Widow Of Revenge: “Fukushuu no Miboujin”

 WOW, just caught the first episode of “Fukushuu no Miboujin” and HOLY CATS, It was AWESOME!

Mitsu Suzuki (Wakana Matsumoto) is a kind and mild mannered wife whose life gets turned upside down when her husband Yugo (Yuta Hiraoka) supposedly commits suicide at his workplace.

She cannot understand why her Husband would feel so pressured as to take his own life- but when she comes across recorded evidence that he was tormented by the company, she declares his death not suicide but murder, and makes it her mission to make them pay!

Months later,  a much harder and cold Mitsu Suzuki infiltrates the company under cover as a computer programmer, and quickly works her way into the same department where her husband once worked.

She is highly efficient and capable at her job and is instantly liked and respected among her peers for her intelligence and cheerful and friendly demeanor! But what these employees don't know is that this calm and composed woman has only has one thing in mind: getting to know everyone in the department and find clues to her husband's passing.

Working alongside her teammates while keeping an eye on who the bullies and manipulators are as she watches the Section Chief cruelly berating a young employee in front of the whole floor.

And once Mitsu has identified someone as part of the guilty party, her true cold nature is revealed as she extracts her own form of diabolical PUNISHMENT upon them!!!

Starring a stellar cast which includes Renn Kiriyama, Rika Adachi, Yasushi Fuchikami, Yuki Morinaga and Sakurako Konishi, this is a fine little cast, but make no mistake: this drama is ALL about Wakana Matsumoto’s TOUR de FORCE as the ICY COLD and calculating Mitsu!!!

I'm telling ya, with shows like Fukushuu no Miboujin and Kyousu No Musume on right now, it seems the era of the cold and calculating Iron Maiden is on the rise!!!

Can't WAIT to see MORE!

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I first saw Wakana as the beautiful and refined Miyuki in Toshi no Sakon, but it was her role as the super badass cop Tomi Nekota in Mystery to Iunakure that made me realize how damn KAKKOI she was!! This was a gal you really wanted to see kick some BUTT!

Admittedly, my love for her dropped a bit watching her as the extremely irritating (and wildly over-the-top) Sister-in-Law from Hell Mihoko Miyama in “Yangotonaki Ichizoku”(LOL)

...but MAN ALIVE, I think it's safe to say that the super-cool Wakana we saw in those earlier dramas is BACK in Fukushuu Miboujin!

Probably one of my FAVE shows right now!!!!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Poison Daughter, Holy Mother

By the title, I thought this drama would be featuring stories of clashing Mothers and Daughters, but it turned out to be more about perspective, with time dedicated to both the protagonist side and the antagonist side so you see how things are never as simple as black and white.

The first story is “Poison Daughter”, about an actress named Yumika Fujiyoshi (Rika Adachi) who has been raised with a seemingly dominating “Poison Mother” (Shinobu Terajima) who overprotects her to the point of controlling every aspect of her life including film choices and even her love life.

The Second chapter is called “Holy Mother” in which we see things from the Mother’s side this time and find that all her actions had in fact been protecting  Rika from bad things. (Personally I think they went overboard to portray the mother as kind and caring when she obviously wasn’t in Part One, and to paint Yumika as the selfish and uncaring one)

Chapter Three "Sinful Woman" involves the tale of a kind young girl named Yukina Amano (Kaya Kiyohara) who befriends an abused boy named Masayuki in her apartment complex. She is always there to care for him and look out for him like a sister, and is thrilled when she bumps into him as an adult(Yuto Takahashi). She hopes to reconnect, and she is shocked when Masayuki snaps and goes on a mass-murdering spree in a shopping mall.

Yukihiro is put in jail, and through interrogation, we see the relationship with Yukina from his point of view… and find things aren’t quite the same as Yukina remembers it.

Chapter Four "Best Friend": When upcoming screenwriter Suzuka Sazanami (Yuri Nakamura) is knocked out of first place for a prestigious award that would get you work on a new drama, she is at first happy with second place…til she sees the winner.

Kaoruko Omaniuda (Maho Yamada) is an awkward novice who doesn’t know the first thing about the television business and has seemingly won the prize simply because it was a true story of her husband’s cancer and death.

Yet despite Kaoruko’s inexperience, she keeps succeeding upward, while Suzuka keeps struggling every day to even get her name mentioned. This fuels an intense jealousy in Suzuka and she becomes obsessed with making Kaoruko fail.

It’s here that the series takes an interesting turn and begins referring back to the past episodes and we see each story is in this same universe!

A book “Slave Of Love” that the Television studio is hoping to develop is the same drama that Yumika Fujioshi tries to get in episode one-

wehn short of ideas, Suzuka  sees news coverage of the shopping mall murder from episode 3 on TV and suggests they write a story about that.

And  the huge drama that Omamiuda writes to great success is the movie that Yumika Fujioshi stars in at the end of episode 2!!!

Pure GENIUS how they tie all the stories together!!!

Chapter Five "Kind Woman": We have Kana Kurashina as a girl who is too kind to everyone and ends up being accused of murdering her inept co-worker at a company barbecue...

...and the final episode "My Dearest" deals with Ayumi Ito as a woman who can only confide in her cat!

A wonderful, thought provoking series.