One Week Friends (2017)

The cinematography is top notch. The story is endearing and sweet. Hase-kun is the nice guy everyone wants as a boyfriend. You know this nice-guy will finish first in the end. But my only beef with the story is that our nice, determined guy ran out of gumption somewhere in the middle. It still created a moving story though.

Acting - Yamazaki Kento has such a wide range of acting emotions and he does them all excellently. He played the nice, caring, hurting guy here. The earnest one with a pure heart and feelings shining from his face and eyes. His shyness is perfectly captured. The actor also plays the cold hearted mean guy in other movies or the brave action star. His range is awesome.

Music - I didn't pay much attention, but the beginning piano sequence was awesome for me.The songs here bring out the feelings the story wants to invoke.

Everything meshed well to make this a wonderful, moving movie.

Story - 9
Acting - 10
Music - 7
Rewatch - N/A
Overall - 8

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Friendship > Romance

NOTE: Slight spoilers are in the section headlined ' spoiler section '. You have been warned.

Like my title may suggest, this movie is centred on friendship rather than romance. And I very much like it as it is. Too many Japanese romcom movies are centred on the 2 main protagonists ending in a definite romance and that's the movie wrapped up in a nice little bow.

But this movie moves away from that. It focuses on friendship rather than romance. Althought I admit that there are definitely romantic sub-tones from the description and movie poste that you can't help acknowledging. But at the end of the day, the male lead wants to be friends with the female lead. It's a nice change of pace and explores how guys and girls can pursue friendship without an obvious attraction either way. ( For a time anyway...)

First, the cast. I love this cast. Yamazaki Kento, a.k.a the Rom-Com prince, as Yuuki Hase was great in this movie as a bubbly, cheerful male lead who has good intentions even if he's a bit clumsy and awkward. Very believable. Great acting. And I gotta say, the puffy, curly hair helped somehow as well. Kawaguchi Haruna playing Kaori was also enjoyable to watch. I'm not familiar with her work but after watching this movie, I am a fan. Both illed their roles impeccably and their social dynamic was generally entertaining to watch unfold. The supporting roles within this movie were also done very well. Their interactions with the main characters felt genuine and were acted out well.

The music. This is a bit of a minor consideration, but the songs in this movie were touching and flowed well when they started playing with their respective scenes. Seamless transitions and they sounded beautiful.

The plot itself was what caught my attention in the first place. I was intrigued enough to give it a watch after reading it. I'm not sure if it is completely original but it was a fresh breath of air and was engaging enough.

The movie's ending and climax were executed nicely and was about to convey it's emotional impact. However, the movie had faults as well. The major flaw was the movie's pacing. Past the beginning and in the middle portion of the movie, I felt as if the movie was quickened it's pacing and was rushing towards it's end. The minor flaw I had was with the male lead breaking character (you'll see what I mean in the movie) and it was ever so slightly annoying to see this character cave and make his ' noble sacrifice ' even though I like Yamazaki kento. The second male lead was also very irritating and couldn't really bring myself to like him.

Overall, this movie is a good watch for anyone who likes themselves a Japanese drama. At times, it is genuinely heartwarming and emotional while staying down-to-earth and real. A good job all around.

SPOILER/RANT SECTION:

Ok, I'll assume you've watched the movie. So, the confession by Fumi, the childhood friend, (RIP childhood friends; you never get chosen) was a loose end that I don't feel the movie did anything to explore. The scene where Fumi and Kaori are working on a stall and Fumi goes " What do you think of Yuuki?" and then she says " If you ever hurt him, I don't know if I can ever forgive you. " So, that is a clear indicator of her feelings towards him. This clearly pointed to a love triangle. But it was swept under the rug in favor of a lacklustre, almost throwaway confession scene for the sake of it being out of the way. Now, I can understand if a love triangle would be offputting but I feel like she wasn't really given a chance to express her feelings properly, leading to the messy confession where Yuuki and Fumi are about to set out in the rain with umbrellas. It was a situation that is fairly common I think where she ahd to finally say it because/even though she knew had no chance of him liking her back. I wished that had been addressed further and she put herself out there to let him know she was interested and she wasn't going to cave in. She should've had a chance, even if it was more and more explicit that Yuuki had developed feelings for Kaori but was keeping it under wraps.

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A Warm and Sweet First Love

The FL is a new transfer student. Everyone thinks she is arrogant and cold because she refuses to interact with any of her classmates. This doesn’t stop the ML from trying to get to know her. The way our ML looks at the FL on the first day of school when he sees that they are in the same class (homeroom) just melts my cold cynical heart. I love the ML’s character in this movie. He is like a ray of of sunshine, cotton candy, and all that is bright and happy wrapped together. When his attempts to befriend the FL keep failing, their homeroom teacher finally pulls him aside and tells him that after a week, the FL will not remember anyone she has met. He’s devastated, of course, but his positive personality refuses to give up. So, he devises a plan so she will remember him: trading a journal with her. I like that the movie is pragmatic in that it was not a quick, miraculous recovery for the FL, but that it took time and many heartaches for the ML before we have our happy ending. I really did want to reach out into the screen to give the ML a big hug when his heart was breaking because she could not remember him or their time together.

