Itoshii Uso: Yasashii Yami

 The new mystery drama Itoshii Uso: Yasashii Yami reminds me a lot of the 2013 drama Gekiryu~Watashi wo Oboete Imasuka? as both begin with an almost identical plot:
In Gekiryu, Five High school friends reunite when they get a mysterious message from a  fellow classmate who disappeared 20 years ago, saying only a cryptic “Do You Remember Me?”
In the same way, Itoshii begins with six High School friends reuniting after 20 years, and when they open up  a time capsule, they see a cryptic one-sentence message from a fellow classmate who disappeared 20 years ago, “I’ll never Forget You All”…
Itoshii Uso: Yasashii Yami stars Haru as Mio Imai, a struggling Mangaka whose meek and mild manner results in her pushed around by those around her. Though she clenches her fists below the table, she never fights back.

 She is called out of the blue by a former classmate of hers, Amemiya, (whom she had a secret crush on in school) to be receptionist for a class reunion, which she does without complaint, and is reunited with her group of friends from her childhood.

There is Reiko Honda (Yuika Motokariya), always the brains of the group and now a lawyer,

Nanae Iwasaki (Yua Shinkawa), the class princess and now an instagram darling,

Yumi Nose (Tomoka Kurokawa), the levelheaded one and now married,

Ryo Fukuzawa (Junpei Mizubata), now a novice wine maker in his family’s company,

and finally, Shuichi Amemiya (Kento Hayashi) always the most popular of the gang and now a company president.

On the surface everyone seems happy and succesful, but as we go deeper, we find that all of them are having hard situations they must deal with...

 At the reunion the class goes to dig up a time capsule they buried years ago. And at the bottom of the box is the lone note left by the boy named Mizuki, saying he'll never forget them. 

But who exactly WAS this boy? When he is brought up, everyone clams up, and there is a shroud of darkness about him. 

It seems everyone has dark secrets he or she is keeping from the others in the group...And when one of their classmates is brutally murdered, the reunited students have to accept that the murderer may be ONE OF THEM!

This was probably the drama I most anticipated for this season's new releases, but while it's certainly intriguing (hope they continue as a straightforward mystery and not the Shinhannin Flag type of "fake out" red herrings each episode which are so tiresome already), one difference between this and the aforementioned Gekiryu Watashi wo Oboete Imasuka is that unlike Gekiryu, which showed the closeness of the classmates, I really have a hard time believing Haru and these others are friends of any kind, past or present. In fact, most of them are resentful and confrontational towards each other, making it feel like they have no bond whatsoever. All their friendly interactions seem forced to me. Maybe I'm SUPPOSED to be feeling this? I don't know, but I hope this disbelief about their friendship doesn't affect the overall story...

The Trouble With Ryo: Murder Mayhem in "Watashi no Otto wa Reitouko ni Nemutte Iru"

 Yuika Motokariya, an actress I haven’t seen in years, stars as Nana Kisaragi in the macabre drama “Watashi no Otto wa Reitouko ni Nemutte Iru~My Husband Is Sleeping in The Freezer”.
When Nana first met Ryo Sato (Jun Shirasu), he seemed like the perfect boyfriend, kind, patient and caring. But once they have made plans to marry, he turned into an abusive partner, beating and forcing himself on her.

At wits end, Nana breaks and in a flash of rage, amashes him over the head with a bottle and, which he is incapacitated, strangles him to death!!

Without an ounce of remorse, Nana’s first thought is,”Oh, I’d better bury him.” But when looking for tools in the shed, she instead discovers an old Ice Cream freezer her Grandfather had left behind (why this was still plugged in and working I have no idea) and, feeling it's cold temperature, decides to keep him in there, very well!

The next morning she wakes up refreshed without the burden of her volatile fiance, and goes about prepaing herself some breakfast. …but she is STUNNED when who should walk in the door but RYO HIMSELF!!!

Did Nana just imagine the events of the night before? Did she just THINK that Ryo died but in fact was still alive?? The strangulation marks on his neck tell her that this is indeed the real ryo, but a quick check to the freezer tells her that the “Ryo” from the night before is still  very much dead. So who is this guy walking around in their house? Strange things are afoot and Nana doesn’t know what to make of it… but she knows she can’t rest…til she’s killed HIM, too!
WELL. This has got to be one of the ODDEST stories I’ve ever seen put into a drama, where I have no IDEA what is going ON! Trying to make sense of it, I went online and it seems to be based on a really popular manga with the seeming same story situation:

Gotta say, I’m fairly confused by this drama but, at a mere 6 episodes, seems fair enough to stick around and see what happens next!

That Was No Lady, That Was A Crush!

Watching another fine episode of PROPOSE KYODAI, and I was getting quite smitten with the cute girl playing the future-bride-to-be for that chapter, even going as far to snap a few screenshots of her in case she should develop into a "Crush Of The Day" down the road... 

I was down to the last 10 minutes of the show before I realized that the actress in question was none other than Motokariya Yuika, a girl that I had ALREADY had a crush on awhile ago! Nice to know she’s still able to entrance me all over again!