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!

Gals Galore in "Konkatsu Tantei"

A show from 2022 which I put on my "Plan To Watch" listing on MDL, however, it never got subbed, at least not that I saw. Only very recently did I visit a forum that showed Konkatsu Tantei HAD been picked up and fully subbed at some point, and I wasted no time grabbing it!

A fun, lighthearted comedy, Konkatsu Tantei tells the story of a self-professed "hard boiled" detective named Kurosagi  (Osamu Mukai) who goes through his life playing a hard-edged badass, especially in front of his impressionable kohai Yagami (Maeda Oshiro)

However, at night, eating his convenience store bentos alone, Kurosagi feels the void of not having a significant other to share things with. And when a bright billboard advertising a MARRIAGE MATCHING consulting company shines from across the way, he takes it as a sign that it's time to act!

Kurosagi is nervous about being in such a place and many times thinks of leaving. but before he can, he is met by the positive and energetic Madoka Kido (Riko Narumi), a gung-ho matchmaker who truly believes she can help anyone find their fateful marriage partner, and ASSURES him there is someone for HIM as well!!

 And so, despite his reservations, Kurosagi dives in headfirst, into the ups and downs of potential marriage matching with the guidance of his intrepid counselor Kido so he can meet the "one" and settle down!

A fairly basic plot but so much FUN and WOW, the guest stars appearing as Kurosagi's possible partners are ALL stunning beauties in their own right! Actresses like Akane Hotta (here as a shy and mousey type)-

Aimi Satsukawa, genki as ever

Maho Nonami 

Yui Ichikawa

...and even the bubbly Miwako Kakei among others, all of them seeking the man of their dreams!

Each of Kurosagi's attempts gets varied results and he usually ends up striking out for ONE reason or another, but Kido is always there to encourage and support him! In FACT, we soon quickly realize that SHE might be better than ANY of the actual clients she's matching him with!

Kurosagi's personal life outside of the marriage matchmaking game is filled with beauties as well, with women like his former partner's surly daughter Shinna (played by the pretty Natsumi Okamoto) who drops in to bug him.

...or even the bartender Kurano who works at the bar Kurosagi frequents (and who seems to have a fixation on him as well), played by Manami Hashimoto:

Seems like this guy is just SURROUNDED by babes of ALL walks of life! If ONLY he could get lucky and actually end up MARRYING one of them!

Aw, this was one heckuva entertaining little drama and I'm glad I was finally able to see it!

More Signs of How Time Flies….

 Somehow it just doesn’t seem that long ago that I watched the Masahiro Matsuoka/Aiko Sato drama “Love and Peace”, but when I happened to come across a promotional picture of the show online, I was taken aback to realize that the eldest daughter was played by Maho Nonami, and the middle son by Ikuta Toma, BOTH having successful careers as grown-up parents of their OWN nowadays!

Maho Nonami in "Oi Handsome!"

Ikuta Toma in "Kakenai?"

Funny, I see them so often that it’s sometimes unbelievable that I’ve been seeing them since they were literally kids!