Faaaaark, ep 3 is so good. One thing that's been bothering me is how come there's always two doctors in the consulting room with Koharu everytime she goes to the hospital? I guess both doctors will figure heavily into Koharu's life in later episodes. I take back all criticisms I had of the pear thing because we finally find out what happened to Oguri Shun! Stop reading if you haven't watched it.
Oguri Shun is a chikan! I think Snoop said it showed up in a newspaper in ep 2. Mountaineering, nice dad touched up some high school girl (pretty obvious who it is), dropped the pears and may have been pushed. I kind of don't want them to disprove the chikan thing. Ties in with the theme of good people do bad things and bad people do good things.
Like the revelation that Koharu's dad physically abused his mom. He was violent towards his wife but he raised Koharu by himself for 10 years after that. Pretty sure he didn't abuse her unless Koharu repressed it that much. She probably repressed any memory that hinted her mom was abused.
Kobayashi Kaoru aka Shinya Shokudo is awesome as the step-father. Great source of humour, especially with the kids and you always need some humour with an ultra-serious dorama like this but earnest in his performance. Watching him act as the buffer between mother and daughter, I couldn't help but pity and laugh at him at the same time.
Speaking of the mother-daughter confrontation. That was some awesome slow building smorgasboard of hidden emotions and outbursts. This is the type of scene that any actor in Japan should sacrifice money and CM deals to do. I can just imagine the actors getting the script and thinking 'this is awesome and I'm going to be an emotional wreck after this'.
Nikaido Fumi who was in Sono Sion's Himizu is not bad but Mitsushima Hikari's facial reaction to what her step-sister said is what acting awards were created for. I was going to write about Hanzawa Naoki but furransu had just uploaded ep 3 and there was no stopping me. Good doramas make me happy. Didn't understand Shinya Shokudo's joke though. The 90s may be the golden age of trendy doramas but did they ever have emotionally gripping doramas like this?
