree, *and* also made the writers completely invent a bunch of padding to fill that time out. Now, don't get me wrong, some of the extra stuff was okay-- for example, the extra few scenes with Wataru's friend group and coworker were sweet, at least-- however, unfortunately, most of it was instead just completely unnecessary nonsense (like that whole new invented school 'friend' of Chiharu's, who was literally only there to cause more trouble and misunderstandings between the leads {thanks to what seemed to be an unspoken one-sided crush, no less...?! For pity's sake, can we really not be free of stupid love triangles even when the original work it's based on didn't have any love triangles whatsoever??? 😬🤦🤦}). And all of the extra invented angst between the leads in the latter part of the show was completely unnecessary, too-- and, again, was literally only there to fill out airtime, not to improve anything about the characterization or plot.
Even looking at this show without adaptation in mind-- just as a standalone work-- the pacing is so frustrating that I don't know how anyone who was just going into this as-is (without first having read the manga) even managed the patience to finish it.
Now, that said, the reason I still have this rated at a 6.0 is because the first few ep.'s were actually pretty good (for context, I had originally thought that this was on track to be an 8.0 show, but unfortunately all the borked pacing and bad filler tanked that...), and the actors (particularly Wataru's actor), bless them, did try their best with what they had to work with. Unfortunately, though, I really can't recommend this even as a standalone (not to mention as an adaptation) because it was just really not well-done overall. 😕
Was this review helpful to you?
