To be honestly, when I first saw this drama I had high hopes because I really like deep slice of life and the premise sounds intriguing too. When I saw that the drama was made by the same person who did Silent, I realised I had to lower my expectations because I didn’t really enjoy the latter. First episode was not great as it was unnecessarily slow and draggy, a problem that plagued Silent. It picks up afterward when it goes deep into issues like death, grieve, abortion, parenting responsibilities. But the series just went absolute downhill after the episode where Natsu met his father. Every episode seems like it’s about how much they can make Natsu suffer when he is the most patient and kind character I’ve seen. Realistically, if I were in his shoe, I would have flip.

While the intention of the drama is admirable because it really tries hard to go into the aforementioned issues, its writing did not deliver. The biggest problem is Mizuki as a character. The entire series revolve around her and how because she died, her words become a life manual to everyone on how they should live. She is written as someone who believes in having options to live your life, but her words are dictating and influencing how everyone should live. And that’s problematic, because while her option to keep her child and not tell Natsu is celebrated as pro choice, it also portrays her as selfish because she is thinking about what makes her happy for her or what is right for her but without thinking the impact on others. To me, being pro-choice is a good thing, but it’s not a one-sided thing that it’s always good as there is the selfish element that the drama did not address. So, I feel that there is a propagandistic narrative (being pushy about this concept of pro choice) that the drama is trying to convey without the needed nuance to the conversation.

In the end when the writer tries to salvage Mizuki’s selfish actions by showing her letter to Natsu just isn’t convincing to me because her actions are clearly selfish but they make it sounds like she has Natsu’s intention at heart. No, she is imposing what she hopes Natsu would be and not actually giving him much choices which she claims she is. To me, her character is written as a master gaslighter especially to viewers.

Besides the flawed writing, everyone’s performance were great. Ren’s acting have surely improved but he still needs help in emotional scenes, a similar problem I had when he acted in Silent. I wasn’t convinced of his breakup scene because it felt forced. But I heard from social media that he really had trouble getting into the emotions for this and felt bad for him. I guess it’s still good that he is aware and can’t wait for his next show which hopefully, he would be better. Music is the best element in the show, love the melancholic soundtrack and also the back number song is a bop, which I don’t usually say it in my reviews.