Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Switched
(宇宙（そら）を駆けるよだか / Sora wo Kakeru Yodaka)
MyDramaList rating: 2.0/10

I found this series on Netflix and I decided to watch this while I’m also still watching With You (next on my list). Plus it’s been a while since I watched a Japanese drama and I believe this was on my list for later anyway (edit: fake news, I mistook it for a Chinese drama named Flipped). After watching this series, at first I didn’t intend on writing a review because I felt too much frustration about it. I didn’t feel like there was anything nice I could say. However, after reading some other more positive comments and reviews, I felt like this was the whole purpose of me starting to write reviews and express my thoughts and there are still some general positive comments I can make. I will try to remain nice, but there are definitely some frustrating aspects that I can’t express in any other way.

Anyways, let me summarize the plot of this only 6 episode-long series.
First of all, in the story of this drama there’s a fantastical phenomenon called the ‘Akatsuki’ (Red Moon), and it’s a regular occasion when the moon turns red for some reason.
Ayumi Kohinata (played by Kaya Kiyohara) is a sweet high school student who seems to have a really nice life. She has two great guy friends, she has a nice family, fun friends, school is going well… and then her childhood friend Koshiro Mizumoto (played by Tomohiro Kamiyama) even confesses his love for her! Can it get any better?
Nope. It can get worse, though. On the day of her first date with Koshiro, she suddenly gets a call from an anonymous caller. When she picks up, a girl from her class, Zenko Umine (played by Miu Tomita), declares to her that she’s going to commit suicide. As a matter of fact she’s on top of a building right behind Ayumi and she asks Ayumi to keep watching her as she jumps.
In complete shock, Ayumi watches her classmate jump and faints afterwards. When she wakes up, she is in the hospital and when she asks the nurse how Zenko is doing, the nurse looks at her weirdly and says ‘What are you talking about? You are Zenko.’
As it turns out, Ayumi and Zenko have switched bodies. In her desperate attempts to get her life back together after this bizarre event, Ayumi finds out that Zenko has always been jealous of her and actually planned to switch bodies with her, especially now that Ayumi got together with Koshiro who Zenko also has a major crush on – which is only possible when you commit suicide during a Red Moon and the other person watches the whole thing.
So Zenko now seemingly has what she wants – but Ayumi, though shook to the bone, is determined to get her life and body back. The only person who sees right through her is her good friend Shunpei Kaga (played by Daiki Shigeoka), who also has feelings for her. Together they try to find a way to reverse the switch, because Koshiro somehow reveals a dark side to him as well by staying with Zenko even though he knows she’s not really Ayumi.
Ayumi and Kaga encounter a woman named Ukon who provides more information on the body swapping – being a victim of it as well – but tells them there’s no way to reverse it without one of the two persons actually dying.
In the meantime, whilst trapped in Zenko’s body, Ayumi experiences the bullying that Zenko has had to endure and her bad relationship with her mother and starts empathizing with her as she never realized her classmate’s life was so hard. But, with forced determination, she starts opening up more in school and gains the sympathy of her former friends and in that way shows that even though she might look differently, Ayumi still has the power to make people like her. Zenko, on the other hand, is not amused by Ayumi’s progress and shifts back into her own psychotic dark behavior.
Eventually, Koshiro reconnects with Ayumi and Kaga by revealing that he only stayed with Zenko because he wanted to find out a way to bring Ayumi back. Before conjuring up a plan to do so, Koshiro and Kaga also accidentally get swapped and make the situation even more complicated.
In the end, the three friends manage to persuade Zenko to attempt a ‘shuffle’ plan in which they take turns swapping bodies until they’re back in their own and it ends with them succeeding and becoming friends and happily ever after.

