Air Dates: February 20th to April 2, 2020 Thursdays at 11:00 pm on Abema-TV
English translation is roughly 'Only I am 17 years old'
Episodes are about 34 minutes in length, subtitles were done by Irozuku Subs
Link to the drama's Abema-TV site: https://abema.tv/video/title/90-1342
Main Cast: All are 24 in age as most of the action takes place in 2020 though there are many scenes from 2013 when they are seventeen, however Kota who should also be 24 years old is still seventeen...
Marie Iitoyo as Mei Konno... has recently returned to her hometown of Yagami after being fired from her temp job in Tokyo, she had such a crush on Kota when he passed away in 2013
Hayato Sano as Kota Sometani.... died on April 12, 2013 at the age of seventeen but has he just returned from the dead?
Kosei Yuki as Iori Ishikawa.... these top five characters were all high school friends who drifted apart after graduating, Iori is now a doctor at his father's hospital
Karen Otomo as Haruka Noda.... Mei's best friend and was supposed to attend a beauty school
Yutaro Watanabe as Ryuhei Yoshimura.... the fifth friend of the group who remained in Yagami and works at the train station
Kenta Hamano as Daiki Shindo... head priest at the local shrine
Yoshi as Naoki Shindo.... son of the priest who is in training at the shrine
Yoshihiko Hakada as Kazumi Akaike... the mayor, was he involved in Kota's death?
Thought we would pick up with Iori to start this show off after he confessed to Haruka about 'killing' Kota to end the previous show off. That didn't happen and we didn't see him until the end. Almost this entire episode was devoted to Kota and his mother, she had moved away many years ago as she had become ill and quite depressed over Kota's death. All of his friends knew what kind of condition his mother was in but didn't reveal it to Kota.
He's been living at the local shrine with the head priest Shindo and his son Naoki. Kota was helping out with the petition to save the special cherry blossom tree which the city wants to cut down for development. Kota had been assigned to go through the new petitions and there were many pleading for the tree to be saved. On one of them he noticed a name and quickly tore out of the shrine, soon he happened to be in the Sumida section of Tokyo where Kota was... standing in front of his mother's apartment. That's him above outside it and was being let in by a little girl named Akane.
She had a key to the mother's place and there was a good reason for that. Akane's father was getting married to Kota's mother, he's a doctor who helped the mother recover from her illness and depression. Kota's mother appeared to be so happy in her new life, so happy that he couldn't stick around to meet her and departed as Akane was talking to her on the phone. Made sense that Kota left as what a shock it would have been to see her dead son resurrected plus he had no idea what he was going to say to her. Also in Tokyo was somehow Mei who saw the petition that Kota had seen with his mother's address, she rushed there to possibly stop him.
There was nothing much Mei could say to Kota, though he was still just seventeen compared to his friend's ages of 24 he seems to have become more of a mature person since he came back to life. The pair just roamed around the back streets of Tokyo for a day enjoying the sites, though she had lived in Tokyo for a while Mei said it was the first time she had ever wandered around seeing the true city. Kota has seen what us viewers have too, Mei is such a confused young woman and she needs to find a little direction in her life, can a seventeen year old boy show her the right path?
A few days later who should happen to appear in Yagima than Kota's mother! She had learned of a boy stopping by her place, against all good reasoning she thought that perhaps it really was Kota. Mei tried to get Kota to see his mother but he flatly refused, as he thought before what a shock it would have been to her to see her son risen from the grave. Mei did have a long heart to heart talk with the mother who had doubts about remarrying but no longer after the chat. That got me thinking about where is Mei's family who she's never talked about nor have been seen in the flashbacks.
In the final scene Mei had witnessed an accident where a teen girl was hit by a car. She called for an ambulance and went to the local hospital with her. The girl seemed fine but for the first time in seven years she saw Iori who is a doctor at the hospital. He's ignored his friends since Kota's death and the lingering question is did he have any part in Kota dying? Iori also had a secret crush on Mei back then, if he was involved in the death could that be the major reason? That concludes the episode but there are some other mysteries that need to be answered at the halfway point. Why and how did Kota come back to life, is he here forever or just temporary? And what of Kota's death, was Iori involved and also perhaps so wasn't the mayor who remains a mystery figure?
This is one of those dramas that's better to view than read about. It's very quiet with some terrific scenery and also many unspoken actions that are better to see than trying to describe for you. Though a slow moving drama it's also been superb through four episodes, so much that at the halfway point will give it a rating of 8.8/10 which is high for me and do recommend it, if you're a Marie fan like me then it's a must watch. Thanks of you've read these four recaps and will be back in about a week with the second batch of four which will conclude this series.
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