As a huge fan of Satomi Ishihara, I remember being excited to hear of her new role as a Crime Novelist turned French Restaurant owner in the drama “Heaven? Gokuraku Restaurant”, and dove into it with gusto! It was fun to see Satomi in action, however I remember being a bit put off by how selfish and mean-spirited her character of Kanako Kurosu was! Every time you thought she was doing something with love, every time you saw her giving seemingly kind advice, it always turned out that she was doing it for her own greedy agendas! Ah, but as the show went on, you began to see how the employees at her restaurant began to predict how she would act in any given situation, and it became a fun battle of wills to see the noble workers doing their very best to wrangle in their rambunctious owner! Episodes were based around the various adventures the crew had dealing with business and their wacky owner, and truthfully, Heaven might have gone on to become just an “OK” drama for me, but there was an outside factor that helped make this drama more precious and special:
Heaven? was initially picked up by subber “Madmad227”, who noted from the get go that translations were only a side project of his and that it might be sometimes slow in coming, however he assured everyone that no matter how long, he would surely finish the series.
And the subtitles came very slowly indeed, at about the rate of every four months or so, but whenever we would see the happy news that a new episode was posted up, we were SO doggone HAPPY and would all scramble to watch it! I began to enjoy and anticipate each new subtitled release!!
The release rate pace was as follows:
1- 2019.07
2- 2019.08
3- 2019.08
4- 2019.10
5- 2020.02
6- 2020.04
7- 2020.05
8- 2020.08
9- 2021.05
10- 2021.07
You would have thought that it would be frustrating to watch in this way, but Heaven? was such a whimsical, quirky drama that even though you might not see anything for half a year, you EASILY slipped right back into the show comfortably when you resumed!
And in fact, the long wait between episodes seemed to make the time spent with Satomi Ishihara and the gang at her restaurant seem even MORE significant- if I has seen this drama completed back in 2019, I would certainly have quickly blown through it and would probably not remember too much of it. Instead, I’ve spent a good TWO YEARS on it, and in that time it has become a durable endeavor and that time I spent "living" within the restaurant, enjoying the atmosphere, the employees, and Kanako’s zany hijinks became all the more PRECIOUS!
By the time of Heaven’s final episode, though it might not mean much to anyone watching it complete in one sitting, for me who has spent so LONG with it, it was really emotional saying goodbye to dear friends and I must say I even shed a tear or two as it wrapped up!
What a wonderful two-year long journey for a sweet little show! Posted by zdorama @zdoramagain.blogspot.com
PS: Also nice to see Mizuki Yamamoto again as the aforementioned deceased wife to Akagi. Need to see more of her!
