Sakamichi no Apollon Episode 12 Discussion

RonSwanson said:
I can't believe that Shinchiro Watanabe actually directed this.
Most overrated piece of shit teenage melodrama I've seen in a long time. I don't mind dram, but having drama, just for the sake of drama won't turn out good.
So it starts off following the same pattern it always did: Kaoru does something stupid, followed by Kaoru feeling self-loathing and regret. Kaoru does something stupid and he doesn't talk to either Ritsuko or Sentarou for an episode or two, that's most of the drama and it's very weak because it's not believable.
There's the scene where he stands outside of her window, followed by the scene at the train station which led to nothing, now I can appreciate these clichés, but Ritsuko and Kaoru's relationship overall felt very, ehh fake I guess you could say. Every single interaction between these two characters feels so incredibly not real or genuine, and I never believed that these were supposedly real people. It was never engaging and never connected with me in any meaningful way, and I'm actually a sucker for romantic comedies with no brains, so that should say something about this show. The train scene I couldn't care less about, the train scene with Yurika and Junichi however, was much more emotional and I genuinely cared, because it felt to me like they were actually in love. Kaoru and Ritsuko though? There's no emotion coming off the screen between those two.
Okay enough about those two. Then there's the rest of the episode which is pretty weak aswell. There's an 8 year time skip and Kaoru's working as a doctor and sporting a mullet. Then they show what happened to the guy with the lolifang because that's so interesting ofcourrse (sarcasm). Then he goes and meets Sentarou and then Ritsuko comes or whatever. This failed to have an impact because we never actually got any time to start missing these characters. Ritsuko was gone for like 4 minutes and Sentarou just left at the end of the last episode. Supposedly Kaoru was all miserable or whatever (I guess) from having his bromance leave him and the girl he likes resent him after he got all rapey, but this didn't connect with me because 1. Kaoru's a dick 2. Kaoru's an asshole. But when they meet up they're all friends or whatever and we never know if Kaoru learns his lesson about friendship which was supposed to be the premise of this show.

All in all, too much unecessary, boring melodrama, and too little Jazz. A boring main character who might aswell not exist, and also a female lead with no depth or personality. There's no clever writing to be found, no good lessons to learn, and nothing that will really stick with you after you've seen this show
The only good thing to come out of this show was the OP/ED music, and the episodes about Yurika and Junichi.

4/10 and then I wonder if I'm being too generous