Huh. Well, HERE’S one I NEVER saw coming, not in all my years of watching Japanese dramas and Japanese actress-lusting. Because you see, while Otsuka Nene may have been a good little actress and easy enough on the eyes, I have ALWAYS associated her with fractured j-drama Aito wa Keshite Koukai Shinaikoto, a show about a brother and sister’s incest relationship, and every time I saw Ms. Otsuka after that, I just couldn’t get that drama out of my head!
I mean, taking on a touchy subject like that is hard enough, but having the theme song sung by wacky funsters TUNNELS, crooning ‘Omae ga Hoshiiiiiiii” over home footage of the brother and sister playing as little children during the opening credits just added that extra amount of creepiness to the mix! So I’ve always felt weird seeing either Ogata Naoko or Otsuka Nene in anything after that, and before long, I didn’t see them in any new dramas and eventually put them out of my mind!
It wasn’t until 2008 came around that I suddenly started seeing Nene Otsuka appearing in dramas again. Honestly speaking, the first time I’d seen her again after all those years (in Uchino Masaki crime drama GONZO), I didn’t recognize her at all, and actually mistook her for fellow 90’s actress Asou Yumi at first!
Then came her appearance as hard-as-nails Maijima Misa in TOKYO DOGS followed almost immediately with her portrayal of ramen-lovin’ Todoroki Furuko in ARASHI SP Saigo No Yakusoku and it seemed to me that Nene Otsuka was suddenly everywhere! I wondered- had she recently come out of retirement or something? But a quick check on Dramawiki informed me that Nene had been solidly working since I’d first seem her in Ai To Wa Keshite Koukai Shinaikoto, so it simply had been a case of me not noticing her, I guess.
Watching her in the aforementioned GONZO, I noted that time had really worked well for her, and she’d turned into a pretty fine MILF-ish type actress. But her character of Psychiatrist Matsuo Risa was just a little bit too “granola” for me, and it wasn’t until I dug up her previous drama AROUND 40 that I got to see just how sexy she could get!
Watching the first episode of Around 40 (which I’d dug up primarily for my love of warm and quirky actress Amami Yuki), when Fashion Editor Morimura Nao first came onto the screen, I ONCE AGAIN thought, “Hey, It’s Asou Yumi”! I thought she was a hot little number indeed, and was quite taken aback when the beginning credits rolled and I saw that the role of Nao was in fact played by none other than Otsuka Nene !
My first thought was, “Ohh, Nooo! That hot chick I was drooling after was the sister in that incest drama!” But by the end of that first episode, I was beginning to like her too much, and by the time I was halfway though the series, found that she was my favorite character in the show and that I was utterly in love with her! By the time the series ended, any old feelings I might have had harbored against Nene were totally obliterated! As Nao, Nene had it all: Sexy as well as subdued, Confident and at times heartbreakingly vulnerable. Because of her perf in Around 40, I now LOVE Nene Otsuka, and can cherish her as the hot little actress she really is! 
PS: Funny thing about always mistaking Nene for Yumi Asou- In the Sanma/Kimura Takuya drama Sora Kara Furu Ichioku no Hoshi, when I saw sexy as hell Maho Toyota appear onscreen, once AGAIN, I though, “Hey! It’s Yumi Asou!”! And even stranger is the fact that when I actually SAW Yumi Asou in Toshishita No Otoko, my first thought was, “Who the heck is that?” AHAHAHAHA!
