I finally caved in last night. I just could not bear the wait for ep 9 subs and then the long wait for the last two. This isn't KDO where you could watch it raw for the story and enjoy the dialogue again with the subs. The emotional impact when first watching is important and lack of comprehension would dilute the experience/enjoyment.
There was a risk but this wasn't Hagetaka the movie with all the technical terms. I gave it a go and suffice to say episode 9 and 10 were pretty awesome with ep 11 being a lot calmer. Nothing could match the emotional kettle peg of ep 8 but the quality of the acting and story doesn't stop.
I just love how Soredemo can tackle the frequently used subjects of revenge, responsibility and forgiveness in jdoramas and avoid all the pitfalls and conventions that make most jdoramas very preachy. It is testament to the writing and acting whereby the characters do not need to voice out their emotional turmoils and how they come to terms with things. They actually do but they say it in a way that it feels like they are telling the other person, not the audience.
Soredemo is so non judgmental. We get to see Kenji as this cold blooded, unfeeling murderer. We get to see him like a kid, scared to remember what he had done when confronting Aki's mom in ep 8. We find out about his traumatic childhood but its not offered as an excuse. He tries to absolve himself of responsibility by blaming it on Futaba. He blames his father and at the same time he wants his father to acknowledge him. Kenji is what he is. A murderer, son and a brother.
Soredemo is a godlike dorama. It is invincible. Not many jdoramas can touch it. It is destined to be on my top 10 list of jdoramas, whenever I get around to it. Fukuda Mayuko may have a limited role but I'm pretty sure she got to take a small part in this show.
If you know a bit of kanji, I find watching it with Japanese subs helped with my understanding and is a great way to learn kanji besides playing the AKB48 game on my psp. I copy and pasted the Japanese subs onto google translate but it transted the counter for the lines as well, ie the first line was numbered 1 and it became 'one'. I think rewatching Soredemo and older jdoramas with Japanese subs is a pretty good idea. I'm running out of superlatives for Soredemo. This is truly IMHO, a jdorama classic and everyone must watch it instead of generic crap like Zenkai girl which has 3000 downloads per sub.
VAGUE SPOILERS FOR ENDING
As for the ending... I get it but I just didn't get why it had to be so sad which the last episode was based around. Its not like they couldn't be in touch and stuff. Unless of course Futaba thinks of it as a punishment for her. That she should be happy while Yuri's mom is still in the hospital.
It doesn't bother me that much cause this is a character based dorama and Futaba made that choice which I can respect. I really like the last bit where they are trading letters/lines and its just awesome scenery with rolling piano music. I just don't buy the 'we can't meet again' cause I'm going to be Yuri's mom' bit cause there's emails, skype, mobile phones and cars/trains to meet up on weekends unless there was an obvious 'we can't meet' cause I can't be happy thing that Hiroki understood. Need to wait for subs to see how it works.
Some other stuff that I loved:
- Hiroki becoming almost like an enlightened monk in ep 9, free from the shackles of hate and the past. Query where Futaba can ever be free or should she free herself? Is atonement for her brother necessary? Perhaps it is for her to find peace.
- The flying kick. I was laughing and having the feeling of WTF at the same time. After all the crying, it all the anger that is buried is unleased as she pushes the policeman aside like a rag doll. Lol. And the flashback at the beginning of episode 12 makes it even better.
- Yuri's mom didn't wake up. Forced happy endings have no place in dramatic stories.
- Alas, Kurashina Kana turned out to be merely a plot device and a sounding board for Hiroki to voice his thoughts. :(
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