First Love Season 1

First Love Season 1 has built a devoted audience on and among viewers who want their drama to earn its emotional beats. A single, tightly-focused season means there is plenty to get through without ever feeling padded. With 143 viewer ratings on TMDB, this is not a title flying under the radar. Watch it for Hikari Mitsushima — one of the stronger performances out there right now. Put it on tonight and see for yourself.

There is a reason First Love Season 1 keeps coming up in conversation. First Love Season 1 trusts its audience to sit with discomfort instead of resolving it too quickly. Season 1 of First Love includes 9 episodes. It premiered in November 2022. This season stars Hikari Mitsushima, Takeru Satoh and Rikako Yagi. Hikari Mitsushima and Takeru Satoh lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was aired in 2022. What elevates First Love Season 1 is a refusal to let any character off the hook too easily. The consistency throughout is what elevates it — not every moment is the best, but none of them are a reason to stop watching.

Viewers drawn to character-driven storytelling will find plenty to sit with in First Love Season 1. It stands on its own even without an obvious comparison point. A contained run means every episode is doing real work. Hikari Mitsushima's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.