Marmalade Boy

Sakurai Hinako has perhaps only two expressions: one where she looks slightly out of it and depressed, and the other where she looks like she's in a manic state and is smiling from cheek to cheek. Thankfully, Yoshizawa had at least more than one expression. Still, I didn't feel like this was a film that gave anyone room to show what they were made of. It was strangely sparse, stripped down, and yet at first it had seemed a bit muddled. I would even say that you can tell from the film that the subject matter is from the 90s. The essential drama is built on nothing but misunderstandings that could have been very easily corrected: if the main character had opened his mouth (another of these features could be that the hero was great at tennis, the hero and heroine lived together, etc.). More interesting, then, might be the story of the heroine's classmate who *light spoiler* had an affair with a teacher. *end of light spoiler*. Unfortunately, this isn't given much space in the film, so this drama just flies by and basically the viewer gets nothing out of it. What’s more, there's the exchange of the parents' partners, and while it may look interesting at first glance that there are basically two families living together in the same house, it was instead rather "ki mazui" as they say in Japanese, and it perfectly describes my feeling about the whole situation – it was just weird. The first half of the film didn't flow at all, the second half went by so strangely fast that I felt like the film was directed by two people. *SPOILER* And then the whole thing about them being brother and sister... my God, surely there are better ways to prove that the hero and heroine (even though they had almost no chemistry with each other on screen) love each other beyond anything else, and this undying love would have been better proven in some other way than by simply agreeing that it doesn't matter that they might have the same dad, they'll still sleep together... *END SPOILER ALERT* I think back on the movie and sadly find that I feel nothing but disappointment after watching it. Even for a high school romance, it was a little too goofy. A weak 2 stars. (13.02.2019)