Early Access: First Love: Hatsukoi [Japan] E1, E2

E1. I've been hearing so many great things about this show (basically, that almost everyone I know loves it), that I was eager to start on it, but also, slightly afraid to start on it. Like, what if I didn't love it like everyone else, y'know?

I've also heard it said that if you've seen a good number of Japanese shows, then this might not blow your socks off.

Personally, I like it, so far, and I feel like I will like this one, overall, as well.

For context, I've watched a handful of Japanese shows, but am far from well-versed in them, so I guess I'm somewhere in-between a J-dorama veteran and a complete newbie? 😅

One of the first things to strike me, as I start on episode 1, is that J-doramas really do have a distinctive look and feel to them.

It's been a hot minute since I've watched one, but coming into this show, the earthy, muted tones and the relatively straightforward camera work gives off that down-to-earth, this-is-part-of-everyday-life sort of vibe that J-doramas tend to give off.

At the same time, I can't help but notice the traces of Netflix polish about it, where everything looks a little extra glossy, in spite of Show's mainly earthy vibe.

It's in little details like the overhead shot of the roundabout, which, when paired with the voiceover from our female lead Yae, lends a touch of thoughtful whimsy.

Additionally, some of the scene transitions between the present and the past are very nicely done, which also makes this show feel more carefully and tenderly handled than average.

Another thing that strikes me right away, is that, my gosh, the song "First Love" really has a lasting earwormy sort of quality to it.

I've only heard it a handful of times before starting the show (mainly through watching the trailers), and already, each time Show fires up the song, I feel the feels coming on, almost like magic.

It's little wonder that the song captured someone's imagination, and they decided that it deserved to anchor a whole drama series. 😁

Right away, the way Show is toggling the past and present timelines, really does capture my imagination.

For example, when we meet Yae, she's a taxi driver in her 30s, musing about the lost opportunities and people in life, and then, when we see her in the past, she's a bright-eyed teenager who dreams of becoming cabin crew.

Immediately, that gives me a sense of poignance and loss, because when she talks about her lost dreams, surely she's also thinking of her dream of becoming a flight attendant.

And, it also makes me start to wonder what had happened in her life, to have put an end to that dream.

The flashbacks to the past, where Yae and Harumichi first notice each other, are sweet and full of the effervescence of youth, and I really enjoyed watching them steal looks at each other, and try to make sense of their feelings.

At the same time, in the present, it's poignant and quite intriguing, to see that they are no longer in each other's lives, but are, individually, still thinking of each other, and in distinctly wistful ways.

And, there's also the difference in vibe in both characters, comparing their present day selves and their high school selves.

Back then, they'd both been bright-eyed and they'd seemed full of hope and promise. In particular, I found young Harumichi very irrepressible, in his happy, chaotic energy.

Yet, in the present, both Yae and Harumichi are much more subdued, though I would say that they're not quite in the region of jaded, either, since they are both individually reminiscing about the past, and seem to have some hope for the future.

Harumichi, in particular, seems very determined to find Yae again, which is why I get the impression that he's hopeful.

And Yae still shows interest in travel and other cultures, like we see in that snippet of her watching that documentary at home, and that gives me the impression that she's still got a zest for life, even if it's mostly subdued, in her daily life.

Altogether, this all makes me wonder what had happened to them, that they would have been separated like this, while still missing each other so strongly.

Speaking of toggling the past and the present, I have to admit that it took me a fair while, to gather that the scenes of Tsuzuru, are actually in our present timeline. 😅

Because he's in high school, and because our flashbacks of Yae and Harumichi also take place in high school, I'd assumed that he was a classmate of theirs. Which is so not the case, oops. 😅

I do wish that Show could have been clearer about that, but again, the sense I get from J-doramas like this, is that they're just focused on providing the window into their characters' worlds, and that it's part of the viewer's responsibility, to find their own bearings, and that it's ok, if that takes a while.

At least, that's my very non-expert impression; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

One of the big things I'm noticing, pretty much right away, is that Show is using the just-missed almost-meet narrative device quite liberally.

Even in the first few minutes of this first episode, we already see Yae and Harumichi cross paths without noticing each other, with him walking on the road, and her driving past him, in her taxi.

This just-missed almost-meet thing happens several times in this first episode, and what I find interesting about it, is, I don't find it tropey, even though this is a trope that's been in Dramaland for literal decades.

