LIKES:
Colour palate, cinematography, landscapes and location settings, lighting, are all very good.
Acting: Young Harumichi (Kido Taisei), FL (Hikari Mitsushima), ML (Takaru Sato), young Yae (Rikako Yagi), were all excellent showing emotion and fitting their characters.
The concept of the story: First Love, the kind you can’t forget even as an adult and want to find again.
The sign language used was nice to see too.
Sound Track was okay, but needed more from the 90s to fit the story. The music didn’t overpower the voices of the actors and actresses. I did like the music tracks used to show Tsuzuru’s music production talent.

DISLIKES:
Production: once again no film stabilizer and it was extremely annoying and unnecessary for the camera to be shaking!

Editing: some of the sequences were out of order for showing the past when the main characters were teenagers.

Props: CDs, CD player, movie references, had wrong year if it’s supposed to match the song release. Some of the “costumes” were not the correct era.

Writing: Plot holes, cliches and a totally stupid (X-rated or should be) sex scene thrown in. KassyFan27 gives a lot of insight into the messy writing. Amnesia as a plot device, to explain Yae’s memory gaps… ridiculous or just lazy writing. Side characters that didn’t add to the story or help with character growth. Yae seemed to have character growth but not so much with Mr. Namiki.


OVERALL: I power watched it all in one night. I did like it, although it had some slow spots (pacing issues). Some stand out acting by a few people. I would recommend it if you like Melodramas or the ML & FL, but I won’t watch it again, (even though Takaru Sato looks very good in a uniform).