Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo. (2020)

Teenage Girls & Coming of Age: How to Deal with Love, Sexuality and Friendship

This coming-of-age drama focuses on five teenage girls who have to deal with first love, the journey of discovering themselves, and their own desires. We are able to take a glimpse into their youth and the way they express new, unknown feelings and their sexual identity. They are part of a literature club at school and even though it seems embarrassing for them to talk, instead to just read about sex, they realize that they all actually are intrigued by experiencing love and sex. It's important to normalize these topics and show that such thoughts and desires are not restricted to boys/men. It is also important to note that this drama was written by a woman and directed by women.

If you are like me and enjoy entertaining slice-of-life stories, you will definitely end up liking, maybe even loving this drama. Being a teen is difficult, being a teenage girl is even more difficult – especially when it comes to love, sexuality, and friendship. Proving yourself in a world full of adults, who are also pretending to know everything can be exhausting. It can make you angry.
This is not for people, who are looking for some dramatic twists. In my opinion, the ending was a realistic way to end this drama. Honestly, it's kind of like what actually teenage life and self-discovery are, without any dramatic twists but depth and cluelessness.

What I really like about this drama is, that everyone – even when someone makes a mistake or has a bad thought – is mature enough to reflect on it. We see them admiring each other, cheering each other on. Of course, there are moments where they don't like each other. You might even get angry with a character. But these characters are able to find solutions, sometimes in a childish way and sometimes quite a mature way. They grow and learn together.
Figuring out who you are is a life long journey. I enjoyed following everyone's journey. I enjoyed the bravery and the confusion and the awkwardness of the characters. I loved witnessing their personal growth.
You can see and feel how the directors are female. No character feels flat. They all have their own problems.
These characters are vulnerable, scared, curious, and in love.

If you enjoy literature, you will also find interesting imagery. There's a lot of symbolism with the sea, lilies of the valley, the colorful paint, white - purity, freedom, and laughter, etc.
The cinematography is absolutely wonderful. The opening song is catchy and fun.
If you are already finished with this drama, I would recommend this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XDAnF6hr4Q

One of my favorite things about this drama is Momo.
I really appreciate how Momo actually is such a kind, brave and honest character. She has so many new experiences, but she is still never afraid to speak her mind. She does not appear to be the most confident person from the outside, but she has so much to offer.
I also really enjoyed the beginning of the last episode with all the chaos. It was a fun and chaotic moment.

I do wish that they would have focused more on Sugawara's trauma. I guess it's difficult to fit in that much of character development and healing in 8 episodes. She appears to be very mysterious from the outside but maybe is just better at hiding her cluelessness than other teens.

All in all, there are some things I would change and some characters I would like to put the focus on more, but I still would recommend it.

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Realistic Glimpse of Teenagers' sexuality!

As much as unrealistic and taboo, the theme of the drama (and their literature club) is, the drama remains realistic and true both to the character portrayal of the manga and thought workings of the budding teenagers.

Panning out on vast oceanic view, the drama begins with thoughts of both the girls and their teengirls-hating teacher. Though having an aversion of "ees-eee-eks", the club members enjoy reading the literature perspective of racy, erotic books aloud in the confines of their school club room. With the utterance of the bucket-list wish by a member, the lives and ideologies of the club members gets shattered leading to a sequence of new desires, self-discovery and personal growth. An eclectic ride for the open-minded souls which can be reminiscent of one's own youthful mistakes and fears and their vanquishments.

The visual imagery from start to end, ranging from trains and tunnels to colour theory is applaud worthy. The narration is fast-paced. The titular dancing number was cute. Music was nice but forgetful. The acting felt realistic.

The upsetting aspects were the scenes were the minors throwing themselves upon the adults for sexual gratification and the ambiguous sexual nature of the Saegusa Hisashi's character (Caution!). Fear not, for nothing was shown explicitly but may be implied.

Final note, this drama is only for those who are progressive and acknowledging the mishaps of the youth and definitely not morally agreeing to them.

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Its weird but i promise it is goood

I have never seen a drama like this and i dont think many people would have also. it was weird at the start but a cool point abt this drama is that it answers most questions asked by teenagers as they grow up in a short and meaningful way that u would never imagine. it doesn't hv unnecessary cliches and misunderstandings and all other stuff a normal drama would hv. it perfectly enlightens us.
the story provides us 5 girls and their point of view of love, sexuality and life and where is takes them. it shows us how confused and how misunderstood we are in life and society. it shows us the change of views of teenagers and how they adapt in different ways. its cute, weird and pretty.
i would highly recommend this to growing up ppl like me who was really confused abt all the aspects that this drama portrayed. i surely enjoyed it. it was fun. it was a good experience.

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The first thing that caught my attention about this j-drama was the poster because it's really aesthetic. I also like female centered plots and even the synopsis seemed interesting so I decided to give this drama a try despite me rarely liking Japanese dramas.
And it was a pleasant surprise! The characters seemed realistic and I like how each of the girls had enough space in the drama and that we got to know some things about each of them. My favourite one would be definitely Momo, I really liked her story.
The opening credit scenes featured the characters dancing to a really catchy song. Though I rarely like j-dramas, I always like the OSTs. :D
The main story had 8 episodes but on Viki you will find that the drama actually has 10 episodes in total as the last two ones are special episodes providing backstory for the two main male characters: Izumi and Milo-sensei. I really liked Izumi's story, it showed really well how people can change during their highschool lives.
Overall it was a realistic slice of life drama that made you think deep about some topics mentioned. It explored the coming out of age genre very well.

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