Rating: 10/10
It's no wonder that this Japanese drama won Best Drama of Spring 2009 during the 13th Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix. It's great and very inspirational. I love it!! The actors were also very good; all three of them - Matsumoto Jun, Aragaki Yui, and Nakai Kiichi - won awards in the said event. I'm so happy for them. It's definitely something they could be proud of, really. It's clearly aimed at fighting prejudice and discrimination towards foreigners. I'm glad because, until now, people have not given up Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream.
The drama is also prevalent all through out the series and it just escalates as each episode passes. Shun Oguri's portrayal of Hayashi Seiji is positively creepy and it just makes me chilly all over whenever he comes into view. But, in the end, we never really know... It turns out he's also hurting inside... But I don't want to spoil for some people who haven't watched it yet..
I can really say that SMILE is better than 1 Liter of Tears. It's something I can really watch over and over again without getting tired of. I'm definitely not deleting the 11 episodes (6.66GB) from my laptop. :)
Watch it, onegai!