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I Guess this is one of the most interesting Japanese movie I have came across. Here Kento Yamazaki and Haruna Kawaguchi have both done a great job. The support role has also did a great job. The whole cast brought the story live in front of me. I cried at the Last part very hard because I knew what Kento would have felt. So I tell you that it's must watch movie. In fact I have suggested my friends as well. They too loved it.
i hope you like the movie .
(Actually I Just fall on Kento Yamazaki when I saw him in the movie. He is the best. There are many films where he has done a great job)
(Haruna Kawaguchi is also good. If you liked her acting in this movie then you should do watch Sukitte ii na yo. it's a good movie and again I started crying)
じゃ ❤️ またね

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This movie was beautiful and adorable. The acting was brilliant and it actually moved me - Hase is the sweetest, most caring guy there is and he's just so cheerful that anyone would be happy just to stand next to him. The music was lovely and so delicate that I wanted to keep listening to it, and it matched the movie very well! What amazed me was the main character's acting: I've seen movies with this actor and in them, he's usually very arrogant or cold-hearted but in this, man, it just shows how awesome of an actor he is! He's such a versatile actor considering he adapted to the goofy-airhead character really well. People should watch this, if not for the story, for this guy's acting skills and the way he's able to showcase different emotions and expressions that will make you feel for him and root for him the entire time.

The only thing that irked me was the ending, which practically ruined things for me. It was very unsatisfying BUT I still liked the plot and the acting: it didn't ruin my whole experience and overall, it was such a sweet movie that I would watch again if I have some spare time on my hands.

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if you already watched the anime version first, then lower your expectations a bit.

as always whenever there's a anime adaptation to LA, the ending always changed. tbh i prefer the anime ver for the ending. at least hase didn't suffer from the pain that happened to him haha. but overall it's still worth to watch if you didn't watch the anime version first.
oke, let's talk about the good part. -

(this is completely spoiler, please do not read that if you don't want to get spoiled!!)

so, sorry for the bad impression first. acctualy i still prefer the anime version. but, this adaptation still good though. the story begin with hase find kaori's student identity and sniffing her id but kaori find it out when hase sniffing her id. then after that hase started to get more closer with her. time to time they begin doing the same thing as the anime and suddenly her ex classmates and also her "crush" meet at the "hanabi' festival. the next day her past started to join the same class as kaori after moving from hokkaido to her city. after that he begin to get closer to her to "revenge" but after knowing she's have short memory, he started to get closer with her again. kaori begins to remember her past after her ex best friend apologizing about what happened with her memory, she's started to remember the rest of her past but her memory still forgetting about what happened recently and of course, her memories with hase. hase started to give up and burn that note book. after the graduation ceremonial, kaori get announcement from the library council and ask the book that hase borrow from the library. after that she's finds out that there is hase's drawing in that book and suddenly she's remembered what happened with hase and her. then kaori stated to looking for hase and they met for the last time at that school and kaori ask hase to be her friend.

in conclusion.
the story still in the same direction as the adaptation source. it's still nice to know the other "alternative" endings. i would say the one is a sad ending but they pretty much nailed it! for some people, this story way way related (the same as me) and it's a good film too. I'm glad that they still use "kanade" as the ending song, and it's way way more fit to the story! good job overall.

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Youthful platonic and romantic story with the sweetest male lead ever!

This is a very cute movie with the sweetest male lead that can exist. It is a very youthful and platonic romance with a slow and quiet pacing. Story-telling wise, it does not reinvent the wheel but provide a satisfying experience to its viewers. The story has a real sentimental vibe and illustrates (-sometimes quite literally) in an interesting way the time passing by and the evolution of the relationship between its main protagonists.

I was impressed by the acting of Yamazaki Kento. He can sometimes be a bit of a miss for me but here I found his emotional scenes pretty convincing. He was able to subtly demonstrate a lot of feelings in a more natural and subdue way than in some of his other works. Overall, this picture had a good cast and did not feature too much overacting (which is often a big flaw in the Japanese productions).

Production was rather standard for a high school settings but some of the visuals were rather pretty. The stationery used, the doodles and drawings showcased in the picture were also a nice addition to the plot as it become essential to the characters developments. The OST was pleasant with his classical piano touches and fitted well the story.

I would recommend this to people looking for a sweet quiet romantic and non-toxic story with a male lead exhibiting all the best traits of characters and full of green flags.

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[WARNING: the rating and review I give have the possibility to be subjective due to my preference for the genres, scenes or casts]

"After all, if you don't do anything, nothing will ever begin."

Well, I must admit ... I'm a little bit disappointed with the ending, but after all the story is quite good. Just good, but not great for me.

First, I watched this for Yamaken. After all I like his role and acting, especially when he throw away the diary into a bonfire. That was his greatest scene in this movie―for me. After that, the story quite boring and the ending seems too forced and rushed.

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