Cheat, Cheat, Cheat: Unfaithful Shenanigans in “Rikon Shiyou Yo”

 Light-hearted romcom about a power couple who are miserable in their present married lives, yet each have their own personal reasons for clinging onto their marital status...

 To keep the illusion alive, they appear as the perfect husband and wife in public, but behind closed doors, are constantly bickering!

They even have a weekly livestream where they appear all cheerful and genki...

...only to have the facade immediately  DROP once the cameras are off! (Hey, this is exactly  like the set-up in “Ousama ni Sasagu Kusuriyubi”, is this fake livestream thing going to be a new cliche for the internet age?)

Our Story:

Yui Kurosawa (Riisa Naka) is a beloved actress famous for a stint as a small-town heroine in a popular television show (seems like an asadora), and has lately made a career out of her seemingly wedded bliss by playing the perfect housewife in commercials. if it gets out she is not the happily married wife she projects, she may lose her contracts...and even have to pay reparations!

Taishi Shoji (Tori Matsuzaka) is a small-time politician who got his position through his father, who himself was a prominent figure. But unlike his father, Taishi is slow, uncouth and clumsy and usually botches his speeches and appearances by saying and doing the wrong thing. 

The only thing he has going for himself is his marriage to Yui, whose personality and popularity brings the crowd to his lectures. He knows that  the people who turn up at his events are only there for their love of Yui and he fears that without her he may not make it.

One aspect of his wife’s acting that he can never get over is her having kissing and sex scenes with her costars (like Kamio Fuju), that of which he has to endure any time one of her shows is aired. 

And just when his feeling of inadequacy is coming to a head, Taishi meets a brash young secretary named Sakurako (Lisa Oda) eager to get involved with him, and he ends up having an affair with her- which gets outed in a very public way!

The end is nigh, and after a terse confrontation after an event, both Yui and Taishi officially decide to get divorced.  To that end, they have met with their respective lawyers, Yui with the natty Henry K. Ishihara (Furuya Arata)...

...and Taishi with the svelte Kaoru Inden (Yuka Itaya) Each gives their honest reasoning why the marriage should be dissolved, and the lawyers seem to agree…But it won’t be as easy as they think!

The harried wife gets told  by her ornery mother in law that she should just deal with the husband’s cheating and stand by him for the sake of integrity, but there is little time for sympathy for Yui before she goes right out and cheats herself, this one with the smooth talking Kyoji Kano (Ryo Nishikido)...

I was just talking to a friend about how much I loathe dramas  with infidelity as a primary plot point, and it seems I’ve been rooked into yet another one, because  the cheating in this one is as rife as a Woody Allen movie, and all I can think is, “I’m supposed to LIKE these people?” LOL! 

Also has the “Bride comes from poor family with loads of kids and if you divorce the rich guy, how will the poor family survive without their help?” cliche I really can’t stand either! (Though Reiko Takahashi DOES plays the no-good mom in a hilariously wacky style!)

Despite any misgivings I might have, I’ve been reading that this drama has been doing swimmingly, maybe the general audiences are  tired of the recent morose and serious fare like First Love , Silent, et al, and want to kick back with a fun, no-frills comedy. In THAT, I guess it delivers.

I will say one thing, it’s full of stars and additionally, Risa Naka is looking more DEVASTATINGLY gorgeous than EVER, and this might be her SASSIEST role yet! 

One scene that had me CRACKING UP is when she’s telling the lawyer she can cry on command, and when he doesn’t believe it, she grabs a box of chocolates and begins emotionally reading off the ingredients and proceeds to lose it like she’s reading the last will and testament of her mother! 

And then as quickly as she began, she instantly regains composure and wipes the tears away, making Lawyer Ishihara gasp, “Scary!!” AHAHAHAHA

LOLOL, She's definitely one of the BIG reasons I will be tuning in each week!