First of all, let me write a little about the characters.
Ayumi is the typical lovely, sweet, popular high school girl. Normally the popular girls in Japanese dramas would be characterized as actual mean girls, but Ayumi is the epitome of sweet. Even after everything Zenko does to her, she still wants to help her and emphatizes with her. She gets stuck in a situation where she literally sees someone else live her life (I’m suddenly somehow reminded of the song ‘Crystal Ball’ by Keane and its music video) and she still manages to not give up even though she might have to spend the rest of her life as Zenko. Although at some points she is so naive I felt that they were still trying to stereotype her as the too sweet and naive girl. She was also crying a lot, although I would understand the initial shock, she kept being shook by all the things that happened even when at a certain point she kind of should’ve gotten used to things. Just my opinion.
Zenko shows her true colors until the end. Even when she thinks she’s finally got it all, she learns that physically becoming Ayumi also entails that she’ll always be reminded of the real Ayumi that she hated so much. She has decided to switch bodies with Ayumi based on a completely selfish thought to be popular and have her ideal boyfriend. It’s all based on exterior factors and in the end it doesn’t matter – Ayumi still comes through and she only becomes more miserable than she was before.
Koshiro is one of the most ambiguous characters in this drama because as a viewer I kept swaying between HE’S EVIL and OH NO HE’S GOOD AFTER ALL and OKAY NOPE HE’S DEFINITELY EVIL and OH NOT EVIL AFTER ALL. It started to get really confusing, and only in the last (or second to last) episode we see his point of view. It wouldn’t have made any sense if he was evil, because he’s been childhood friends with Ayumi and they were so close for so long so it would’ve really been weird if everything had been a lie and he ‘only wanted to be with Ayumi because of her pretty face’ as he once proclaims.
I can only say one thing about Kaga, really. KAGA IS BAE. He’s the typical second male lead, the friend who is friendzoned even after being the only person to see Ayumi for who she really is and standing by her the entire time. We don’t get to see a truly sympathetic side of Koshiro, so if it were me I would go all the way for Kaga. But hey, that’s not how dramas work unfortunately. Anyways, Kaga was the hero for me in this series, and I think for most people.

I want to critically look at the motives in the series, mostly Zenko’s. Because in situations where people act rashly because they’re being bullied and feel ousted from society, there usually is a reason to find somewhere that may rationalize their behavior. And sometimes there’s people who just can’t be helped. I’ve been in a situation myself where I only tried to help someone and they just wouldn’t listen or accept any help and just continue living in the dark.
Zenko’s character is described as someone who has always lived in the dark. Ever since her father abandoned her, her relationship with her mother worsened and the bullying at school worsened. When they showed scenes of her being bullied, I certainly thought ‘this is harsh’. But then again, I think it’s most important how you move on from those experiences. On one hand I feel like learning and growing and getting stronger from there is the most important and staying stuck in that victim role and letting that define you is the worst that can happen. But that’s my one-sided opinion after being one of the first case scenarios. It’s definitely not easy and I can imagine people being effected by bullying for life, I just find it a pity. Because no one deserves to be bullied and to be effected by such nonsensical childish treatment is such a waste. I believe everyone can make something of their life, as long as they find the strength within them, regardless of what other people have said to them in the past. It’s not about them, it’s about you. You shouldn’t let yourself be effected by what some kid said to you in high school. That kid probably didn’t even realize fully what effect his/her words had at the time and would probably now even apologize for it if he/she could. Everyone does stupid things as kids with no full awareness of what this could do to another person. But the most important thing is to get stronger. Let those people behind in the past. They don’t define you. You define you.
Sorry, whole positivity rant, but that’s what I would want to say to Zenko. She is the number one example of someone who lets the bullying get to her, falls into the victim role and doesn’t know how to get out of it. Doesn’t even want to get out of it, in a way. She thinks becoming someone else will solve all her problems. Well, guess what: you are the only one who can save your own damn problems. Changing your face doesn’t change who you are. In the end your true colors will shine through. In the end she started yelling at people about how they were still talking about the real Ayumi and I was like …girl you should’ve taken so much things into consideration before you decided to switch bodies; OF COURSE they’re going to talk about Ayumi. You’re not her, you don’t have any of her memories or personal traits. If you’re going to be bitter about continually being reminded of her you shouldn’t have become her, lol.
In the end confrontation, Koshiro says to Zenko that both he and Ayumi offered their help to her before and she didn’t take it. He points out that she’s someone who won’t even accept help from others but simply wants happiness to come her way. Life doesn’t work that way. Accepting help also is a way to open up to people, but Zenko is so distrustful of people that she won’t even allow herself to see the good in some people and starts to become hateful towards them too.

