Title: 1 Litre of Tears SP / 一リットルの涙SP / Ichi rittoru no namida SP
Duration: 2 hours 20 min.
Aired: April 5th, 2007

With great anticipation I started watching the 2 hour 20 minute Special for the highly touted 1 Litre of Tears Japanese drama. It starts off roughly half a year after from when the drama left off. While it does a half decent job of portraying Ako’s (Aya’s sister) growth, it fails entirely in making us believe that Aso is now a doctor. The younger brother in the drama fails to make an appearance in this Special, and the youngest sister, now portrayed by another actress makes an appearance of a mere 10 minutes throughout the entire show.

Of course the mother and father are still the same, yet miraculously un-aged, and just to be picky, Ganbo the dog never made it to the Special either.

The first half hour seemed pretty interesting as it explored the current circumstance of Ako as she graduated from her schooling to become a nurse at the hospital that treated Aya. However we are left to believe that such an immature and wreckless individual such as Aso-kun is now a full-fledged doctor in a matter of a few years. If only life were like that… actually, if life were like that, I’d be a little scared of going to the hospital.

So on went the Special. Only now we are confronted with flashbacks of what happened in the past. This was of course expected in a Special that aired almost 2 years after the drama. I keep watching in anticipation of what comes next, only to be blanketed with scene after scene of what I have already seen in the past. Thinking these flashbacks would end in a matter of minutes, I was mistaken. Seriously mistaken.

It came to the point where I decided to fast forward the entire scene until I saw scenes from the present day. A few minutes here and the flashbacks came yet again. Only this time it seemed to be even longer. This ritual started to get very familiar as I fast forward, stopped, watched for a few minutes, and fast forward again, over and over again until I found myself fast forwarding until the very end of the Special.

So this is what I was looking forward to all this time? I thought to myself. What a pure disappointment. I was expecting more substance, more of what happens to the characters as they grow up with Aya in their hearts.

Instead I realized that this Special was merely a means to gather the entire country of Japan (ok, not exactly) yet again, to make them sob for just one more time, and to make each and every one of them realize how painful a disease this is. I hate to say it – especially when it involves something so serious and tearful as this topic does – but I’m afraid this was no more than another marketing gimmick to get the mass talking again.

For me, however, since I watched the entire drama series only 5 months ago, all the scenes were still fresh in my mind, making these flashbacks no more than a little boring (ok, I said it) than it was meant to be. I’m sure for the people who actually saw the drama when it originally aired in 2005, the flashbacks came as a welcome jog in their memory, as tears flowed down their cheeks and their emotions were fired up yet again.

Overall I was quite disappointed with this Special as it really only contained about a good 50 minutes of new scenes. That was not much to wait in anticipation for. It is a sad story nonetheless, and if you see it in its entirety, you will no doubt have tears flowing down again. But be prepared for flashbacks that lasts more than half the Special.