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What is the plot?
Yae Noguchi and Harumichi Namiki first meet as teenagers in late-1990s Hokkaido, and their attraction begins almost immediately as they move through ordinary school life together, slowly becoming each other's most important person.
As the story moves into the early 2000s, the two continue growing up side by side while their feelings deepen into first love, with the relationship shaped by small shared moments, school routines, and their private hopes for the future.
Yae dreams of becoming a flight attendant, while Harumichi's path points toward aviation in a different way, and their bond is strengthened by the sense that both of them are reaching toward lives beyond their hometown.
When Yae tries to move forward with her dream, a serious accident changes everything and becomes the turning point of the story.
After the accident, Yae suffers memory loss, and the part of her life that included Harumichi is erased from her recollection, even though she still remembers earlier childhood years.
Harumichi's own life also changes course; he becomes a pilot for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, but his trajectory does not remain fixed there, and later he quits that role and goes in a different direction.
In the years after they are separated by the accident and the changes in their lives, Yae grows into adulthood with no memory of Harumichi, and her life takes a new shape that no longer includes the love she once knew.
Yae later becomes a cab driver and has a son, and the adult version of her shows no recollection of the relationship that defined her youth.
Harumichi also reaches adulthood with a life shaped by the choices and losses that followed the breakup of their shared past, and the narrative gradually reveals the emotional weight of what was left unresolved between them.
The drama then shifts into its present-day storyline, where Yae and Harumichi cross paths again after roughly 15 years, but the reunion is complicated by the fact that Yae does not recognize him.
Harumichi is forced to confront the reality that the woman he still remembers as his first love has no memory of him, and the story uses this gap to rebuild their history piece by piece through flashbacks.
As the present timeline develops, Yae is also shown building a life without him, including her work and family responsibilities, while Harumichi continues to carry the emotional burden of their past connection.
The series reveals that Yae has fallen in love with her doctor, Kosaka Yukihito, and that she becomes pregnant with his child, adding another major emotional and practical turning point in her adult life.
In parallel, Harumichi becomes engaged to Tsunemi, and their relationship moves toward marriage even as he keeps missing appointments to meet her parents, showing that he is still struggling to fully align his present commitments with his unresolved past.
Tsunemi eventually learns about Harumichi's history with his first love and initially worries, but she relaxes when she discovers that this former love is already married to someone else.
The series continues to braid the past and present together, showing how Harumichi's missing years, Yae's memory loss, and the consequences of their separation shaped the people they became.
At one point, Yae gets a 40-day leave from work and travels in an effort to find Harumichi, bringing her physically back toward the man and the history she cannot consciously remember.
The story also includes the impact of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which changes Harumichi's movements and makes him turn back rather than continue away, because he realizes he does not want to leave Tsunemi alone in the dark.
Later, the narrative reaches the COVID period in 2020, when the characters are still dealing with the long aftermath of their earlier choices and separations, and the final emotional momentum builds around whether the lost connection between Yae and Harumichi can be recovered.
In the ending, Harumichi leaves everything behind to go to Iceland, and this final break with his current life becomes the moment that unlocks Yae's memory.
Yae remembers everything, follows him, and chooses to pursue the life she had once abandoned, including becoming a flight attendant and finally reclaiming the dream that was interrupted by her accident.
What is the ending?
Yae and Harumichi end up reunited in Iceland after the time capsule, the old letter, and years of separation finally bring them back to each other. The ending closes on them together, with their lives and dreams meeting again at last.
Yae first appears in the finale in the present day, digging up the time capsule she buried long ago with Harumichi. Inside it are the "Bound for Kitami" ticket stub, a Titanic poster, old photographs, and a letter hidden in an empty Marlboro pack. The story then moves back to young Yae in Hokkaido in 1997, sitting for a mock exam in Kitami, which mirrors the memory trail that led to the capsule and the letter.
From there, Yae is delayed for years by the pandemic before she can continue her journey, and only later does she finally board her flight to Reykjavik. On the plane, she reads Harumichi's letter. In it, he describes seeing her for the first time on a train bound for Kitami, putting the ticket stub in her book so she would not lose her place, and then seeing her again at the exam hall. The letter also explains that he worked to get into the same school as her and believed their meeting was fate.
When Yae reaches Iceland, she makes her way to Husavik and finally meets Harumichi again. The series ends with them reunited, and the final image presents them as a flight attendant and a pilot, showing that both of their dreams have been realized alongside their return to each other.
Yae's fate at the end is that she reaches Harumichi in Iceland and is together with him again. Harumichi's fate is the same: he is found again at the end, and the letter confirms that he had been waiting for the chance to reconnect with her.
Is there a post-credit scene?
No. The 2023 TV series First Love does not have a post-credit scene in the usual sense; the story ends with the final episode's closing moments, and there is no extra scene after the credits that adds a new plot beat or teaser.
If you mean the Netflix drama centered on Yae and Harumichi, its ending focuses on their emotional reunion and the resolution of the story rather than a separate credits stinger. The available results I found describe the series and its ending, but none report a post-credit scene.
Why did Yae and Harumichi break up in high school?
The breakup is one of the central plot points people ask about because their separation shapes the entire story. In the series, Yae and Harumichi are deeply in love as teenagers in Hokkaido, but they are pulled apart by a painful chain of events tied to Yae's family situation and a tragic accident, which leaves her unable to remember the shared past when they meet again as adults.
What happened to Yae’s memory, and why does she not remember Harumichi at first?
Viewers frequently ask this because Yae's amnesia is the main reason the present-day romance develops so slowly. According to the summaries, Yae has lost the memory of the life she shared with Harumichi after an accident, so when they reconnect as adults she initially seems to be starting over with someone who already knows her deeply.
Why is Harumichi engaged when he reunites with Yae?
This is a common story-specific question because it creates the main tension in the present-day storyline. When Yae and Harumichi meet again, Harumichi is already engaged, which makes their renewed connection emotionally charged and complicated as they begin falling in love again despite the life he has already built.
What dream did Yae abandon, and how does it connect to her becoming a flight attendant?
People often ask this because Yae's career choice is tied directly to her emotional arc. The available summaries say that after the final episode, when Harumichi leaves for Iceland, Yae remembers everything and follows him, becoming a flight attendant and finally pursuing the dream she had abandoned after her accident.
Why does Harumichi go to Iceland at the end, and what does that mean for his relationship with Yae?
This is a popular plot-specific question because Harumichi's departure is the key action that resolves the adult storyline. The summaries say he leaves everything behind to go to Iceland, and that departure triggers Yae's full recovery of memory and her decision to follow him, which signals that their bond remains the defining force in both of their lives.
Is this family friendly?
If you mean the 2022/2023 Netflix Japanese TV series First Love (Hatsukoi), it is generally not ideal for young children and is better suited to teens or adults. IMDb lists it as moderate sex/nudity, mild violence, mild alcohol/drug/smoking, and mild frightening/intense scenes.
Potentially objectionable or upsetting content includes: - Sexual content and nudity: kissing in bed, implied sex, people in minimal clothing, and some nudity, including buttocks and breast nudity. - Alcohol and smoking: characters are shown drinking and smoking. - Emotional intensity: the show contains many emotionally heavy moments, which may be upsetting for sensitive viewers. - Mild violence: IMDb rates the violence as mild, so it is not a major action-heavy or graphic show.
If you meant the unrelated film First Love from 2022, that one is much more sexually explicit and would be less family-friendly.