With Love

It must have been totally awesome at the time, because they weren't writing stories like this that much yet. Fate in grand scale. Constant missed opportunities. Lying to your love to win her over, but eventually realizing you can’t do it and releasing her from your clutches so she can follow her red thread of fate to find whoever’s meant for her. It's a cliché. But the screenwriter has divinely tugged at the viewer's heartstrings, constantly and deliberately pulling them tighter and tighter just to provoke, and doing so with great intensity. I liked this playfulness, even if it got on my nerves; not many scripts play with the viewer so brutally these days. Takenouchi is perfect as always, I just love the guy; Tanaka Misato is plain and mild, but I guess that's how she was supposed to be. I didn't particularly root for her character, but I didn't have much reason to hate her either. She's the kind of quiet little girl who secretly plays on the strings of many a heart with her soft voice and good heart. Just a boring character. I wish there were better videos available... A nice cliché from 1998 a lot of other romantic series are based on (Japanese, Korean...). (02.05.2021)