With the rise of popularity in Asian dramas over the last few years, streaming services like Netflix have been pouring money into making more and more original titles. One such series is Beyond Goodbye (Sayonara no Tsuzuki), which debuted on the service in November 2024. Directed by Hiroshi Kurosaki (Hiyokko, Seiten wo Tsuke) and written by Yoshikazu Okada (Fight Song, BL Metamorphosis), this promises to be a heartfelt romance, but does it deliver? Let’s find out!
Key Details
Beyond Goodbye is an original story written by Yoshikazu Okada, directed by Hiroshi Kurosaki and with music by Asuka Amamiya. The show stars Kasumi Arimura (Ishiko and Haneo: You’re Suing Me, March Comes in Like a Lion) as Saeko Sugawara and Kentaro Sakaguchi (The 100th Love With You, Tokyo Tarareba Girls) as Kazumasa Naruse. It’s made up of eight 45-55 minute episodes, which are largely set in Otaru, Hokkaido.
The Premise
Our story follows Saeko Sugawara, who works for a coffee manufacturing company in Hokkaido. When we first meet her, she’s taking a bus ride with boyfriend Yuusuke Nakamichi, who's been preparing a surprise proposal. Unfortunately, although Yuusuke manages to propose, the bus is involved in a landslide that leads to Yuusuke losing his life while protecting Saeko. At the hospital Yuusuke and Saeko are taken to is patient, Kazumasa Naruse, a young man who has been waiting for a heart transplant to carry on living.
This bittersweet outcome allows Naruse to carry on living, while Saeko is left devastated by the loss of her partner. Of course, organ donations are completely anonymous, and so Saeko has no idea whose life Yuusuke’s heart saved. Meanwhile, Naruse finds that after the transplant, his personality and tastes have changed. On top of that, he has memories that don’t belong to him, memories of a woman who makes his heart flutter even though Naruse is still very much in love with his wife.
Since Naruse and Saeko work in the same area, it’s not long before the two cross paths and slowly realize that Yuusuke brought them together. What kind of relationship can come from a man inhabiting the heart of another, and a woman who is grieving for her partner?
Why It’s Worth Watching
When I first picked up this series, I was expecting a sweet romance, thinking that Naruse having Yuusuke’s heart and therefore some lingering emotions and memories meant that he would find Saeko and they’d get together. But that thought was immediately scrapped once I realised that Naruse was both married and very much in love with his wife. That introduces a moral issue since his wife has done nothing wrong, and you don’t want to see all of that thrown away.
And to its credit, Beyond Goodbye does not go down the path of being a straight romance. It instead navigates all of these complicated and murky emotions. Naruse and Saeko do, of course, become close as a way of working through their respective grief and unknown feelings, but for the most part, a relationship is not on the cards.
The strength of the show is how it explores the feelings of the cast. It’s easy to understand why these two are so attached to one another, as well as the slippery slope they’re walking down the more they spend time together. Naruse may have similarities to Yuusuke, but he is a different person, and that’s something Saeko often struggles to separate. And for Naruse, the more they learns about what Yuusuke was like, the more he wishes he could be that person for Saeko.
Normally, I would have been firm in not wanting anything romantic to develop between Naruse and Saeko. However, as the show went on, it drew me in and left me feeling as conflicted as the cast was. I wanted everyone in the series to be happy, an outcome that just wasn’t possible. I loved all of the characters too, despite the situations they found themselves in and how they might hurt one another. Toward the conclusion, this story that started about life and death once again becomes about who lives and dies. How fate and incidental meetings can turn into something bigger, and that we all need to treasure the time we have.
And it’s not just the story that excels here; Arimura and Sakaguchi also act incredibly well. The two have excellent on-screen chemistry, and Sakaguchi does a good job of juggling playing Naruse before his transplant and then subtly introducing the differences brought about by Yuusuke’s heart.
The Otaru setting is also absolutely beautiful, with some truly fantastic scenery. It makes for a great backdrop to the story, and I like how it takes place over multiple seasons, so we get to see how the area changed over a longer period.
In Closing
Beyond Goodbye is a heartfelt story that defies expectations by subverting tropes of the genre. This is a story that plays with your emotions, getting you attached to the cast and their bittersweet story. It’s sometimes heartwarming, sometimes painful, but always a compelling watch as you find yourself eager to see where the next episode takes you. Certainly, I would encourage you to look beyond the premise and spend the time getting to know the characters since there’s far more depth here than you would imagine at first glance.
Beyond Goodbye is available to watch worldwide on Netflix in Japanese with English subtitles.
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