Just finished watching Onnatachi wa Nido Asobu , a movie heralding all the joys and wonderment of burgeoning relationships, as well as the heartbreak and sadness of breaking up, all told thru the stories of one harried Romance Novelist.
Author Yoshio (played by actor Yusuke Santamaria) is a struggling writer who just can’t seem to come up with anything interesting to write about, but fate comes his way when he begins eavesdropping on the various patrons of the restaurant where he’s set up shop. Using their romantic recollections, he spins the most interesting of tales, each story featuring a different beautiful actress as the lead girl.
Story One features Aibu Saki as a girl who’s come to Takashi Kashiwabara’s apartment for a one-night stand, but after being told she can “stay til the rain stops”, stays at his place doing nothing all day except wait for him to come home and eat.
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| Aibu Saki and Kashiwabara Takashi |
Story Two featured a delectable Mizukawa Asami as a girl full of excitement and life and yet somehow being with her causes beleaguered Kengo Kora to get further and further in debt romancing her.
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| Kengo Kora and Mizukawa Asami |
Story Three is a surrealistic story (and don’t ensemble movies like this always feature at least ONE tale like this?) starring gorgeous Koyuki as a mysterious Woman that captures the heart and mind of Koyanagi Yu and turns him into a harmless if obsessive stalker!
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| Koyuki with Koyanagi Yu gawking behind |
Though I initially watched it primarily for the stories with Asami Mizukawa, Koyuki and Aibu Saki, strangely enough, the one that ended up touching me the most was Story Four in the series, featuring actress Yuka and Tsukamoto Takashi in a tale called “The Woman Who Worked On Weekends”.
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| Tsukamoto Takashi and Yuka |
The story of a guy who has a brief relationship with a sweet and earnest girl while he’s on the outs with his girlfriend, this one was the most realistic, melancholy and winsome one of them all. Though nothing extraordinarily “sad” happened in it, I just found myself so heartbroken somehow, and when the story ended with Tsukamoto’s bittersweet reflection of the time he shared with Yuka, I just cried like a kid!
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| Tsukamoto Takashi and Yuka |
The last story inevitably became a tale about the writer himself and his relationship with his pretty (if somewhat dull) wife, (played by Hasegawa Kyoko) and the lengths he takes to try and make what they have “novel-worthy”.
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| SantaMaria Yusuke and Hasegawa Kyoko |
A nice ending to a great movie, (actually a mobile phone series collected into a 5-part mini drama of sorts.) with a melancholy ending song “The Meaning Of Us” performed b Amuro Namie that perfectly captured the mood of the show….
