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Saraba, Yoki Hi japanese drama review
Completed
Saraba, Yoki Hi
3 people found this review helpful
by Zii3
Feb 29, 2024
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed 5
Overall 8.0
Story 7.5
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

Memorable. Ep 1-4 are very thoughtful & Ep 5-8 are more melodramatic.

General spoilers only. "You can't help if you fall for a boy or a girl, or someone else." About multiple characters who feel different from "normal" in various ways. Characters experience a lot of yearning and pining (a lot of it is romantic in nature though characters also yearn to fit in or to find their place in life too), internal struggles and insecurity, and waivering back & forth.

The two main characters are blood-related siblings, so this is best watched with a non-judgmental approach, otherwise you might want to skip this one. There is also an openly gay secondary character and a tertiary character who loves their step-sibling (not related by blood).

There are great messages explored throughout the screenplay about questioning societal norms, mores, and expectations (especially when it doesn't hurt others- the people who feel like outliers are the ones that are hurt by trying to conform to other's opinions), deciding what's right for one's self, not being passive in one's own life, and more in that vein.

Nothing is handled lightly, by the story as a whole or by the individual characters. Various concerns about each character's feelings and their situations are explored. There are voice-over thoughts from multiple characters.

This is NOT a spicy story. There is some skinship but not a lot, two light lip presses, and one brief scene near the end that only implies the two lead characters slept together.

Technically I would rate this a 7.5/10 overall, but there were a few things I loved about it, and it engaged my thoughts and emotions enough to be quite memorable so I'm giving it an 8/10.

The first half is well crafted and thoughtful. I would give Ep 1-4 a 9/10. The second half gets more melodramatic in ways that I found excessive at times and I would rate Ep 5-8 a 6/10; the plot starts feeling less realistic and increasingly stretches credulity. A couple of actions or reactions didn't feel quite in line with a character's previous build. Overall I still found it pretty satisfying though; it helped that the show starts at the end before going back in time so I already had an idea of how things were going to work out. That allowed me to mostly shrug off the frusterations in storytelling and character actions as I watched things unfold in the second half.

All of the actors (except the mother) were very well suited for their rolls. Suzuki Jin, Yamashita Mizuki, and Ito Asahi were especially enjoyable to watch and almost immediately got me invested in their characters. The mother, on the other hand, is extra in a way that is not written or acted particularly well. Which makes her even more annoying. Luckily she's not around much.

General Spoilers below.

The number of times people dramatically drop to the ground (in faints or illness) is ridiculous. I could handle one, but after that it breaks credulity.

I loved one of the internal thoughts of a character with unrequited love. The character being daunted by the difficulty and hopeless pain of it was so relatable; "You want to be best friends forever? Then I can't tell you forever."

FYI SIDE NOTE ON SUBTITLES:
I could only find this streaming in the USA on KissAsian (as a last resort) in February 2024. Ep 4-8 all had lagging subtitle issues. It would be fine for about the first 15min of every episode and then the rest would lag behind by multiple sentences.
So I recommend checking if this is going to happen in whatever platform you find it on before starting to avoid frusteration.

Edit: I ended up downloading the video and subtitle files on my computer in order to re-watch it properly.
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