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

Themis no Kyoshitsu: Legal Seishun Hakusho

Keiko Kitagawa stars in Themis no Kyoshitsu: Legal Seishun Hakusho as Shizuku Hiiragi, a judge who is taken off the bench for reasons unclear, to become a Law Teacher at Seinan University. Seems she has been called back to her old school by a former teacher Morimiya (Mitsuhiro Oikawa) who hopes her earnest and thoughtful outlook can become a benefit for the school, which had become a cold institution focused only on churning out students for the Bar Exam but little for human interaction.

Meeting up with her old Teacher Morimiya

With an optimistic step, Hiiragi gamely takes on the challenge of her new task as teacher, but she is met almost immediately with defiance by her standoffish students who are against her carefree and personable takes on the law lessons, and instead want to be taught ONLY what they need to pass the bar and NOTHING else.

...already that ATTITUDE from the students!

The main students: Terui (Sara Minami), Kiriya (Oshiro Maeda) , Manaka (Fumiya Takahashi)  Mizusawa (Kentaro Maeda) and Amano (Hana Kawamura)...Hiiragi would like them to know that there is much more than what’s on the paper and in the books, but they feel they don’t have time to be dealing with  these "human interest” diversions when there are tests to be passed.

One big reason for the attitude of the students is the teacher Jin Aoi (Yuki Yamada), a cold and robotilike teacher who feels that getting students to pass as the only thing that matters to the students (as well as the university itself), and refuses to clutter his lessons with the parts of the cases that include compassion and understanding, a fact that befuddles Hiiragi to no end (as she sneaks in on one of his lessons)! Aoi is seen as a revolutionary sensei by the students since his methods get results, but at what cost? 

From the beginning Hiiragi and Aoi butt heads, with Shizuku saying that a lawyer who doesn’t have a grasp on human emotions and interactions will not be very good, and Aoi pointing out that if the students can’t pass the tests in the first place, then what good are her lessons?  

Morimiya simply eats up this clashing of morals- it’s JUST the kind of interaction he was hoping for by bringing Hiiragi in, and his ultimate hope is that the two can combine the BEST of each of their principles to become the best Law teachers the school can offer!

But they've GOT to learn to get ALONG first, and it seems like THAT task might be well IMPOSSIBLE! We'll watch as they wear each other down in the coming weeks!

WELL, I think I’ve mentioned before about how much I really dislike school/student dramas, and sure enough, we’ve already got a hot handful of arrogant, and rude kids to make up the class, and I’m sure in the coming episodes we’ll have to deal with each of them and their personal problems. Heck, there’s already the “Student who Has to Work A Night Job” cliche, so you know even more is coming! 

But of course I HAD to check this out if not for ANY other reason than it’s the latest Keiko Kitagawa vehicle, and I must say that in THAT regard, it is very good, full of that dazzling Keitan glory I LOVE so much! I only wish she was more Big-Mouthy and Outspoken than this sweet and easily-pushed-around kind of person. But I guess as time goes on and the students learn to (hopefully) like her we can expect less Pushback from them! 

We’ll see where this one goes…..