Karei-naru Ichizoku ep 3-8

KimuTaku looking very pissed off. Can't wait to watch Bushi no Ichibun, the third film in Yamada's Yoji samurai series.

Fuck, this show is good. Looks like this season is not a bust after all. Potential to enter my all time top 10? Maybe, depending on how it holds up on a second viewing. But seriously this show very addictive. I'm already feeling the urge to watch ep 9 raw.

Hasegawa Kyoko looking exquisitely beautiful. Her role is limited but IMO, she does a fine job.

Probably the best feature of the show is that the story moves at a fast pace and they've managed to devote adequate time to give us a look at each of the important supporting characters. And what I like is that a lot of the characters are shades of grey. Only Teppei and his band can be considered 'purely good'. It'd be more interesting if there were no 'good guy' on the show. But then, it would take more than 10 eps to tell the story.

The women of house Manpyo.

There's two aspects of the story that I love. First is the story of Teppei's two fathers. Daisuke and Okawa. Teppei find the father that he is searching for in Okawa only for Daisuke to 'sacrifice' Okawa and destroy his career and Teppei's crutch. You can feel Teppei's strong desire for revenge. Yet, they hint that Daisuke did not come to decision easily. And the ironic thing is that what pushed him to make the decision was Teppei informing his Daisuke that Okawa was in hospital. They could have explored this dichotomy in another one or two more shows. Just have Daisuke try to sabotage Teppei more only to have Okawa save him and then have both fathers suspect each other.


Another part I like is that they don't make Daisuke to be a tragic character, although behind his steely facade, he is the most pitiful character of all. The writers hint that his reasons are not selfish but rather that he has the balls to do what must be done.

Suzuki Kyoka, ever the temptress.

Similarly with Aiko. She does not make excuses for her choices in life, even when faced with what could have been. I just hope they don't give these two characters the typical villain ending when they decided they were wrong etc. Nothing in real life is black and white and characters who can see that are more interesting.

Hope Saki Aibu gets more jobs after this. She positively glows everytime she's on screen. Or maybe that's just my infatuation. :)

The second part is of course the twist in ep 7. Its hinted all over the show and yet I didn't even see it coming. Yet it makes sense of the whole mess of the family, though it casts doubt on how good a person Keisuke is. Ep 9 is the big court trial and I'm not sure how they're going to wrap it up nicely in ep 10. Still, I'd rather it be a compact 10 ep series than some stretched out 20+ eps of family feud.