I think of all the BOF adaptations, a majority of the community will fall into either the Taiwanese adaptation or the Japanese one. I consider both of them the OG's, before being really popularized by the Korean adaptation.

I will preface, there are some heinous things that were done in the series (the extreme bullying, SA, blackmail etc...), and if this were to come out today, I'd bet my money it would have has some pretty bad backlash. A impoverished student falling for her abuser? No thanks. But, I do give it leeway given it is an adaptation from a manga from 1992.

Despite all of these remakes over the years, (I've watched all of them), I always find myself comparing it to this Japanese version, and also find myself coming back to it time and time again. This one will always hold an incredibly special place in my heart. I found that the casting was perfect, and the acting was incredible. Mao Inoue and Jun Matsumoto are literally living forms of the manga, and their facial expressions are legendary.

It's so easy to fall in love with the leads here, and the chemistry they have on screen is palpable. They make you laugh, they make you cry, and they stay with you forever.

To tie everything together, the OST contains 2 of my all time favourite songs. Legends Ai Otsuka singing Planetarium and Hikaru Utada singing flavour of life which are absolutely beautiful and gut punching songs that continue to remind me of this drama every time I hear them.

Even as we continue to introduce future adaptations to BOF, and as video quality gets better, I think I will still always come back to this version, and live out the love story between them here. At the end of the day, it's a timeless classic, and I don't think that will ever change.