Episodes 23 and 24 are superb. From what I've read from those who have read the original novel "Time Machine" that this was based on, the ending was changed in the TV adaptation, based on that information I could say that the director and writer did an amazing job in giving us a different ending--it was heart wrenching, lovely, and touching.
As with most adaptations with a different ending than its original source, it is rare that the new ending leaves an impact to the audience, most often than not the original ending is still better. Not in the case of First Love Again (2021) TV adaptation, their ending deserves to be an official ending too, especially since we are talking about parallel universes and time travel.
The male and female leads were a perfect match. They portrayed perfectly what many of us experienced back in High School and whenever we fall in love. The anger, the sweetness, being playful with each other, even the little things they captured it all awesomely. The same with the side stories with their friends, like the pain of being rejected or the unexpected surprise classmates no one expected will be together ended up getting married.
It is also worth mentioning that they effectively used all 24 episodes to tell us different interconnected stories. It was not rushed nor was it lacking. They also kept the physics of spacetime travel (yes, one word "spacetime") simple and to a minimum. If we are going to talk about how logical it was, at this point it is hard to say. In the latter episodes, there appears to be some leaps when it comes to spacetime travel, but since I have not taken the time yet to fully review and gather my thoughts about it, I can not say anything about it … yet. Regardless, the spacetime travel is overall good and easy to follow for the majority of the episodes. Those who are not keen with parallel worlds and time travel stories would find it easy to watch this.
And hey, the overall story, the romance between our lead characters, are more than enough reason to watch First Love Again (2021) even if the Science does not make sense. This is a story of two High School friends that not even the universe can ever separate. A story about two souls who will always find each other and fall in love again and again and again and again …
This show has nothing exceptional about it at all. It's pretty lame and cookie cutter. Disappointing.
I really like this show
Remember that edgy thing called "Elfen Lied"? Yup, this is by the same author and while I'm fuzzy on the details on that it certainly is similar in the way of inflicting violence to teenage girls. It is also probably the only 1-cour show that changed openings on the second last episode and then even to a terrible crunkcore-thingy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C__joUsxAPw).
Despite rating it just a "4" I want to stress that I got plenty of enjoyment out of it... just for all the wrong reasons - or maybe not! Going by the anime alone one has to either believe this is a work by hacks (which it kinda is) or well versed people intentionally taking the piss out of genre conventions.
Anyways, you should not watch this show if you expect any kind of logic or common sense. The story is ridiculous and badly paced. It also follows the same pattern up until the end where they just throw in an ending because they can. What made the show for me was it's schizophrenic tone, switching between comedy bits set to goofy music with some romance to heavily censored action - with a straight face. Really, it's amazing how much bullshit they managed to stuff in there. If you want to watch something so bad that it's good give it a go.