Perhaps it's because Show is built around a classic song from 1999; to my eyes, this trope, which might otherwise make me roll my eyes in another drama, is landing more as classic, than tropey.

And somehow, even though part of my brain registers that this is a trope that is often used to manipulate audience emotion, I still feel my heart clench in disappointment, when they don't actually meet - because they had been so close!

Like, when we see that the pregnant lady, to whom Harumichi gives up the cab, is actually being driven by Yae, it's like, AHHHH!! If he'd only gotten into that cab instead of giving it up, he would have met her!

On top of all this tamped down yearning, I'm also curious to know more about Yae's and Harumichi's current situations.

We learn that Harumichi has a girlfriend, and that he'd been on his way to meet her father, when he'd tried and failed, to get into the cab that Yae was driving.

I'm curious to know more about that whole situation, because, while the relationship appears rather stable, it also appears that Harumichi's heart isn't quite in it?

After all, when he hears that song over the radio, which clearly holds memories of Yae for him, he tells the cab driver to turn around, instead of going to his original destination to meet his girlfriend's father.

Clearly, Yae is still very much alive in his memories, enough to influence his current decisions.

While that's romantic when viewed from Yae's corner, I can't help thinking that this isn't great for his girlfriend, y'know?

I do think that this is, again, not unusual in J-doramas of this sensibility, where real life complications exist, unvarnished, in the midst of our characters' lives.

Which leads me to Yae and her son Tsuzuru.

I'm curious to know why she doesn't live with him, and why he's living with a whole other family instead.

Did Yae fall pregnant, then give him up for adoption, perhaps? Or.. if Tsuzuru's really living with his bio dad, then how did that pregnancy happen?

It's really quite poignant, to see Yae relating to Tsuzuru.

At age 14, he's reticent and distant, which is pretty normal for that age, but it still makes my heart pinch, to see Yae try so hard to be friendly and cheerful around him, to coax him out of his shell.

From the looks of it, she doesn't get to see him all that often, so it feel extra sad and wistful, to see him go off in a hurry so soon after dinner, leaving Yae all alone at home, again, when she'd been clearly looking forward to celebrating his birthday with him.

This makes my heart go out to Yae, because she's obviously leading a pretty lonely life, and doing her best to keep a bright outlook, in spite of it.

And then, later, when Tsuzuru's late in coming back as promised, the way she rushes out to where he is, after tracking his location through social media clues, and then just sits with him, without judgment, is very poignant too.

She's just so.. selfless and giving, as his mom.

I do love that this causes him to open up a bit, and let her listen to his music, and I do love that she gets all excited and happy over it, and instantly becomes his biggest fan. Aw.

Back in high school, I thought the love confession, first from Yae to Harumichi, and then later, from Harumichi to Yae, around asking what the other person's favorite food was, was very cute.

I'd definitely expected Harumichi to be faster on the uptake, but I rationalize that it had probably had been so out of his expectation, that Yae would like him, that that's why he wasn't able to connect the dots.

The snowy mutual confession is super cute, and full of young love feels, when Harumichi finally gets to see Yae, and it's sweet in a particularly nostalgic way, even though I've never had a love confession moment like that, in the snow. 🥰

As we close out the episode, Harumichi's just gotten a glimpse of Yae driving her cab - and then promptly loses her again, because of - ugh - traffic rules, and his cab driver's insistence of abiding by them.

As we get that aerial view of their cabs going off in different directions, we hear Yae muse in voiceover (while First Love plays in the background, no less), that every moment is a unique jigsaw puzzle piece in our lives, so what happens when we end up losing an important piece of it?

That is such a great blend of visual and audio impact in one, to bring home that message, that Yae and Harumichi are important pieces in each other's lives, but have each gone their separate ways, after a fork in the road.

Very nicely conceptualized, I thought.

And, like I mentioned before, I'm just lapping up Show's use of the just-missed almost-meet, and so I'm chomping at the bit to see how and when the almost-meet will stop being an "almost."

E2. Ok, so by the end of the episode, I understand why folks keep saying that they binge-watched this one.

Show just has a way of making me want to know what happens next, and honestly, if I actually had the luxury of clearing my schedule, I would absolutely sit down and inhale this all in a single day. 😅

I mean, the flashbacks to Yae and Harumichi in young love, combined with the present-day yearning, is potent enough that I feel very invested to know how things will go, when they finally reconnect in the present.

Before I get into that, I just wanted to say, that I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps Tsuzuru is staying with his bio dad, and that Tsuzuru had been the result of some kind of "mistake," because we hear Dad say something about having learned his lesson, when his friend tells him not to screw things up now that he has a young, beautiful wife.

And then the camera immediately pans to Tsuzuru's reaction, where he looks awkward and troubled, and makes to excuse himself from the dinner table.

I don't want to think that Dad might have raped Yae, back in the day, and that's how she'd gotten pregnant with Tsuzuru, but.. I can't imagine Yae sleeping with someone else, given how in love she'd been, with Harumichi. 😬

If my theory is correct, then.. there's probably a lot more emotional baggage for Yae and Harumichi to work through, when they finally meet, than I'd originally thought.

As we get a little deeper in our story, I do get the feeling that Yae and Harumichi hadn't split up willingly.

That's the only reason I can think of, for Harumichi to be so focused and.. well, obsessed, almost, with finding her again, even if it means glueing himself to that walkie-talkie that's rigged to a plethora of taxi radio bands.

And he does manage to figure out where she works, which is a pretty huge accomplishment, based on the little information he'd had to go on, in the first place.

It's just.. right now, Yae's finally deciding to open up her heart, just a little bit, to that colleague of hers, Outaro, who's been crushing on her for a long time.

Of course, Outaro can't hold a candle to Harumichi (I mean, for real, Sato Takeru's smolder is nothing short of arresting, y'all 🫠), but I do feel bad for Outaro, who's inevitably going to get his heart broken, isn't he?

Likewise, I feel bad for Harumichi's girlfriend, whom we glimpse for the first time, this episode.

It feels like everything around them, seems to remind Yae and Harumichi of each other.

Whether it's questions about what event in her life caused her to end up as a cab driver, or the movie Titanic, which happens to be on TV, Yae and Harumichi can't seem to escape memories of each other.

This is the classic Fated Love that is celebrated in so many dramas, and y'know, I just can't help but buy into it, despite the complications this would cause, in Yae's and Harumichi's lives.

This episode, the flashback to the Titanic date is cute, especially when Yae and Harumichi dorkily replicate that classic scene, at a railing in the mall.

But what strikes me more, is that "First Love" turns out to be the soundtrack of their very first kiss.

Ohhh. No wonder this song has such a visceral effect on Harumichi, when he'd heard it in the cab.

Also, this episode, we see Tsuzuru strike up a friendship with Harumichi, which lands extra poignant, given the background that we know, that Tsuzuru is actually Yae's son.

It's kinda great, though, to see Tsuzuru being happier and more upbeat, because he's been able to meet his idol, thanks to Harumichi.

It's also heartwarming to see Yae feeling so happy to be out on a date with Tsuzuru, while wearing the sweater that he'd given her.

What a great mirror and contrast, to see her twirl in front of the mirror, wearing that sweater, compared to how she'd twirled in front of the mirror, back in the day, while getting ready to meet Harumichi for their first date.

It's poignant to see how things have changed in Yae's life, and yet, how some things haven't changed, at her core, like the way she twirls in front of the mirror, when she's excited about getting ready to meet someone important to her.

It's also heartening to see that Tsuzuru's more mindful about being considerate to his mother, now that he's in a better mood generally, so much so that he would give up going to see his idol, because it's time that he's put aside to spend with Yae.

Plus, it's really good to see them connecting on a whole new level, because Yae appreciates his music so much.

But how typically considerate and sacrificial of Yae, to shoo him off to go enjoy himself, while making up an excuse that she'd like to see a movie on her own, and doesn't need his company.

Aw. But the truth is, she looks really wistful and lonely, on her own, without him. She'd let him go, to make him happy, without taking into account her own happiness. 😭

Y'know, because Harumichi's shown getting into several cabs in these opening episodes, I'd imagined that when he finally met Yae again, it would be related to her work as a cab driver.

But, instead, he finally sees her again, when she comes to pick up Tsuzuru, and Tsuzuru introduces her as his mom.

Well. That's only going to cause Harumichi to assume that Mom is in a marriage with Tsuzuru's dad, isn't he?

Which would likely break his heart and dampen his determination to reconnect with her, wouldn't it?

ALSO. Why is Harumichi able to recognize Yae, but she is unable to recognize him..?

I have no idea, really.

All I know is, I'm very much invested, and interested to know what happens next, and soon.

Next episode notes will be out on: Tuesday, 20 December 2022!

*This show will be covered on the Early Access Plus (US$10) Tier*