# First Love (2022)

> Two former teenage lovers drift apart and are pulled back together as adults, haunted by the bond that defined their youth.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/132434

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 9
- Episode runtime: 53 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: romance, drama
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Hikari Mitsushima, Takeru Satoh, Rikako Yagi, Taisei Kido, Kaho, Minami, Akiyoshi Nakao, Towa Araki
- TMDB rating: 8.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15289042/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: wistful, tender, melancholic, sincere, nostalgic

## What critics say

Viewers broadly praise First Love as a tender, emotionally deep romance with sincere performances and a memorable, music-driven emotional tone.

## Synopsis

First Love (2022) is a Japanese romantic drama miniseries created for Netflix and produced by C&I Entertainment. Across nine episodes of roughly fifty-three minutes each, it follows Yae Noguchi (Hikari Mitsushima) and Harumichi Namiki (Takeru Satoh), whose teenage romance in Japan's Heisei era left a hole neither has filled. The younger versions of the pair, played by Rikako Yagi and Taisei Kido, carry the early chapters, while the adult story asks what happens when two people who once felt the world was their oyster meet again with lives that seem dimmer. Other principal figures, including Kaho as Tsunemi Arikawa and Akiyoshi Nakao as Bonji Kawano, widen the circle of friends and rivals around them. The engine is simple and aching: a past love that still shapes present choices, and the question of whether destiny can be reopened. Episodes alternate between youth and maturity, building a quiet melancholy punctuated by sincere, emotionally direct moments. The series is shaped as a single continuing story rather than a case-of-the-week format. Its tone is wistful, tender and nostalgic, with music used to heighten each emotional beat. Fans of Your Name, Before Sunrise and Begin Again will find resonance in its bittersweet longing and its devotion to a love that endures through time and loss.

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- [Good Morning Call (2016)](https://ember.film/tv/58004)
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- [Last Friends (2008)](https://ember.film/tv/7270)

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