Playing another one of her wonderfully addled characters, Mitsuki Takahata instantly endears with her portrayal of the precious Sakura Kitano in the sweet and touching "Douki No Sakura" (Our Dearest Sakura)!
As a child living on the small island of Misaki in Niigata, Sakura’s parents passed away trying to cross the waters during a typhoon to get to the hospital, and she grew up being raised by her Grandfather.
Though she is well cared for and loved, she has led a lonely life, with her being the only child in her classes, and thus her social skills have something to be desired. Her demeanor is clipped and precise and she bluntly tells everyone precisely what she is thinking, leading most to stay away from her.
But despite her standoffish appearance, she has two dreams she hopes to realize: To see a bridge built across the Niigata waters to her island and hopefully experience friendship and camaraderie while living in the big city!
She has joined the Hanamura Construction company in order to realize those goals, but she is off to a rocky start when her first actions are to correct the CEO of the company during the orientation speech! The blunt Sakura doesn’t see what she’s doing as something wrong- she was merely pointing out errors in his speech and constructively trying to make his speech better, buy her co-workers are appalled!
These include Aoi Kojima (Mackenyu Arata),
Yuri Tsukimura (Ai Hashimoto),
Kikuo Shimuzu (Ryo Ryusei),
and Rentaro Doi (Amane Okayama)
...all of whom are apprehensive to say the least when they find they have been put into one team under the odd-duck Kitano’s leadership!
Though Sakura is passionate about her job and has a laser focus on what she wants to do, she is terrible at human relations and is unable to read the atmosphere of her co-workers’ concerns.
She is constantly pushing them into things like meetings after work...
...projects on their days off (where they find that Sakura has an eccentrically old-fashioned sense of style, LOL)
...and redoing designs over and over, all of which leads to a blow up where Tsukimura tells Sakura off for being so single minded about her work and quite frankly tells her that none of them consider her a friend.
This takes Sakura aback, as she has always thought of them as a team who were all on the same page. But with Tsukimura’s harsh critique, Sakura withdraws for the day and for the first time doesn’t leave with a rousing “See you all Tomorrow”.
But an encouraging fax from her grandfather (He doesn’t like to talk on the phone and so he and Sakura communicate by written messages via fax, so cute) tells her that he is proud of her and reminds her that there are things that only she can do!
With that in mind, Sakura goes back to take on the project, and through her perseverance, her four teammates ultimately find that Sakura’s heart is in the right place, and with her guidance and tenacity, they will find that with her they can grow to be the best they can be!
Most of the drama is told in flashback, chronicling the early days of the five employees of the construction company as they work their way up, and it is a very bittersweet tale because in the present day we find that while the four of them have begun their journey towards their dreams, Sakura herself lies unconscious in a hospital bed.
Oh man, this was one very, very melancholy drama to sit through, and as the drama opens with the bedridden Sakura, every flashback scene is seen through sombre eyes, and I was teary eyed for most of the show’s 50 minutes! A very emotional drama, but one that really touched me and hope to continue watching to see exactly how the story of Sakura Kitano plays out!
Also nice to see old school actors like Kippei Shiina and Aibu Saki playing the company's long-suffering supervisors to the team of struggling newbies!
In lots of ways, Sakura Kitano could be the grown up version of Mitsuki Takahata’s sweet and adorable Kahoko Nemoto in the cute Kahogo no Kahoko series, both looking at the world with wide-eyed innocence and shy inexperience as well! (in fact, both the screenwriters and directors worked on Kahogo, so it makes sense!) Takahata mastered the quizzical “blank look” face in Kahogo and she uses it with masterful execution with her Sakura character as well!
Funny how Mitsuki Takahata played such a sexy and savvy girl in “Itsuka Kono Koi wo Omoidashite Kitto Naite Shimau” because once she adopted the role of the sweet and naive Kahoko Nemoto in Kahogo no Kahoko, it seems like she found THE character type of her career!
Those gate doors, those intricate design cuts, the playful hiding behind the frame, they all reminded me of some OTHER photobook...Hmmmm, wonder which one it could be!
Either this is some unabashed homage or maybe there just aren't that many original concepts one can make when shooting nude photos!
