 |
| Yukie Nakama in Racuen |
Just started watching the new WOWOW drama RAKUEN starring Yukie Nakama, and in true WOWOW fashion (the last WOWOW dramas I watched were the Fumino Kimura drama Suisho No Koudo and the Keiko Kitagawa drama Hippocrates no Chikai), it is a very violent and dark drama indeed, featuring a handful of gripping plotlines that weave and intersect with each other throughout to show, til you’re at the edge of your seat wondering how it will all tie up!
 |
| Husband and Wife |
Rakuen (Paradise) tells the tale of a journalist named Maehata Shigeko (Nakama) who is living an adequate life with her blue collar worker husband Shoji (Komoto Masahiro), but we are to find that she was once an aggressive magazine writer who used all her skills studying and investigating her stories til a serial she wrote accusing someone of a crime led to a suicide by the accused sister.
 |
| Flashback: Meeting the Sister of the Accused |
 |
| "Please stop writing about my brother...he's innocent" |
 |
| "I trust my research and it leads me to believe he's guilty" |
Shortly thereafter the true criminal was arrested, leaving Maehata wracked with guilt for accusing the wrong man and sending his sister to suicide. Since then she has lost the fire for her job and though still working as a writer for the magazine, does it in a reserved and mundane way.
As our story opens, several key things happen by chance that will shake up and bring Maehata and bring her back to the light:
First is a dastardly case that has made the news of a couple named Doisaki who murdered their 15 year old daughter and buried her under their house and left her there for 16 years. Only when a fire burns down the house do they come out and confess to the crime.
 |
| The Doisakis: Kaoru Kobayashi and Miyuki Matsuda |
Since the statute of limitations has passed, the couple have been released, but now, under fire by the press and public, they hire a savvy woman lawyer named Takahashi (Kuroki Hitomi) to act as their go-between for all conversations and transactions, the first of which is to go about cutting ties with their younger, still living daughter (who was only 9 at the time of the murder of her sister) Seiko (Kaho).
 |
| Lawyer Harumi Takahashi (Hitomi Kuroki) |
 |
| Doisaki's younger daughter Seiko Inoue |
Second is a curious case of a woman named Hagiya (Nishida Naomi) who comes by the publishers to talk to Maehata and tells her she believes her son may have ESP because he can seemingly draw people’s memories...
 |
| Toshiko Hagiya (Naomi Nishida) believes her son may have ESP... |
Maehata is skeptical at first, but when she produces a drawing her son did that supposedly depicts the very same murder, including the same bat-shaped weathervane, it piques her interest enough to investigate further.
 |
| A sketch that accurately portrays the murder |
Third is the announcement that the true criminal in the case where Maehata accused the wrong person of murder, a man named Amikawa Koichi, (Oshinari Shugo), is writing his memoirs, hoping to inspire others like him…and has requested an audience with Maehata herself!
 |
| Criminal Amikawa (Shugo Oshinari) |
And Fourth is the latest sketch the boy drew… Showing interest in the boy’s story, mother has brought all his sketch pads, including his latest… which shockingly seems to depict the gruesome murders Amikawa was responsible for, including details only the police and those at the scene could possibly know about.
 |
| Meeting the young artist |
 |
| A reserved boy |
 |
| Looking over the sketches... |
 |
| They uncannily capture the murders |
All these come together to re-ignite the fire in Maehata’s investigating passion, and she knows that only by investigating all the details of this case and resolving the questions will she ever be at peace with the guilt she has been carrying for all these years….
MAN, what a first episode, SO much to digest and think about, but it’s pretty exciting to guess where they’re going to go with the story, and at only 6 episodes, this already feels more like a long movie than a television show! Can’t wait to see what happens next!
