“Kazoku Dakara Aishitan Janakute, Aishita no ga Kazoku Datta”

Yumi Kawai with Aoi Yoshida

WONDERFULLY Sweet, Witty, and Touching drama with characters you immediately love and want to spend time with, “Kazoku Dakara Aishitan Janakute, Aishita no ga Kazoku Datta” (The Only Ones I Love Are My Family) HAS to be the “feel Good” drama of the past season!!!

I had no IDEA what I was in for when I dove into this, but I was instantly captivated not only by the characters but the AMAZING, colorful dialog that filled every scene- the writing style made me think of the genius writer/director Satoshi Miki  (he of such terrific stories like “Instant Numa” Adrift In Tokyo” and the excellent  2013 series “Henshin Interviewer no Yuutsu”)!

Half expecting it to be Miki, I was to see it was screenwritten and directed by Akiko Ohku, she of the wonderful “Ano ko no Yume wo Mitan Desu” series (which I also really, really loved), and the Alice Hirose “Shitsuren Meshi” foodie drama!!! And now you can add this drama to her list of terrific little stories!

A “Work of Fiction but based on A True Story”, Kazoku Dakara Aishitan Janakute is based on the autobiography of a girl named Nanami Kishimoto (Yuumi Kawai), a girl with a LOT on her plate for a teenage high-schooler: Her father (played in spirit by Ryo Nishikido) passed away when Nanami was a youngster, leaving her eccentric Mother Hitomi (Maki Sakai) to raise both her and her little brother Sota, who is suffering from Downs Syndrome. Add in an eccentric Grandma Yoshiko (Miho Jun) dropping in, they have a lot on her hands! 

The family's early days are spent mostly worrying about Sota's interaction with the "real world", though big Sis is skeptical that he can do things alone just yet...but Mom is optimistic!

I love these scenes, you can tell how loving this family is just through their actions.

At school, Nanami is caught between hanging with the “cool” kids...

 ...or following her own quirky path, of which her equally awkward friend Tamaki (Momoko Fukuchi) wholeheartedly encourages. 

As two people from poorer families with broken homes that have a strange camaraderie with each other, making for some sweet moments and HILARIOUS scenarios! Whenever it's the two of them, it's  like "Square Pegs" for the new generation!!!

In the romance department, Nanami has been seeing a boy named Asahi (Ryunosuke Shimamura) and things have been going swimmingly...

...that is until he happens to see her at the convenience store with her little brother!

He is taken aback by the fact that Sota is mentally handicapped, and is soon thereafter ignoring Nanami's calls.

Confronting him one evening at his home, he says that he had planned to marry her one day but can not confidently say he is prepared to take care of her brother and has reconsidered their relationship. This confuses Nanami, who isn't even thinking about something like marriage. But she agrees to distance herself.

And just when things can't get any MORE overwhelming, Mom Hitomi suffers an attack, leaving her lower body paralyzed. She must be confined to a wheelchair, and this development will also take its toll on the little family.

But never fear, our Nanami is a trooper, a concise and thoughtful girl with a great head on her shoulders and all the attitude and SASS one can muster! We are confident she will see these things through and are cheering her on!

REALLY loving this little show- funny because when I has originally seen it listed among the new dramas for the past season I didn’t think much of it- seemed like too much of a serious drama for me...

But the subbing team was diligent in posting up little excerpts from the show as they worked on it on facebook, and it was those clips that piqued my interest and made me want to give it a chance- a chance that I’m SO GLAD I took!

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!