Unapologetic Reviews

Tokyo Tarareba Musume (Tokyo "What if" Woman) is about happiness. “Let’s get a woman’s happiness!” 30 is a huge turning point in a woman’s life. This story stars three women, former classmates who live in Tokyo. They gather at a small restaurant run by one’s father and chat about their lives. They often start their sentences with “What if…”, wondering about things they should have done differently. They all turn 30, and realise that they don’t have the husband and children they imagined they would by now. They decide to not mess around anymore, and take that goal seriously, because that is a woman’s happiness. With this in mind, they take risks, and from their previous stale lives try to build something more. This, however, leads to realisations and experiences that they would not have imagined. Rinko (Yoshitaka Yuriko) can be called the ringleader of the girls. She is also the “author” of the story. She narrates it, and in the drama there is an indication that it’s...

Dear Sister is an interesting drama. It’s mainly about the importance of family, especially siblings. Being an only child myself, I could just look on, and remember when as a little girl I so wanted a sibling. As the title suggests, the two main characters are sisters. Though I do have to note here that they are not the only siblings in the story. There are also two brothers and a brother with a sister, so you get all combinations. Let’s focus on the main storyline. The two sisters seem very different. Hazuki (Matsushita Nao) is the responsible one. Seemingly. She has a government job, a boyfriend, lives alone, looks after her mother. She wears shirts and pencil skirts. Misaki (Ishihara Satomi) is the younger, irresponsible sister. She left home at an early age, never got an education, works in shady places, has men issues. Because of these Hazuki sees her as the lucky child, the one who could always do what she wanted. However, she could be wrong. Assuming that Misaki is s...

Please Love the Useless Me ( Dame na Watashi ni Koishite Kudasai ) isn’t one of my favourites. It was very sweet and cute, but the main character can be annoying. Okay, she’s also very sweet, and when she clutched her meat pillow, I was reminded of her cat. This is obviously not a serious drama. It’s sometimes funny, but sometimes ridiculous. This drama is about growing up. Although the main character never seems to, she’s not alone. I’m well over 30, and sometimes I feel like an impostor as well, just playing being an adult. Being an adult is hard. There are jobs to find, relationships, people out for our money, etc. We have all probably felt that we are way in over our heads. Michiko, the main character knows she is. She’s unemployed, and hopelessly ensnared by her younger boyfriend. She needs help, and her old boss, Ayumu decides to help. Though actually, he could use some help himself. His restaurant is just starting up, and I think having a waitress as cute as her around...

After I saw this series, I started to read the manga, because I fell in love with the characters so much, I wasn’t ready to let them go. Therefore, I will make some references to the manga as well, though I haven’t read it all yet. Hapimari is about a lot of things. Fathers, marriage, love, happiness. It starts out with a strange event. A man proposes marriage to a woman he doesn’t even know. Interestingly, in the manga he’s actually her boss, which complicates things further. However, in the drama he’s not. I think they took that part out as it was a bit disturbing, almost bordering on a kind of harassment. It was also a conflict not closely related to the main story, which in the manga takes places over several more years than in the drama. So getting back to the story, a woman accepting a proposal by a strange, but wealthy man seems equally improbable. However, just as the man has a good reason for the propositions, so does the woman for accepting it. That doesn’t mean they b...

First of all, I have to say that I mainly started to watch From Five to Nine for Ishihara Satomi, whom I just adore! She’s not only incredibly beautiful, and I sometimes find myself staring at, but she also brings such warmth to all her performances. I also started to watch it as I’ve worked as an English teacher myself. I tried once to get a job in Japan, but apparently it’s impossible if you didn’t grow up in an English speaking country. This drama starts out a bit strangely, and frankly, throughout the story it was hard to understand Takane’s attraction to her. Sure, Junko is a lovely, vivacious, beautiful woman. Like I said, it’s very hard to not stare at Satomi sometimes, she’s that gorgeous, but one would think a monk would go deeper than that. Also, frankly, Takane’s very annoying, and I would probably have been more drastic in my refusal of him. So this drama is about a monk falling in love with an English teacher inexplicably fast and deep. He relentlessly pursues ...

Reinoryokusha Odagiri Kyoko no Uso (Spiritual Teacher, Kyoko Odagiri) wasn't the drama I first thought it was going to be. I thought it would have a lot of fake psychic stuff, pretending to do magic, and would be kind of annoying. Why I really started to watch was Ishihara Satomi, who I've seen in a few things, and that dress. Oh my, that is so gorgeous, I kind of want it. What I got was a detective series, actually. The cases seem to be supernatural at first glance, but of course they're not. I was happy that it was a detective series, because I'm growing to really love Japanese detective stories. Unlike most Western ones, the difference is that most "culprits" aren't really evil, and not doing things out of malicious intentions. Their motivation is often to help someone, or to save people. Therefore when the resolution comes, it's usually done in a kind way. The mysteries themselves are interesting, but not impossible to solve. I did figure s...

I started watching this drama not sure if it would be work, romance or comedy. It's a bit all three of them, but most of it is actually a comedy. The breast jokes would be a bit too much if it wasn't. The story itself revolves around a "Kabe Onna" (Wall Woman). She's a woman with very small breasts. She's the type who is bothered by it, but won't wear extreme push-up bras to compensate. While breasts are a central theme in the story, it's more about what she goes through with work, her love life, her family, and the people with whom she interacts. The story does lack a focus, and most of the time I was wondering where they were going with it. It felt more like a jumble of short stories with the same characters than a coherent thing. There were some other funny moments though, aside from the breast jokes. This drama starts out a bit offensively, and I did almost stop watching at the beginning. The new employee at the store has exceptionally big br...

I wanted to watch a cute, funny and romantic drama, and that is just what I got. I do remember watching the previous version of Itazura na Kiss , but I don't remember much of it. It didn't seem to have much of an impact, and that version was only 9 episodes, while this one is 16. The story is a love triangle, sort of. From the start we know that Kotoko is in love with Irie-kun. It's also not hard to deduct that Kin-chan is in love with Kotoko. Irie-kun doesn't even seem to know that Kotoko exists, until she presents him with a love letter that of course, no surprise, he turns down. What happens after that is years and years of Kotoko being hopelessly devoted. Yes, this drama takes place over 3-4 years. Kotoko is in class F at the beginning, and Irie is in A. Fs, people who are perhaps not that book smart, and As, who are seem to be a world apart. Can two people so different find each other? Can it work? At one point Irie confesses that he had no troubles until ...