Lifestyles of the (Formerly) Rich and Famous

 Super Rich stars actress Noriko Eguchi as the affluent Mamoru Hyoga, a multi-millionaire businesswoman co-running a succesful online manga company.

Though always wealthy even as a child, ever since both her parents were killed in a plane crash (which the young Mamoru believes is at fault), she has been stand-offish about relationships and has an abrupt and callous demeanor about her.

Her employees, however, love and trust her. They support her in every decision she makes and knows she always has the company’s interest in mind.

Executives( Keita Machida, Yuri Nakamura, Rio Kanno and Yuma Yamato)

Manga Staff (Arata Furuta and Riku Kashima)

This can’t be said for Mamoru’s partner, Ryo Ichinose (Shigeyuki Totsugi), whom, though Mamoru she has known all her life and considers her only friend, is seen as undependable, lazy and untrustworthy by the employees.

So when Ichinose is discovered to have partnered the company with a business with Yakuza ties before disappearing with a fortune, no one is surprised (save Mamoru herself) at all!

Their parent company, run by the elegant but strict Satomi Shimatani (A gorgeous Nanako Matsushima) has no intention of being associated with a yakuza partnership, but tells Mamoru all will be overlooked if she fires Ichinose.

But when Mamoru cannot bring herself to dismiss her friend, the manga company is dropped and the sponsors soon begin cutting ties with them. 

After the payment of penalties due to cancellations, the company, and Mamoru herself, are suddenly left poor!!! As she leaves, it feels like the end.

At some point earlier in the month, the company has admitted some new interns (including Mirai Shida Mizuki Itagaki, and Miyu Takahashi) after passing an entrance exam.

But one young hopeful, the energetic and optimistic Yu Haruno (Eiji Akaso) has missed the exam due to helping a pregnant woman on the way to the company. Though he begs and pleads with Hyoga, his tardiness is something she cannot overlook and dismisses him, over and over.

It’s only when she has hit rock bottom that this curious young man reappears, and, when offering up his last coin to buy Mamoru something to eat, she finally sees the moxie in him and decides then and there to get back up and fight her way to the top…with his continued support!

MAN, this is one HELLUVA cast! While Noriko Eguchi has never been on my radar (she always seems to play the more morose roles), the actors and actresses involved in this shidig make it worthwhile JUST to see it all play out! Should be a fun one!

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.