One day while Mina is listlessly playing her piano (after a typically horrible piano lesson with a bratty student), she hears rustling in the yard. There have been reports of someone (or some THING) going through the residents’ refuse, so she checks on the garden warily.
What she sees, to her surprise, is a dirty and frightened little boy who looks like he has not slept or eaten in days. Sensing his hunger, she runs to the house and feeds him a doughnut before calling the authorities to take care of him.
Upon hearing the news, Shinji rushes to the hospital where he and Mina are met by a Child Welfare Agent named Machi Domoto (sternly played by Kimiko Yo) who tells them that she’s been investigating this child since she heard rumors of abuse by his mother. His mother has since fleed and the boy has been surviving somehow alone. As the mother used fake names when renting the place, they have no idea what her name is or what the boy’s name is, and tell the couple that the boy will probably end up with a generic name given by the government.
Domoto assures the coiple that she will take over the matter of the boy, but fate steps in that evening when the little boy shows up AGAIN in their back yard. It seems he ran away from the orphanage and made his way to the only place he seems to want to be: at the Umeda’s home.
Approaching the boy, they see he has wet himself and watching Mina bustle about cleaning him up, Shinji feels in his heart how wonderful a mother she would be. They once again call Domoto and she assured them once again that she will take care of things.
Shinji has clearly been touched by the boy’s predicament, and his unspoken wishes for a child come to the forefront of his thoughts. And the next day, when Shinji's sister Haruyo (Maki Sakai) and brother (Hayami Mokomichi) visit, Haruyo accidentally lets it slip to Mina that Shinji’s even entertained ideas of adopting the boy. This is heavy news for Mina, and they finally have an open discussion about things.
Shinii says that it can’t be a coincidence that this boy showed up at their house TWICE. Maybe something is telling them that adopting the boy is the thing to do. But Mina is aghast at the idea of the responsibility of taking care of a child, and no matter what Shinji says, she is adamant that they mustn’t do it. But when fate steps in and for the THIRD time the little boy shows up outside the Umeda’s home, even she cannot help feeling there must be a reason.
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Someone on d-addicts called Hajimemashite Aishitemasu a “Generic Tearjerker” and having watched the first episode I can’t argue that it isn’t, but nonetheless there is something about this drama that really moves me. I love Machiko Ono and it’s been awhile since I saw Yosuke Eguchi playing one of those sweet, ever-positive and ever-smiling characters like he used to back in the day, and the music, MAN, when the music starts up, the waterworks really open up here!!! I’m really looking forward to watching the rest of this show!
