Unsatisfied with the vast majority of the current season's J-dramas, I decided to go and try one of the many "Golden Age" ones I still hadn't watched, and picked this "Aishiteiru to Itte Kure".
Well, sometimes even older dramas can be a real let down, as it was the case here, alas.

First things first, what I liked: namely, the *marvelous* OST (WOW, seriously, perfect 10 there!), the unmistakable "90's Flavor", and the always good performance by Tokiwa Takako - whereas the rest of the cast, imho, didn't do so well; most were sub-par, but I don't think it's entirely their fault, as the material they had to work with was the real problem.
In a scriptwriter's career (even when we're talking of someone like Kitagawa Eriko who's done some real masterpieces!) there's bound to be the occasional lousy work, and this was precisely such a case.
It started quite well, except for the honestly annoying subplot involving the stepsis; but then in the second half it became more and more trite and poorly written, with the last episode being particularly terrible, to the point it ended up being involuntarily ridiculous. HUGE spoilers ahead so stop reading NOW if you wanna avoid those!

*****SPOILERS*****

Misunderstanding after misunderstanding, the FL convinces herself (and wrongly so) that the ML has cheated on her, so she goes and cheats on him with her childhood friend, the 2nd ML (who took advantage of the situation, ok, but then again she had been taking advantage of his kindness for the whole series, so hard to cast the blame there, imho). Even after the misunderstanding got cleared, FL and ML still break up, she has apparently realized that it's better to be loved than to chase after someone rather cold (which might have been less romantic, but I was still fine with such a development, it would have been mature and adult and realistic and honestly quite a nice change after all). So she's bound to move back to Sendai to marry the 2nd ML and help him run the family inn. All fine and dandy, right?
But then the Nth set of coincidences unleash (seriously, the way the characters keep running into each other by chance, you'd think this series was set in a small village, rather than in the tentacular metropolis, LOL) and she runs into the ML, goes with him to an apartment/villa at the seaside ('cause yeah, what normal Japanese wouldn't have a seaside house with a fireplace, right? Mattaku...), where they open up a bottle of champagne ('cause yeah, the house is uninhabited, but of course there's a fine bottle on hand just in case!), almost have sex but stop midway after he picks up her keys ('cause yeah, what normal dude wouldn't pick up some keys while going at it, right?) and she notices the keychain belonging to the 2nd ML, thusly bursting in tears.
Come dawn, a *ridiculous* scene on the beach ensues, where we discover that deaf people apparently have the superpower of being able to understand what you say if you just put your throat on their shoulder (seriously, Kitagawa-san?!? Or was it Stan Lee who wrote that scene? Who knows, maybe the ML got bitten by a radioactive mosquito? Again, mattaku...)
Then she gets back to the 2nd ML, who's the usual, understanding nitwit and leaves alone, brokenhearted but with a big smile (oh, boy) while she stays in the Big City to pursue her acting career.
Three years later, she's been so "successful" that her single-line scene gets cut, but apparently that pays well enough that she's dressed all in style with Italian/French designer's clothes. And then the leads meet again by chance in front of an apple tree (more like, a completely different plant to which some poor sap of AD has glued half a dozen apples bought in the closest supermarket!!!), and so they can live happily ever after. *BARFS!*
Wasn't it for the OST and for Tokiwa, the grade would be even lower. 4/10