'My Strawberry Film' is a Japanese youth romantic crowd drama about the intertwined feelings of four high school students with very different personalities and views on love, attracted by a mysterious movie.
This is a coming-of-age drama about four teenagers, ages 17 or so, realistically observing moments in their lives, moments that all of us could have experienced or will experience at one point or another.
The drama, likewise, covers serious and mature themes while presenting them in a comedic and dramatic manner.
Screenwriters Kobayashi Keiichi and Takahashi Natsuki, and director Takeda Karin, manage to mix friendship, love and longing, while complex feelings cross the hearts of the characters.
Also appearing as director and screenwriter is Ryo Kawasaki, a proven master of BL, who was the director of the drama 'Minato Shoji Coin Laundry 2' and writer of the script for 'Zenra Meshi', both from 2023.
The music of Yuya Mori and the opening themes "Flashback Memories", by Kubota Kai, and "Cropping", by Quw, for the closing, converge to delight the audience with the story in which four high school students, each one with their own feelings, they face heartbreaking emotions as they pursue a mystery.

PLOT

In their second year of high school, Ryo Ichikawa (Ryusei Fukada), Hikaru Toyama (Rei Yabana) and Chika Nakamura (Mizuki Yoshida), live a seemingly peaceful school life while harboring hidden emotions.
One day, Hikaru and Chika are penalized for being late to class. To fulfill the punishment imposed, they must clean an old warehouse behind the gym. Faced with old and used items stored in the shed, Chika comes up with the idea that she could sell the valuables on an auction site. Immersed in his search, he finds an 8 mm film kept in a small metal box. As they pass the tape through the projector, the image of a dazzling girl appears before them. Hikaru is captivated by the beauty of the young girl (Ririka Tanabe) that could be seen even through the rough particles.
Perplexed and fascinated, Hikari declares to his best friend Ryo: "I want to meet the girl from the movie." Isn't he dancing and laughing on the same rooftop of the school where they go in their free time? Doesn't the film show images of an old building known to them? So, the young woman has to be a former student of the school. Didn't you also wear the same uniform as theirs? From this moment on, they will show her face to the former teachers to see if any of them recognize her.
If the girl must have been known by the most senior teachers, several were even students at the school decades ago and, therefore, they must know all the young people who passed through their classrooms, why does no one recognize her? What is the mystery surrounding the young woman? Why do they seem to prefer to remain silent and not identify the girl and tell them where to find her or tell them what happened to her?
Together with Hikaru, Ryo and Chika begin to search for clues about the enigmatic creature reflected in an 8 mm film. Are your feelings for that special person love, friendship or respect? is the question that floats in the air.
The very next day a transfer student arrives at school. The three friends will be surprised when Minami Murasaki appears before them, a young woman who looked exactly like the girl in the movie.
The feelings of four people that are intertwined with the mysteries hidden in the film are represented in this youth group drama: Hikaru chases the shadow of the mysterious girl, Ryo worries about Hikaru and Chika has feelings for Ryo, while Minami's gaze seems pass by.
Finally, in an unexpected turn of events, the series also drifts towards Girl Love (GL) and internalized homophobia, since the girl in the video is actually Minami's mother, who was filmed by the student she loved. and this, despite loving her, could not reciprocate.

OF CHARACTERS AND STARS

This Fuji Television drama, with an original script, shows people with feelings that cannot be named in their hearts: they cry, fight, laugh and desperately try to seize the moment that is now.
Quattro, who plays Ryo Ichikawa, perfectly captures his role as a boy who is not good at interacting with people, is seen as cool by those around him and is popular among young girls for his beautiful appearance, but he does not like to stand out and does not show no interest in girls. His passion is making music.
His time in 'Kenisasu Life' (Nippon Television) and 'Dragon Zakura' (TBS) confirms the constant evolution of this popular actor, now in the role of giving life to a high school student in full struggle with many emotions such as love and friendship. The nostalgic and sensitive, but also romantic, audience can identify perfectly with the character.
Rei Yabana, the member of '7MEN Samurai', shines in his first leading role, playing Hikaru Onada, a beloved and energetic boy who is sometimes insensitive, with great communication skills and easy to get carried away, but also fickle when not having anything that excites him and without love experience.
Ductile playing a young man in his phase of discovering and describing the sweet and bittersweet youth that only a high school student can experience, his characterization makes the viewer live or relive, as the case may be, that "youth" as if he had lived it with previously or somewhere. I don't doubt that it will awaken memories and emotions that the audience may have had.
Who we saw in 'Nare no Hate no Bokura', on TV Tokyo, confirms with his performance that he is an artist who not only has the talent to play a wide range of instruments, such as the guitar.
For his part, Yoshida Mizuki manages to convince the most demanding viewer in his role as Chika Nakamura, a young member of the badminton club with an active personality and knowledge of ancient tools. As a bright girl who cares deeply about her friends and sometimes has trouble expressing her true feelings, she makes the audience identify with the character.
Yoshida Mizuki, who has demonstrated her talent by starring in the films 'Atsui Chest Sawagi' and 'Kamuy no Uta', as well as her role in the Netflix series 'Alice in the Country', penetrates with conviction into the skin of an objectively girl cute but lacks self-confidence and has secret feelings for Ryo.
Ririka Tanabe, who like Mizuki Yoshida is an exclusive model for "Seventeen" and has also appeared in popular works such as the drama 'The Best Teacher: 1 Year Later, I Was Treated by a Student', shows great sensitivity when characterizing a devilish girl who has her own vision of the world and her own rhythm, and never tires of unconsciously manipulating everyone around her.
As Minami Murasaki, she shows her artistic skills as a transfer student who looks exactly like the beautiful girl in the film and seeks to unravel her late mother's past.
With her role in 'My Strawberry Film', Mitsuki Yoshida shows her extensive stage skills, as she did when starring in 'Alice in the Country' (Netflix), 'Dragon Zakura' (TBS) and the play 'Three Thousand Moles' Gather'.