BLISS RATING: ★★★
“Some say it’s painful to wait for someone. Some say it is painful to forget someone. But the worst pain comes from when don’t know whether to wait or forget.” – The Bridal Box
I think the purpose of cinema is to suspend your reality and for a short period of time, enter into the reality world of the characters you are watching. For me to fully immerse myself into the experienced, I need to feel something on both an intellectual level and an emotional one. One vacillates on an intellectual basis watching this series but emotionally, one remains consistently sad, gloomy, and broken-hearted but never quite melancholic. It has a masterful feel of darkness enveloping it from its subject matter to its cinematography to the depression of its characters. Even the weather is gloomy. It takes you on a mournful journey which interestingly enough you are not sure if it will be completely successful in its glumness or maybe lead to hosannas from heaven. It does neither, at least for me.
It is a matter-of-fact story of a young gay couple in the throws of ‘breaking up’. While it is not really initially clear (or at least not to me) why, it is presented as though Ikegami Fumiya (Suzuki Kosuki) wants to break up with Okusawa Ritsu (Honda Kyoya), his boyfriend of some time. To an untrained eye, they both seemed to have become distant from each other.
At the beginning I was not sure why, it became clear as the story progresses that they have little to no communicative skills when talking to one another and therefore simply do not know each other.
After their breakup, Ritsu gets into an accident and loses his memory but only about who Fumiya is to him. The story then becomes their journey to rediscovery and if their relationship can be mended.
This story is an intellectually gymnastics masterpiece. It is thoughtful, intense at times and very solemn. That is presented well. On the other side of the equation, there is little joy, happiness, or piece of mind. While neither are particularly warm individuals, they are individuals trying to live as a couple; yet not wanting to be a couple. Neither one wants to forfeit any of their traits that will make this relationship work.
I found that immensely sad and wept more so at its ending as I found nothing joyful in their reunification as they still never seemed to have grasped that point. It all felt so empty. Why? Because the characters were fated and slated to remain who they were, and this relationship seemed more of a convenience and a take away from the loneliness of separation. They need each other for companionship. Is it love? Perhaps it is or simply their definition of love.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? The acting in this series is astonishingly uneven and lacks excitement. I could feel nothing for either one of them as they played both parts with a rather dull effect. They get to the point of self-recognition, but never quite gets to a revelation or an ‘ah ha’ moment. Both actors look wounded, played victims well, and made an effort to understand one another but it never gets to the point of any intensity emotionally. Fumiya is certainly blameful for not being honest and truthful to Ritsu in his recovery. Yet, Ritsu himself has hiddened his own set of secrets, unwilling to share and experience with Fumiya. Fault lies with both and perhaps that was the point to this series. So, neither stood out and both remained true to their characters.
If you are expecting some climatic ending, you might be sadly disappointed. It all felt empty, dispirited, and pointless because as I stated there is no real recognition here of anything of substance. To make matters worse, the ‘acting’ (and that is what it felt like) at the end was antithetical to the whole scene. Sometimes just the smallest gesture or scene can have such a large impact on a series and this is one of them. Their so called ‘getting-back-together’ scene was one of the worst I have ever seen – emotionally. This is yet again another prime example of two actors NOT wanting to commit to the scene, especially kissing.
Honestly, it was insulting to think that after these two made up, that that was the best they could do. Shame on the direction. Shame on the actors for not fully committing. And shame on the lame screenplay that toned down what should have and ought to have been the most intense moment of their relationship and for this series. This was the first step to truly redefining their love and it was shown as if they were both kissing a dead fish that smelled rotten. This distracted from this series in a big way for me.
This series tried harder than it should have. It had no magic even if there were some magical scenes. One scene, for example, when the ice melts on the window and Ritsu peers out, should and could have brought the house down both intellectually (which it did) and emotionally (which it did not). That whole scene simply felt flat.
This series left me heavy-hearted.
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