Stepping back for a second from the lessons to be learned, I would like to comment on the acting style. Japanese dramas always have a certain format of acting, the style of humor and the never-ending ‘eh?’ whenever something’s asked. Another thing that is almost always depicted the same way: crazy people.
I mean, come on. Not every crazy person walks like a goblin while psychotically (and very loudly!) biting his/her nails. It was perfectly clear that Zenko bore grudges and that she was a dark person, but this was just exaggerating. They made her look like someone from The Grudge or The Ring or something, with the crazy eyes and all. Serioulsy, the nail-biting in particular was really obnoxious and nasty. At a certain point I started throwing my pencil at my screen whenever fake Ayumi started her crazy eyes nail-biting sequences. I believe it’s not even possible to bite your nails like that, are we sure her fingers are still attached to her hands? Sorry, but really, this was really annoying for me.
More typical Japanese drama tropes include dramatically running away after seeing or hearing something shocking (or I suppose in Ayumi’s case, whatever reason – she broke out in a dash a lot of times).
One scene in particular was really frustrating because I kind of hoped that she would make the right decision but at the same time knew she wasn’t because it was a Japanese drama. It was really predictable but not in a good way. It’s the scene where Kaga asks Ayumi to stay in the classroom and at the same time Koshiro asks her to come to the arts room (while every single person in the drama knew that Koshiro was up to something with Zenko and Kaga was the only person ever alive in that world that could be trusted). It was so obvious that she had to stay in the classroom for Kaga, but she STILL went for Koshiro. It was an illogical and profoundly DUMB choice. I mean, it was scripted, but I kind of hoped Ayumi wouldn’t be that stupid. In that way they made her into the typical naive sweet girl who wouldn’t see the bad in her childhood friend even though at that point he was acting really suspicious. It was just that at that very moment, she stood closer to Kaga than to Koshiro so it also just seemed really weird for her to still choose Koshiro in that particular moment in the story.

Lastly (I’m not going to make this too long), I would like to comment on the frequent and most of all casual talk about suicide. I mean, when they decided to go along with the ‘shuffle’ plan they were basically talking about themselves committing suicide multiple times. And they didn’t even blink at the prospect. ‘Okay, so first us two will jump off a building and then you two, and then afterwards it’ll be you two and us two. Let’s go jump off a building and get our bodies back!’. They made it sound almost comical, and it was really weird for me. The whole series contains so much darkness, heck, people jumping off buildings and even this video of a lady where she crashed into the building as she fell and literally splat on the ground (with very nasty splat sound effects, also not very nice)?
To talk about such things so casually gave me real mixed vibes about it. Especially when it’s all happily ever after in the ending and everyone is happy and everything is forgiven and forgotten and I was just like… No? All this stuff that happened and you’re just going to act like nothing happened? This girl tried to basically kill y’all and you’re just going to be her friend?
I didn’t even understand how they managed to persuade her in the end, let alone how she suddenly still became ‘nice’.
In one way I would’ve liked it if it turned out that all she needed in the end was just a hug and an apology from her mother. Her mother came around and admitted on how she’d treated her. Heck, I had more sympathy for the mother than for Zenko in the end.

I would’ve liked a bit more story for Ukon and the talking bird. Now they only had an informing role and we don’t really know anything about them apart from a short flashback of how they changed bodies themselves. At first I thought the bird and Ukon had changed bodies, that would’ve been fun.

Overall, I think the most important lesson to be learned from this drama is that nothing will change who you are. Even when you try to look different and change your life, even taking over someone else’s life, you can never become anyone else than who you are. Your true personality will shine through no matter what you look like.
And I’m seriously done with fat-shaming. I don’t know what it is with Asian dramas, but characters that are described as ‘ugly’ somehow always are casted as chubby/fat people. Ugly isn’t measured by someone’s body weight, it’s measured by someone’s behavior and personality. And this drama proved that, even when looking cute from the outside, the ugliness of Zenko’s personality still came through. I actually think Miu Tomita is really cute, especially when she smiled. When she had to play Ayumi in Zenko’s body, I just wanted to hug her and pinch her cheeks. Being fat/chubby doesn’t equal being ugly. Take a note, Asian dramas.
There were a lot of unrealistic factors in the series, apart from the Red Moon and the swapping bodies. You’d think that people like your parents and your closest friends who really know you would immediately know that there was something different about you. Everyone just behaved really unnatural and unrealistically in the given situation. If you were so desperate to keep up the act of becoming someone else, would you openly express crazy behavior and act very much UNLIKE that person?

In the end, Kaga is what saved this drama for me. When he was trying to laugh through his tears at the end when he still brought Ayumi and Koshiro together despite his own feelings and everything he’d done, that was the one moment I had feels. Somebody give this guy a medal and a a really big hug for me. Oh, and I don’t know if I’m the only one, but doesn’t Daiki Shigeoka look like Yamapi? Like, A LOT?

When checking the info on the AsianWiki site, I found nothing but positive comments on this drama. I’m a bit confused because I was mostly frustrated and cringed a lot while watching. But maybe other people saw through the bizarre-ness of the story and focussed on the feelings that were portrayed. And I have to admit, the actors did act convincingly despite the strange and occasionally disturbing script.
This drama was a bit too weird for me. I mostly kind of scoffed or laughed through the bizarreness of the story. It definitely wasn’t one of the better shows I’ve seen and I don’t think I will recommend it to anyone.

I’m going to watch some cheerful shows now!

Stay tuned!