Perfect World Review: The Story Of A Love So Perfect It Sees Beyond All Imperfections

Google ‘Perfect World’ and you’ll get two options: one is a 2018 movie and one is a 2019 drama. This review is of the drama starring Matsuzaka Tori and Yamamoto Mizuki. From the looks of it, I thought this drama would be a complete tearjerker and I was wary of going into it. In fact, I didn’t even expect to watch beyond the first episode. But it surprised me.

Yes, the follows the life of a differently-abled person and the challenges he faces in his regular life. However, the show does not aim to generate sympathy for him. Instead, the story is so beautifully scripted that the only feeling it leaves you with is immense inspiration and nothing else. If anything it makes you feel grateful for everything you have in life and cherish all those who love you.

Perfect World (aka Pafekuto Warudo) (2019) (10 Episodes)

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Kawana Tsugumi (Yamamoto Mizuki) works for an interior designing company and one day after work she happens to meet her classmate Ayukawa Itsuki (Matsuzaka Tori). This sudden meeting refreshes her memories of high school when she had a huge crush on Ayukawa but could never confess to him because he was already in a relationship with another girl. That same evening she learns that Ayukawa is now wheelchair-bound after meeting with an accident right after college. His reality does nothing to change how she feels for him and she decides to pursue him and he too reciprocates. But his injury poses a threat to their romance as they cannot be a regular couple. But, Ayukawa and Kawana are both willing to overcome their respective difficulties to make this relationship work.

Let’s weigh this not so smooth sailing romance on our drama beam balance and see how it fares.

Good Weights

I enjoyed watching “Perfect World” because…

…Matsuzaka Tori did a magnificent job portraying Itsuki. He expressed difficult emotions such as awkwardness, embarrassment, and frustration with such ease it looked like he felt it for real. The actor was so good that he evokes a sense of respect and affinity for the character of Itsuki. 

…it is not an overly emotional drama as it may seem. It certainly has moments that can move you but the only purpose behind every such scene is to show how Itsuki and Tsugumi come out of it. Itsuki faces problems normal people might never even think of such as being unable to visit an exhibition only because the building lacks infrastructure for the smooth movement of a person in a wheelchair. But Itsuki does not feel dejected. Instead, he visits another place with a broad smile on his face. Itsuki decides to never date because of his physical limitations but then Tsugumi comes into his life and everything changes. These little incidents and Itsuki’s brave attitude show that he is determined to live happily despite the difficulties he faces daily. 

…it infuses so much positivity that it is difficult to not love it for its motivational theme. Initially, I felt that the story might revolve only around the challenges Itsuki faced being wheelchair-bound. This is because the show constantly emphasized the fact that differently-abled people have to work really hard to live a normal life and how it is almost impossible for them to live without support from the people around them. But since it was a Japanese dorama, I knew there was certainly more to it than just Itsuki’s suffering.

And as expected the drama offers a lot more than that. It uses Itsuki’s pain to show how honest and deep Tsugumi’s love is for him. Since Tsugumi harboured feelings for Itsuki since school days, there was an easy connection between them and it shows. It shows especially when his lack of mobility does not deter her from falling in love with him all over again.

…it is not some shallow love story where the girl likes a boy because he’s handsome and is after him because she is utterly smitten. No. This drama is not that. Its been over a decade since Itsuki and Tsugumi left college and are both in their thirties. They both kinda had a thing for each other but never did anything about it.

Now when so much has changed in Itsuki’s life, Tsugumi feels so deeply for him that she decides to see beyond his physical limitations. It is not surprising that in these years Tsugumi did not get married to another guy. She always had Koreeda dying to capture her heart but maybe she looked for something more which she found with Itsuki i.e. a true connection.

…it makes you more appreciative of all that you have in life. Seeing Itsuki struggle to hide his leaking bowels will make you understand how we take our bodies for granted and never appreciate God’s kind love for giving us all that we have. It’s not that Itsuki is lacking in any way. In fact, in one scene when Itsuki wants to kill himself after learning that he is paralyzed from waist downwards the nurse Nagasawa tells him he is still better off than a lot of her other patients who have either lost their eyesight or their hands or are brain dead after an accident.

Even with just his upper body, Itsuki can achieve a lot more than he can think of. Now, I’m not sure of what happens in the original manga that this drama is based on but this dorama has a clear aim here. To show how there is always hope for a better life and that losing a limb is not the end of the world.

 

Bad Weights

I did NOT LIKE ‘Perfect World’ because…

…I felt actress Yamamoto Mizuki could have done better. I felt she lacked expressions to effectively emote what her character was feeling throughout the drama. Her character goes through various emotions and sadly she seldom looked convincing to me. I understand her character needed to be subtle but she was way too subtle than required. Other than that I do not have any major complaints from this dorama.

 

 

I feel Perfect World presses all the right buttons to evoke emotions and that too without making you want to cry buckets of tears. It shows how people determined to be together can overcome just about anything.

I give ‘Perfect World’ 3.5 out of 5 rating. When tired of fluffy romances, try this slightly emo but very inspirational love drama.

 

All Screenshots and Cover Image Courtesy: Netflix.com, Fuji.tv

 

 

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