Started watching the Yuriko Yoshitaka drama Shiranakute Ii Koto~ Off The Record which has been impressing me with its good acting, intriguing dialog and very theatrically shot scenes!
A very melancholy drama, Shiranakute Ii Koto tells the story of a go-getter journalist named Kate who works at a Weekly called Weekly East. She is a firecracker of a journalist and is always at the forefront of the latest scandal, but things are soon to take a twist...
Kate lives with her celebrity TV commentator Mom (the absolutely gorgeous Kumiko Akiyoshi) and though she has no father, their life together has always felt complete.
But Kate’s life takes a turn when her Mother has a heart attack and is sent to the hospital. Kate rushes there, and upon arrival, is able to talk to her mother just before she succumbs. But the Mother's last words puzzle her because in her last breath she tells Kate that her father is...KEANU REEVES! WHAAAA???!
Kate doesn't know what to make of THAT, but when digging through her mother's belongings, finds an old picture of her mother and someone who looks suspiciously like Keanu Reeves! Could It Be?!
Intrigued, Kate digs deeper, but instead of confirming or denying Keanu as her Dad, finds a wedding ring with the initials T and A in an old journal of her Mother's. Anna is, of course, her mother, but who could “T” be?
She tracks down the jewelry shoppe that sold the ring, and she finds the person who ordered it is a man named Toru Notoa.
The name sounds familiar, and Kate uses Google to look up the name…and finds he is the convicted felon of a poisoning that took the lives of 2 people and seriously injured many others some 25 years back.
Kate is in shock. She never believed Keanu Reeves was her Dad, but this Toru Notoa feels eerily correct. And the more she researches, the more convinced she is this man's daughter.
Her life is turned upside down at the shocking news and as people begin to see her differently because of who her father may be, Kate makes up her mind to find out the truth about her past, the mysterious Toru Notoa and the shocking murders that he supposedly committed.
In the meantime, we get to see Kate in action at work, and it’s here that this Drama really comes together. Kate is smart, savvy and self-assured, and it is a joy to watch her tackle the cases that come before her with intelligence and moxie (and that traditional manic pixie persona that she's so famous for), Kate is easily the best character I’ve seen Yuriko Yoshitaka play in YEARS!
Additionally, they’ve forgone the usual tropes of the main character having bad bosses and petty managers. Section Chief Iwatani (Kuranosuke Sasaki) and department head Kurokawa (Takaya Yamauchi) both trust and respect Kate’s intuition, and she, in return, respects and follows their commands!
In fact, everyone in the department is excellent at their jobs, and in fact, this show is more of an ensemble cast when it comes down to the scandal of the episode. And when the team is "on the case", we see every person there show his worth in the field and you want to see them all succeed!
This is a really well-crafted show. Like I said, a sometimes quite heavy drama with a bit of mystery and romance mixed in, I'm happy to say that Shiranakute Ii Koto is a very good drama which I'm totally invested in!
Very good news as Yuriko's last drama was such a slog to get thought that i'm still stuck at the beginning of it! But great dramas like this make me think I should go back and finish them, LOL!
PS: Who’s THIS absolute CUTIE playing journalist Koizumi?
(looks her up on asianwiki)
Why, it's Nagisa Sekimizu, who stole her scenes as the plucky co-worker of Mikoto in the Nanao drama 4-punkan no Marigold:
Such a genki girl-I really like her feisty role in Shiranakute Ii Koto and hope to see her character get more screen time!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
