![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Iki mo Dekinai Natsu is a currently airing Japanese drama that tells the story of nineteen year old Tanizaki Rei, a girl without a family registry. Having no family registry basically means she doesn't exist: she has no health insurance, no way of getting a passport, cannot marry, and cannot get a full-time job. She's a non citizen in her own country.
Rei (Takei Emi)spent her whole life not knowing she wasn't own the family registry, then she was offered a full time position at her part-time job. That's when the drama begins. It turns out Mom/Yoko (Kimura Yoshino) ran away from home and married when she was eighteen. She divorced her first husband after some physical abuse and remarried Mr. Tanizaki. Because she had been divorced less than a year when Rei was born, Yoko would have had to put the baby on her ex-husband's registry; fearing for their safety, Yoko didn't put Rei on the registry. Yoko always planned to fix it (there are legal ways to move Rei to the Tanizaki family registry), but she never did.
Upon the discovery, Rei goes to the local ward office for help and meets forty-one year old Kiyama Ryuichiro, a former newspaper reporter. Ryuichiro has a dark pass and was forced to leave the newspaper business. Now he works nights at the ward office. Rei and Ryuichiro meet and form a bond.
The story goes from there, and while it's stated to be a romance, it's really more of a family/human drama.
( Spoilery thoughts for the first half of the drama )
( More info on the family registry laws )
Iki mo Dekinai Natsu airs on Tuesdays in Japan. Based on ratings and the last few dramas to air in that time slot, it will probably have eleven episodes. Subtitles are available (usually within the next three days) at dramacrazy.net.
If you like family/human dramas or slow-buring romances, I would rec it.
Rich Man, Poor Woman is a currently airing Japanese drama that is a loose remake of the American film Pretty Woman. And when I say loose, I mean loose. Really all the two have in common is that the lead male is a rich, but lonely man and the lead woman is poor, but hard working. He doesn't "buy" her, he just hires her as an intern to help out with the making of a new government system.
The official summary: Oguri Shun plays Hyuga Toru, an affluent man whose personality is on the contrary, speckled with flaws. A CEO of an IT firm who is published on Forbes as a billionaire, Toru attained his fortune through chance and pure luck. A woman who meets Toru and eventually becomes attracted to him is Sawaki Chihiro, played by Ishihara Satomi. Chihiro is a hardworking college student at Tokyo University who has prepared for her future as much as she possibly could through studies and obtaining licenses. Despite her efforts, she has yet to land a job. Upon meeting Toru, she begins to unravel a genuine pureness inside him and solitude resulting from such pureness, which eventually draws her closer to him. The two repeatedly conflict each other, but little by little learn about one another to grow and develop together.
A Cinderella story of the real world. Will the two be able to compromise their values and lifestyles to become a happy couple.
( Spoiler thoughts for the first five episodes )
Overall, I'm really enjoying this drama. It's bright and fun and addictive. It's everything that was great about the old-school Japanese rom-coms of the mid-90s-early 2000s, without feeling like a redo. I'm a little bit in love with it.
Rei (Takei Emi)spent her whole life not knowing she wasn't own the family registry, then she was offered a full time position at her part-time job. That's when the drama begins. It turns out Mom/Yoko (Kimura Yoshino) ran away from home and married when she was eighteen. She divorced her first husband after some physical abuse and remarried Mr. Tanizaki. Because she had been divorced less than a year when Rei was born, Yoko would have had to put the baby on her ex-husband's registry; fearing for their safety, Yoko didn't put Rei on the registry. Yoko always planned to fix it (there are legal ways to move Rei to the Tanizaki family registry), but she never did.
Upon the discovery, Rei goes to the local ward office for help and meets forty-one year old Kiyama Ryuichiro, a former newspaper reporter. Ryuichiro has a dark pass and was forced to leave the newspaper business. Now he works nights at the ward office. Rei and Ryuichiro meet and form a bond.
The story goes from there, and while it's stated to be a romance, it's really more of a family/human drama.
( Spoilery thoughts for the first half of the drama )
( More info on the family registry laws )
Iki mo Dekinai Natsu airs on Tuesdays in Japan. Based on ratings and the last few dramas to air in that time slot, it will probably have eleven episodes. Subtitles are available (usually within the next three days) at dramacrazy.net.
If you like family/human dramas or slow-buring romances, I would rec it.
Rich Man, Poor Woman is a currently airing Japanese drama that is a loose remake of the American film Pretty Woman. And when I say loose, I mean loose. Really all the two have in common is that the lead male is a rich, but lonely man and the lead woman is poor, but hard working. He doesn't "buy" her, he just hires her as an intern to help out with the making of a new government system.
The official summary: Oguri Shun plays Hyuga Toru, an affluent man whose personality is on the contrary, speckled with flaws. A CEO of an IT firm who is published on Forbes as a billionaire, Toru attained his fortune through chance and pure luck. A woman who meets Toru and eventually becomes attracted to him is Sawaki Chihiro, played by Ishihara Satomi. Chihiro is a hardworking college student at Tokyo University who has prepared for her future as much as she possibly could through studies and obtaining licenses. Despite her efforts, she has yet to land a job. Upon meeting Toru, she begins to unravel a genuine pureness inside him and solitude resulting from such pureness, which eventually draws her closer to him. The two repeatedly conflict each other, but little by little learn about one another to grow and develop together.
A Cinderella story of the real world. Will the two be able to compromise their values and lifestyles to become a happy couple.
( Spoiler thoughts for the first five episodes )
Overall, I'm really enjoying this drama. It's bright and fun and addictive. It's everything that was great about the old-school Japanese rom-coms of the mid-90s-early 2000s, without feeling like a redo. I'm a little bit in love with it.
