#初恋 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alexandrarosa · 11 months

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First love

First of all I don’t remember the last time I’ve loved something this much. I think it wouldn’t be an exaggeration if I said it was the best thing I’ve ever watched.

I absolutely loved the characters and their development. I loved how the plot was shown in nonlinear time – thanks to which we could really see the whole story from different perspectives.

I loved the ending and even though it was such a happy one, it kind of wrecked me. And I absolutely have to post my whole analysis of the show because ‘First Love’ is the only thing I’ve been able to think about for the past three days.

(spoiler alert!)

Yae Noguchi

The first character we meet seems like the nicest person in the world. Of course we don’t know her tragic backstory then but we can feel there is some mysterious lingering in her preception of the world around her. She’s a single mother, she works hard day and night. We slowly get to know everything about her life and honestly it’s all so sad. I mean her relationship with Harumichi is lovely. I adore how she sees him as the wild one compared to her. She has her dreams and she’s so invested in all the things she does. She’s courageous – she’s the one who confesses her feelings first (and my beloved dumbass Harumichi doesn’t even get it). She is ready to work hard to get what she wants. She got into university and I think she was really happy there. Of course then the worst happens. And I feel like that accident was the beginning of the most miserable period of her life. She’s always been ambitious, she had plans. And all of the sudden she’s reduced to being a stay-at-home mother and a housewife. Her husband, who seemed like a good guy, turns to be, well, an asshole. His mother treats her horribly. They have no respect for her. She’s kind of treated like housekeeper more than a part of the family. So she struggles, but becames herself again – and takes the control back. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, she has to work night and day. But she’s ready to do it. And she loves her son unconditionally, she’s ready to give him everything he needs. And when he needs to have better care – she’s ready to give him up even though it kills her. She gets back on her feet, she moves away from her mother.

I absolutely love Yae. I love how determined she is, I adore that she really tries, even though she has no hope for herself. And I love that she’s ready to do everything she feels she should.

Yae’s dreams

Something that makes me really sad is that she has to wait for so long to actually make her dreams come true. She has always known what she wanted to do in life, but couldn’t accomplish it for twenty years. She feels like a person with no past cannot have a future. And that’s how she sees herself –she lost so many precious things – not only love and memories, but also (or maybe mainly) the abilities to do what she wants. She didn’t graduate. She was a housewife so she had no experience in any kind of work. Yae from before the accident had the whole world standing open before herself. Yae after the accident has limited choices and no hope for a change.

But it’s so sad that she’s losing it all and her mother does nothing. She’s grieving after a perfect daughter she’s lost like she’s the actual victim. Yae’s mother let her own grief and pain hurt her daughter. She was blaming Harumichi for the accident, because he wasn’t able to protect her. And because of that she punished them both. She made Harumichi believe for so many years that he’s the responsible one. She forced him to dissapear from Yae’s life, she would let her know about him. She preferred the surgeon guy because he had more money. She’s hoping she made the right choice - but honestly she didn’t. She shouldn’t have been making the choices at all. They were not hers to made.

What makes me so angry is that Yae never got back to the university. I wonder why her mother never encouraged her. I’m angry that she had to through all that pain just because her mother decided what’s best for her.

But nothing makes me happier than those small parallels. Teenage Yae greeting imaginary passengers on their flight to Reykiavik and adult Yae being a flight attendant in Iceland. Teenage Harumichi saying that he’s going to be a pilot with a beautiful flight attendant as a wife and they ending up flying together at the end. Their dreams really did come true at the end.

Harumichi Namiki

The literal love of my life. I mean this is the guy who becomes your fictional crush and makes every guy in reality look sad. He’s the epiphany of taking control ovet your own life. And an exellent example of ‘you can’t change him but he will change for you if he cares’ and honestly, damn. Their origin story, their meet cute, whatever you want to call it – my dude was swept off his feet. He saw a girl reading a book and he decided to change his entire life for her. It was, as he stated, laughably easy. He went from a textbook badboy to learning nonstop for several weeks because of the chance he saw on the horizon. He would do absolutely everything for her. He became a pilot for her. His whole life was dedicated to her. She was the energy that fueled his life.

And then she got ripped away from his life completly abruptly. And then at the slightest chance of finding her again – he regained all hope.

I love how he always states that he believes in fate but at the same time he knows that he can’t just sit and wait for the good fings to happen. He uses any chance life throws at him. And everything he could control – he did.

