This Saturday I was thinking of seeing movies that I was unable to do last week as I was on holiday with my wife. To my surprise though, they were only playing in very few cinemas that we decided to just skip them. Since there was no new film on streaming service that interest me, I opted to watch this newest series on Netflix which has an intriguing premise. OK, let's get on with it then. 

Brief Story Line

In Asura private high school for students from wealthy family, a new strict rule was implemented by principal Ms. Ikushima (Shinobu Terajima - The Demon Over There etc) where boys and girls were prohibited from romance, and having sexual intercourse would get them expelled. To enforce the rules, student council led by Sawa (Shiori Akita - 17.3 About a Sex etc) was assigned to patrol around and outside school to catch students in the act. Ichika (Ai Mikami - Yu Yu Hakusho live version series etc) who came from poor family and struggling financially was one of the council members, together with Kanda (Rintaro Mizusawa - The Way Back Home etc) and several others.

Meanwhile one of the new students Ryogo Maki (Ryubi Miyase - I Will Be Your Bloom TV series etc) was trying to get expelled but to no avail. When Ichika was in really dire situation, she decided to use the rule to her personal gain by extorting students caught on camera. In the process though, there would be complications especially when Ichika unexpectedly found love.

So what would happen to Ichika and the school? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

I was interested with the series after reading the brief synopsis from Netflix and watched the teaser trailer which seemed to have some thrilling moments. But after watching the first episode, I felt that it had a stronger drama feel and less of thrill. However, I was still curious to find out more about what would happen to the students, even though it took a while to get to the fun part. Good thing that the characters were pretty interesting and sometimes a joy to watch.

The people involved in the series were plenty but luckily not that difficult to keep up with. I have mentioned most of the main characters above where the cast in general were pretty decent. I like the performance of Ai Mikami and Ryubi Miyase who seemed perfect in their roles. I also like that almost all the cast look young enough and convincing as high school students. Aside from those names, there were also support characters such as Ichika's best friend Ema (Ichika Osaki - Four Days, Tokio etc), Ryoko's best friend Miyama (Yudai Toyoda - Cosmetic Playlover TV series etc), students like Yuzuki (Airi Aoki), Ichinose (Kyoya Honda - MirrorLiar Films TV series etc) and several others. Some of the adults were Yoh Yoshida (No Matter How Much My Mother Dislikes Me etc) as Ichika's mother, Ken Ishiguro (One Missed Call TV series etc) as Ryoko's father, Moeka Hoshi (My (K)night etc) as Ms. Shinoda, and the familiar face of Kodai Asaka (Your Turn to Kill TV series etc) as Ryoko's older brother/teacher Haruto Maki.

The series had 8 episodes with duration between 44-54 minutes. Amazingly I was able to binge watch the full series yesterday as I really wanted to know the ending. For me the series started off pretty standard with few dramatic moments. The most interesting part to me was the middle where it felt fun & light and everything seemed perfect. Although it touched several heavier subject, but at the end of the day this was a teen drama where the main characters were high school students whose immaturity still apparent. 

Going through the closing credits of the series, I did not see anything it was based on which was kind of surprising as I thought it was manga adaptation. It was a Netflix original and seemed to have been made in 2024 with some lovely sceneries of spring, lots of Sakura flowers that made me realized how I missed Japan. The final episode was completely different from the previous episodes which was quite OK. The ending though was something that did not exactly satisfy me. I thought it was a little bit too convenient, like trying to show a balanced and just end but somehow felt rather unrealistic. Oh and then there was that final scene which I was not sure how to digest, whether it was a hint for future seasons (should they choose to renew it) or just to give some thing to think about.

Overall this was a teen drama series with interesting and unique premise supported by decent cast. It's not the very dark type but it touched some sensitive and probably taboo subjects which might be disturbing for the more conservative audience. I like the youthful characters here, although none of the adults were great examples to the young (not even Ms. Shinoda). So if you are looking for something different, then you can give this a try. But if you want some mystery or thrills, then this would not be to your liking. I myself rather enjoyed the series but not to the point of totally entertained.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars