Otto no Katei wo Kowasu Made

Marika Matsumoto with trouble in mind...

Ever since they were classmates together in school, Minori (Marika Matsumoto) has pledged all her love and devotion to Yudai Kisaragi (Terunosuke Takezai). She always saw him as her only one, and when they got married and eventually started a family with a young son, she felt her life couldn’t get better!

This all comes to a crashing end when Minori accidentally sees some indiscreet texts on Yudai’s phone, the kind of which seems to indicate that her husband isn’t being honest about where he is and what he’s doing on all those evenings when he’s saying he’s working late or entertaining clients!

Minori’s friend and fellow lawyer Sara Hori (Rina Ota) cautions Minori not to jump to conclusions as there are many reasons why her husband might have lied- maybe he’s planning a surprise for her. Maybe she misunderstood. And so, needing to see with her own eyes what she suspects, she begins tailing her husband.

On an evening when he says he’s meeting with co-workers, Minori sees Yudai meet up with a teenage boy. Confused as to what she is seeing, it gets even MORE conusing when they go to a restaurant, and another WOMAN (Maho Nonami) shows up!

Tears form in Minori’s eyes as she witnesses her greatest fears coming to reality: Yudai is INDEED cheating on her, and with a woman with a grown son besides! How LONG has this been going ON, Minori wonders,  and when Sara sees the damning pictures, recognizes the woman as an old classmate of theirs. Yudai and this woman have been together THAT far back??? Minori is shocked and shaken to the core!

All her dreams of  the perfect life with this man are now marred with betrayal and dark thoughts soon cloud Minori’s mind. If she cannot attain the happy family life she wanted, she can’t imagine  allowing Yudai to enjoy HIS cheating life and begins plotting her revenge: By DESTROYING her husband’s family!

Otto no Katei wo Kowasu Made promises to be one hek of a psychological drama, only I'm still not sure what kind it's going to be- At fist glance seeming like a drama like  the excellent Wakana Mtumoto thriller "Fukushuu no Miboujin" (which I gushed about here) , by the drama's synopsis on MDL, seems more like it will be a character study of Minori and her own tortured past. This drama could be great or a real slog...for the moment, I'm cautiously invested!

Tokumei! Keishichou Tokubetsu Kaikeigakari

 Another cute vehicle for the energetic Kanna Hashimoto, this time a drama in the flavor of the fun Mikako Tabe drama “Kore wa Keihi de Ochimasen!” where Tabe played an uptight company accountant who is a stickler for payment details, only in this one, Hashimoto plays expense accountant…to a Police Crime Department!

Times are tough for the Mancho Police Station, and everyone has been told that there will be severe cost-cutting in the budget. With that, they have dispatched clerk Madoka Hajime (Hashimoto) to the station. Madoka is a whiz with numbers, but not so much on personality, and once she gets started, she upsets everyone with her cold cost cutting edicts!

This is a particular thorn for investigator Tetsuro Yukawa (Ikki Sawamura). With his team including Todo (Marika Matsumoto), Otake (JP) Tsukimura (Kentaro Maeda) and Nakanishi (Satoshi Tokushige), money is a key element they need in order to properly conduct their investigations- even if the spending gets way too liberal and the arrests cause too much monetary damage!

In order to suss out what really needs to be spent and how much is being wasted, Hajime decides to tag along with the investigative team when the next murder occurs. But bad luck follows this girl around like a shadow, and she immediately causes trouble for Yukawa and his team when she sets off sprinklers right at the crime scene!

Madoka is admonished, but her supervisor Suga (Jiro Sato) knows she has that something special, and with his encouragement, tells her to help out the investigation in her own way. After all, he points out, helping solve the case early will save money, too! And so she makes up her mind to unofficially investigate the crime all by herself.

With only the knowledge she's learned from TV shows and her penchant for numbers as her guide, she takes off as a solo unit of her own...

 ...and as she and the rest of the Department will SOON come to know, her almost wizardry knowledge of numbers and sums will amazingly give her the boost she needs to tackle the case, even leading herself AHEAD of the actual squad!

And when things are all said and done, though the Investigative team insists they had the case well in hand without her, it cannot be denied that her insight CAN be of help!

Our dear "One Yen" may be validated by the team yet!!

A VERY fun show, with Kanna being as bubbly and spunky as ever, and I’m intrigued to see the imaginative ways they use her mathematical skills to solve problems. A feast for Kanna fans everywhere!

OOOH, and if THAT wasn't enough, the Opening Credits scene has the entire gang chasing a one-yen coin right down the Yume no Ohashi Bridge, that ubiquitous plaza front featured in so many shows, and one I’m particularly obsessed with!!!

One thing, though- I’m not too thrilled by the "twist" reveal at the end of the first episode- it’s like in Yankee Kun to Megane-Chan when they revealed that uber-dork Hana Adachi was actually an ex-yankee. You’d already fallen in love with her sincere quirkiness as a nerd and then it’s shown to be a front. Without saying more, I hope Tokumei doesn't follow this path!

Posted by zdorama @ zoramaagain.blogspot.com