Beyond Goodbye

Kentaro Sakaguchi's best act. He carefully portrays herself as someone who changes due to a heart transplant.

His wife Miki and her heart donor fiancée Saeko's feelings are shaken by his change.

He perfectly portrays how he firmly accepts the feelings of others inside him and the loved ones around him and moves forward.

Uncommonly seen in Japanese love stories, she responds kindly to the love of forward-looking and outgoing women, but is unable to resist her urges. Kentaro Sakaguchi's kindness saves them both.

The beautiful scenery of Japan's Hokkaido and Hawaii is also a highlight.

This is a wonderful love story that you should watch this winter.

The first episode started with a bang, but the show buries itself in an avalanche of ambivalence and a soapy cross between blah and meh. Major casting issues with this one. Kentaro Sakuguchi as the romantic male lead is a dud from the get-go. Zero star quality. And the "Mr. Nice Guy" piano player was a clueless yawn. Maybe to a lot of people, this love story has depth and heart (quite literally), but I had to stop watching midstream because of its total lack of chemistry between Kasumi Arimura and her rizz deficient love interests. It's not like Arimura is normally an ice-queen either. Her astonishing work with Takeru Satoh in Rorouni Kenshin: The Beginning was scorching, and in her more recent work in shows like Meet me after School, Call Me Chihiro and Ishiko and Haneo her hidden sizzling desires had me like "d*mn, that woman is hot.". Bottomline is that Beyond Goodbye's arty editing and top tier cinematography just wasn't enough for me. Chemistry is just one of those things where you know it when you feel it. And I just wasn't feeling it here.

A coffee loving piano player who is deeply in love with his gf, dies in an unfortunate bus accident on the day he was going to propose to her. After his death some random man with a heart problem receives the piano player's heart. This man has a wife, does not play the piano and never drinks coffee. Surprise, surprise, you won't see this coming but after he's recovered this man now all of a sudden is at the exact same spot as the dead piano player was years before, playing the exact same Jackson 5 song on said piano and of course the widow fiancee happens to be there at the exact same day and time as well and hears him playing from afar and obviously starts running to him. LOOOL. She just fails to encounter him but soon after she meets him anyway and he develops confusing feelings for her (duh) but remember he has a wife and then finally there is no clear resolution. What a waste of time, story is full of absurd coincidences and plot holes. Not worth it. 3/10.

BEYOND GOODBYE (2024) was a good Jdrama, especially initially, and started out strong but really lagged in the middle as far as the story went.

The story started out with tragedy but slowly twists into somewhat of a confusing romantic plot. The cinematography, settings, acting, music, and parts of the story were all very excellent.

"Saeko falls into deep despair after her boyfriend Yusuke dies in a car accident. A few months later, she meets Naruse who received heart transplant from Yusuke and now he feels something for Saeko in his heart."

This series was very compelling drama but I was never truly invested in the love story, or at least the romance in second half of the show, partially due to lack of chemistry between actors.

Overall, this was a pretty good watch, but the earlier episodes were definitely better. This series was definitely worth a watch.

As a viewer from Greece, I was so excited to come across this series and appreciated each and every episode of this series. The cinematography was sublime, the acting incredible. I will never forget this series and the stories/lessons it told... it will remain with me forever. However I have also noticed that others have rated this not too kindly, and from my honest opinion, I think its a cultural thing. Ive notcied that certain well crafted J dramas or K dramas have a lower rating when there isnt a happy ending. Some feel invested in a series and just expect a happy ever after ending. This drama depicted real humane issues and dealt with them with sensitivity and realism. Orange Days was always my fave J Drama, but this probably tops it.