The story, which is competition between a no-name school and a high ranked school, with some ex-friend, sorta rivals is nothing new to the genre. It's pretty see though with some fun moments exploring relationships AS FRIENDS and RIVALS, growing up, and competition. If you're looking for yaoi, I'd stick with the BL movies since this one has none of that going on. A sports story that actually sticks to the sport, with a surprising amount of technical lingo and improvement.
Acting, most of these guys are stage actors, which is why a lot of people commented about the 'over emoting' or 'over acting'. It's a hard transition but overall most everyone did a good job. I didn't have any really emotional moments, and no one really stood out to me. I fell in love with Taira (Ozawa Ren), since the development of his character was rather rushed but he had some major turn arounds in emotion that were pulled off fairly well. For as much as the main cast was cute and fluffy, they didn't have as much pull for me. Nothing comment-able, aside as much as you think Harumi (Akazawa Tomoru) is going to be the annoying character; he's not that bad.
What a killed this drama for me was the ending. It was not satisfactory AT ALL. We get the competition we've been waiting for, but no closure. You're holding your breath waiting for an ending, and it doesn't come. Although this is being carried over into a stage play, I'm not happy as just a drama watcher.
The music, ending theme is actually sung by a few members of the cast (they come from musical actors after all) is pretty cute. Otherwise, nothing standing out. The rewatch value is low because of the ending, but at the same time it's short enough and cute enough I wouldn't mind spending 4 hours of my time watching again.
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Whether it was the actors, the story, or the drama that played out I couldn't tell you specifically. I have to be honest, though... I did want to stop watching after the first episode. Yet somewhere this show hooked me from episode 1, too. I can't say it was the story that got my attention; because it was definitely the actors. Each one held my attention so strongly with their spirited attitudes, cheeky personalities, and their fierce passion. I definitely laughed a lot thanks to the men in this show!
However, as I continued watching, I felt more like I was dropped into the middle of a 10 episode show instead of just an 8 episode show. I feel like the actors carried this show very well, the story was definitely not your typical "sports dramatics" either, and I definitely believe this show has a strong spirit of its own. It could have absolutely gone for a couple of more episodes. It is hard to get people into swimming shows/movies/animes of any kind, I think; maybe because swimming is so fun or maybe because just watching swimming is boring... Who knows?
This is a good show to watch if you're in a rut or just starting out with Japanese dramas. This show is very captivating and very well made until the end.
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