Mother ep 1

Mother starts with a rescue scene with people frantically searching for a little girl that had fallen off a pier. They had found her scarf in the water and was asking her stunned mother whether it was her daughters scarf, which she answered in the affirmative. Flashback six months before the incident, we are introduced to Suzuhara Nao (Matsuyuki Natsuko), birdwatcher enthusiast who is stuck with a temp teaching job.


Aside from bird watching, Nao has no interest in anything else. She goes about her job teaching primary school kids in a nonchalant manner. She ignores phone calls from her mother and lives in a sparsely decorated unit. Nao is intrigued by a student of hers, Michiki who has a very mature view of things when the class is instructed to write a letter to the dead class duck who of course can't read. Nao doesn't bother to answer Michiki's question.


Michiko seems to take in interest in Nao but she is indifferent. However, she notices that Michiko has scraps and bruises on her. Nao is hesitant to pursue the matter further but another teacher takes interest and drags Nao to make a complaint to a Child Counselling Center. The counselling center can't even be fucked to make a visit or just open a file because they lack 'conclusive evidence'. If this type of places won't even place weight on teacher's complaints, who is going to fight for the abused children?


Michiko's situation gets worse but Nao just found a bird watching job and is eager to quit her teaching job. Of course, you can pretty much guess what happens next and we get a really nice plot twist that should have ended the show. Instead, we get a sort of epilogue followed by a big reveal at the end that answers some big questions. I'm complaining about the big reveal because doramas should spend no more than 1 big bullet per episode, unless its the last one.


The writer could have stretched the 'mystery' a bit longer and reveal it at the end of the second episode. Of course, there is the possibility that every episode will have a nice twist/reveal but in my experience, this screams of putting one's eggs in the first episode just for ratings. If anything, I'd rather a dorama start out slow and end strong (Shikaotoko) then have an impressive 1st episode and fizzle at the end because it didn't pace itself well. In other words, the first episode is too awesome that I'm skeptical they can maintain this standard throughout.


Matsuyuki Yasuko's acting is awesome as always. Michiko is your typical cute little girl who thinks and talks like an adult whose sole purpose is to make the audience to aawwwwwwww and kawaii~~~~~~. There are same moments which are overly melodramatic which is expected but hopefully it will be kept to a minimum. The outdoor scenes in particular look awesome. The first episode is definitely must watch stuff. Where the story will go from here is intriguing. Looks like this season is off to a flying start.