Harumichi’s character development

What’s interesting about Harumichi is a long way he came during his life. From a badboy to a wild student to the military cadet and pilot to the security guard. I love how visible it is that his main reason of being is protecting others. From protecting his sister to protecting Yae and his country. But what’s also worth mentioning is his belief in love – or actually – the way he loves. We see him as a teenager, eager to give love, full of energy. Then, as an adult, we see him with Tsunemi – he’s more conscious, more careful. Less involved. I thought it’s just something that comes with age. But then he finds Yae again and all his energy and involvement come back. I feel like for those twenty years he was passive about his life and work and love. I’m sure he cared for Tsunemi but she couldn’t wake that flame inside of him. And then he became active again because he regained the hope for reuniting with Yae again. And I’m not even sure if it had a romantic purpose at the beginning. I don’t think he wanted to break up with Tsunemi just because he saw Yae. But then it turned out that he didn’t have a choice – Tsunemi wasn’t the one. Maybe in a world without Yae she would do, but not in this reality. That’s why I don’t think that Harumichi broke up with her to be with Yae. I think he thought he had to because he couldn’t love her as he should have.

Their love

I love how Yae’s and Harumichi’s relationship is actually so calm and peaceful. They don’t argue. They don’t have that will-they-won’t-they dynamic. They just love each other and it’s completly pure. I also love the scene after the end credits when they are shown together while walking. Notice how Harumichi constantly grabs her hand, touches her, kisses her. Like he’s afraid that if he doesn’t hold her she’ll disappear. And she’s so happy that he’s back in her life. That there is somebody that really actually loves her. Geeez, I’m so happy that they found each other.

The role of fate and the role of timing

Fate is a tricky thing – some people sit and wait for the good things to happen. But it seems like the characters from the ‘First Love’ know it doesn’t work that way. Yes, you can call it fate that Harumichi saw Yae on the train and then again in the exam room. But everything he did later came from him. He took care of everything that was in his control. And when there was nothing more to do, he had to let fate work again – and it did. They went to the same high school. Fate worked again twenty years later sending them both to Sapporo and making them, in a way, cross their paths. And yet again Harumichi didn’t wait for fate to reunite them. He was listening to the taxi announcements for hours for god’s sake! Life (or fate – whatever you want to call it) gave him the chance to rescue her this time and he did, hurting himself in the process.

The fate did it again with Uta finding Harumichi in Iceland, but Yae actively chose to find him. She made her own choice not waiting for a coincidence.

What’s also worth mentioning is that Harumichi actively played the role of ‘fate’ for Tsuzuru and Uta – he made it possible for them to meet.

The worst part of all that is timing. And we know that timing is a bitch.

So many important things happend in the wrong moment. Harumichi coming to Yae only to find out that she’s pregnant. Yae falling in love with him again when he was engaged. Her confessing her feelings after he decided to take a break and go away. Yae regaining her memories only after Harumichi left. Her deciding to take back control of her life and dreams and pandemic streaking.

But at the same time so many good things happened because of the bad timing – for example Harumichi’s leaving let Tsuzuru find the CD player that gave Yae her memories back. If he had never decided to leave she might have not get them back.

For such a long time I was trying to understand why he didn’t want to be with her when she confessed her feelings. But I think I get it now. He would have to live knowing she doesn’t remember a big part of their shared history. And I think it could be heart shattering. He had to actively choose to leave her again despite their shared love for each other because it would be more painful for him to be with her even though it’s the thing he wanted his whole adult life.

And then she regains her memories. And she comes after him. And my little heart is so happy and sad at the same time when I think of all the things they had to live through to find each other again. But at the same time all that happend – good or bad – made it possible.

The normal life shown in the series

I think it’s something worth mentioning. Every person in the show has their own normal life. And I think it’s so important that the role of the characters isn’t reduced to the love story only. We see them working, eating, partying, cooking, studying, even commuting to work. It seems so natural but at the same time I feel like the western fil/show makers sometimes forget that the normal life is also worth exploring and showing. Characters crying and then going to work in the morning like nothing happened. Cooking for loved ones. Sitting with a giant plushie (another reason for my love for that dude). The mention of living in the pandemic! Seeing it from perspective actually made me cry because I got reminded of that period that I actually struggled with. And so did Yae. It’s so precious to me to see characters being normal people.

The music

I feel like the song ‘First Love’ will always make me cry from now on. It always played in such moments in the show that it now gives me the lingering feeling of sadness and happiness at the same time anytime I hear it. And for that I am eternally grateful.

All in all, loved the show. It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen. If it was a book I would literally sleep with it underneath my pillow (like Alexander the Great with his copy of Illiad). I can’t believe I accidentally discovered such a treasure. If you didn’t watch it yet I cannot recomment it enough. If you did – you know what I mean.

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