very enjoyable, slice-of-life drama with a decent story. i randomly came across this on Viki and wanted to give it a chance. i think the best part of this drama is the directing. i loved the scene compositions which almost all the time added to the plot more than the actual dialogue. i loved how the composition in certain scenes created chemistry between the characters. for example, there were scenes where Kanata and Misaki were not even in the same room, yet the way the specific scene was set up was enough to cultivate chemistry on the screen.

i loved the acting performances as well but one thing that was especially notable was the eye-acting. there were a lot of scenes where it was just the character staring at another character and they were all so impactful at making the viewer feel things. i think eye-acting plays a very important part in east-Asian dramas because they aren't always heavily reliant on dialogue. this was another thing that i loved. for example, Kanata was pretty much fully silent in the episode where he found out he was adopted yet he had a lot of scenes in the episode where his presence was heavily felt. Yamazaki Kento was able to translate that sense of confusion and hurt very well.

i also loved the way they used music in this drama. it was used sparingly and often times, i loved the dialogue scenes with no music in the background even more. more so, i very much enjoyed how this drama made room to have long scenes that were just made up of monologues with more than one person in the scene and no music in the background. something about it felt incredibly authentic to me. most dramas feel formulaic while this was more.. poetic? with that being said, i didn't necessarily care for the adoption storyline or the restaurant transfer but clearly, neither did the writers/producers because they didn't handle those topics as if they were supposed to be big plotlines. they only handled the impact these plotlines had on the characters and their relationships. it was always about their changing relationship dynamics and not the actual threat of them losing the restaurant or whatever. those plotlines weren't anywhere near unique but the way they handled them by focusing on character relationships was very unique and well done. also, i can't help it, i just like a good enemies-to-lovers storyline lol (even with the love triangle!!).