The Ties That Bind: "Haha Ni Naru"

Just started watching the Erika Sawajiri drama “Haha Ni Naru” the other week and so far I really love it. Strange that I didn’t know anything about this drama despite it being aired between two dramas I watched, Tokyo Tarareba Musume and Kahogo No Kahoko, but it wasn’t until it was completed and linked on a forum that I discovered it, and MAN, I was gripped with its story from the first episode...this is one emotionally draining show!

Haha Ni Naru tells the story of a young couple named Kashiwazaki, mother Yui (Sawajiri) and father Yoichi (Naohito Fujiki) whose child Kou has gone missing since disappearing days before in front of his school. After a tense day of waiting, they are notified that Kou’s hoodie and shoe have been recovered from the harbour, and is suspected to have drowned.

 

 The show then flashes back to how the couple met, with Yui and Yoichi riding the same train together each morning until the day comes when Yoichi comes in to order a book from the bookstore Yui works at. They start off as acquaintances until it blossoms into a relationship, and when Yui finds herself pregnant, Yoichi proposes to her and introduces her to his mother, the kindly Satoe (Fubuki Jun) who welcomes Yui into the family with open arms! They have the support of their friends, Taiji and Risako Nishihara (Yuka Itaya) who have a daughter attending the same daycare as Kou, and all seems good with the Kashiwazaki family.

The fateful event happens when Yoichi, a professor at a University, is running late to meet his family at an amusement park and doesn’t have time to go over paperwork with a troubled student. The slighted student, who fails his exams without his teacher’s guidance, targets Kashiwazaki and his family, and plans to kidnap Kou when he is separated from his mother.

Kou is an excitable boy who is constantly running ahead with his mother lagging behind, and on that day she doesn’t think too much of it when he runs off when she is talking to Risako in front of the school. She calls after him, but he is suddenly nowhere to be found. She thinks he must be nearby, but when she sees a broken piece of his airplane toy on the ground, she suspects foul play, and runs off looking for him.

By the evening he still hasn’t been found and the parents get the horror of their lives when they get a phone call from the angry student who boasts that he took their son because he wouldn’t help him. Before he can say if Kou is still alive, the student commits suicide, severing any chance of the authorities finding out any information.

The parents are distraught and in a panic, and it all comes to a head when the detectives fish out Kou’s clothing from the ocean. All clues lead them to believe that their son has perished.

What they don’t know is that the abducted Kou has been holed up in a dingy apartment in a shady side of town. Scared, cold and hungry, he is heard sobbing to himself by a lonely woman named Asako Kadokura (Eiko Koike) next door. Concerned, she investigates the sound, and upon finding an unlocked door, discovers the kidnapped child.

As the years go by, the Kashiowazakis continue to pass out flyers in hopes of finding their child, believing with all their heart that he is still alive. But the agony and stress takes its toll on them and they eventually separate and eke out reclusive lives alone. Shockingly and Contrarily, we see that Kadokura, who once seemed so bleak, is radiant as she bicycles home and is greeted by Kou who happily calls her “Mama!”

Fast forward to present day and there is a curious situation going on at an orphanage. A dutiful caseworker named Shuhei Kino (Yuta Nakajima) has discovered that a boy who was dropped off at the center two years ago has been found to have a perfect DNA match…to the missing Kou!

Upon the discovery, they reach out to the Kashiwazakis, and for the first time in  years, Yui comes face to face with her son.

What has happened to Kou in the missing years? who was Asako Kadokura and where is she now? And most importantly, will the reappearance of their missing son repair and heal the wounds of the past for Yui and Yoichi Kashiwazaki…or make things more distraught and complicated? All these questions and more are what keeps me glued to my screen watching this show!

I’ve seen quite a few dramas touching the theme of the abducted child (Mother and Youkami No Semi for example) but this is the first time the show seems to give equal sympathy for both the Mother and father of the abducted child as well as the person who stole the child away. You care for both sides of the tragedy (I suppose it’s easier to have sympathy for the abductor since she isn’t really the one who kidnapped the child but instead erred by keeping the boy instead of alerting authorities) and see the heartbreak each are feeling. 
Now that Gomen Aishiteru is wrapping up, I will need a serious drama to put my heart into and it looks like I will be focusing all my energy on Haha Ni Naru for now!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com