Burn The House Down: “Mitarai ke, Enjou Suru”

Kyoka Suzuki and Mei Nagano face off in  “Mitarai ke, Enjou Suru”

A soft spoken and mild mannered young woman named Shizuka Yamauchi (Mei Nagano) seeks employment at the home of a rich and succesful woman model and online influencer named Makiko Mitarai (Kyoka Suzuki).

Though she is known as an impeccable woman of good taste and style, Mitarai is in actuality a messy and disorganized person, so she is need of someone who can clean her house, decorate tastefully, and cook meals, all covertly as to keep her image intact.

Yamauchi is excellent at what she does, and the house is put in perfect order. Though still standoffish towards Yamauchi, she is impressed with what she has done with the place, and  Mitarai agrees to hire her officially! 

But what Mitarai doesn’t know is that this Yamauchi has a hidden agenda for getting hired as the housekeeper. 

Yamauchi’s real name is Anzu Murata, and 13 years ago, she lived on this very property with her own family; Father Osamu (Mitsuhiro Oikawa), Mother Satsuki (Michiko Kichise) and little sister Yuzu (Yuri Tsunematsu), until a huge house fire destroyed their home and tore her family apart. Father shortly after divorced Mother, leaving her and the two daughters to struggle for themselves.

At the time of the fire,  little Anzu (young Anzu played by Tamaki Shiratori) spotted Makiko Mitarai among the onlookers… with a VERY satisfied smile on her face, as if all her wishes had suddenly come true! Because of this, she had always suspected Mitarai had something to do with the fire...

...and when Makiko went on to MARRY Anzu’s FATHER to start her OWN family with him (and all his wealth), her suspicions only grew. CLEARLY there is more to this woman than she lets on!

In the meantime, mother Satsuki becomes afflicted with a severe case of traumatic amnesia, where she cannot remember anything of the past and has shut down. Weak and confused, she must be regaled to a bed in a hospital, with her daughters looking over her.

Now as an adult and with 13 years of anonymity between them, Anzu plans to infiltrate the home base of her number one suspect in the ruination of her family: Makiko Mitarai herself.

Along with her little sister Yuzu and the computer skills of her friend (Kie Kitano) the resident "computer expert" of the drama), they hope to find clues and proof of Mitarai’s involvement of the house fire, as well as finding the truth of just WHAT actually happened all those years ago….

Belwo: Anzu trying to get close to Mitarai’s shut-in older son Kiichi (Asuka Kudo)...

….while little sister Yuzu uses her feminine wiles to get close to the younger son Shinji (Taishi Nakagawa). Seemingly friendly and cheerful, their only ture mission is to get as MUCH information out of them that they can- to bring Makiko Mitarai to jsutice!

A dark and brooding psychological revenge drama, yet I cannot help but think that not everything is what it seems at face value- in the coming episodes I fully expect people assumed to be friends turn out to be foes and even the ones painted as the pure evil ones turn out to be on the good side. In any case, I'm excited to see what develops!!!

 “Mitarai ke, Enjou Suru” is yet another NETFLIX exclusive J-drama (along with the Tomoya Nakamura drama "Hayabusa Shobodan") that I'm really loving this current season...looks like they are ramping up to become a great source of intriguing new shows!!!

Posted by zdorama@zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Speak Thy Name: Hirona Yamazaki and Kie Kitano in "Nanji No Na"

 Also caught the first episode of the very black and fractured drama "Nanji No Na" the story of two sisters with a warped symbiotic relationship with dominant older sister Toko Aso (Yamazaki) lording over her meek and reserved younger sister Kisae (Kitano), all under the gaslight-ish guise of sisterly love and care. But Toko's way of ruthlessly crushing those around her is slowly coming back to haunt her and the tables may soon be turned...

Not sure if this show is really going to be my cup of tea, but in a world where dramas are full of cliches and common plots, it's definitely interesting to see a story where I have absolutely no IDEA what's gonna happen NEXT!

Completing My Keiko Checklist with “Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu”"

 

 I was thinking about ranking my Keiko Kitagawa dramas and making a top 10 when I realized there was one early 2008 drama “Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu” that I had still not seen!!

Clicking the link, I saw why I had initially passed on it- it was a “high-school students drama” kind of show and I usually avoided those. But for the sake of completion I knew I had to see it, and luckily was able to grab it with hardsubs on it!

Starring Oda Yuji as a rebellious Teacher, it was soon apparent how old this drama was when I saw the students: Yuriko Yoshitaka, Masaki Okada, Kie Kitano, Yusuke Yamamoto, Mitsuki Tanimura and Gaku Hamada, all SO YOUNG!

It still didn’t hit me how long ago this drama aired, however, til I saw the kid who was playing the leader of the school bullies…a young Tomoya Nakamura!!! Man, I had no idea he was even ACTING at this time!

Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu tells the story of an avante-garde teacher named Sakurai who comes to a high-score obsessed school to help the kids with what they really need schooling on: their own lives and personal problems. 

Sound cliched? Yep!! MAN, this drama reminded me so much of Hammer Session- Not only did all the promos feature the same “class on a beach” motif, they even got Fumiyo Kohinata to be the principal in both! Keiko Kitagawa stars as his Teacher Assistant, but more like a reactive character than a real character, if you know what I mean. Like, she’s only there to react to the things Sakurai does more than play a real role in the show.

Like I mentioned before, I'm not much into the troubled school kids genre, but it's been fun watching all of these now totally established grown-up stars making their first steps into  J-Dramadom! Besides the aforementioned actors and actresses are  also early drama roles for Aya Oomasa, Shiori Kutsuna and AKB48’s Atsuko Maeda as well as Michiko Kichise as one of the Principal’s arm-crossing cohorts…

PS: Oh my GOSH, It’s been SO LONG since I saw “adorable” Keiko in action! 

Saburo had said that until he saw Rikokatsu, he’d NEVER seen her smiling in anything, and that got me thinking about how Keiko had slowly gravitated towards the more “stern’ and ‘cold” kind of characters. But early on in her career, all of her roles were of the sweet, cheerful and bubble-gummy kind, JUST like this one! Look how freaking ADORBS she is here!!!!

 Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu is sandwiched right between two of my favorite Keiko dramas, Mop Girl and Buzzer Beat, and seeing "classic" Keiko reminded me once again of the initial spark that had me SO infatuated with her…and which has continued for over a decade and is still going strong!

PS:Full disclosure, I have not seen the NHK Taiga Drama "Segodon" but as Keiko is only one of hundreds of actors in it, I don't really count this one as a "Keiko" drama anyway. Not like she's the star of the show or anything...