Aikurushii

This is an era where we hear about diminishing family ties and news about killing of parents and children as if these are to be accepted by society. The family bond seems to be from the past era and is currently disappearing.

In order to rekindle the family bond, no matter how embarrassing it is to talk about family ties at this moment, everyone does have love for their family at the bottom of their hearts.

Aikurushii - a story about a family who lives in the suburbs where there are not many material comforts.

Aikurushii - however, this is a family which does exist but forgotten by us.

A 7-member family passing time - growing up Laughing with friends until the sun sets - friendship

Can you think more about your family and consider how to rekindle the bond with the people around you?

Source: Dorama World

Review @ JFan

Life can be Hard for a Large Family Living in Rural Japan

To put it simply, this is a drama about family. It's about a large family who lives in the countryside and is going through some very trying times. To begin with, they are not a very wealthy family; and the father (Takenaka) works as a taxi driver. The mother is in the hospital and is beginning to look as if she has a life-threatening illness. The eldest son (Ichihara) works at a gas station to help make ends meet. The older daughter (Ayase Haruka - Yes, she isn't dead.) is a high school student trying to get into college, while doing most of the housework for the family. The grandfather is the only one who has kind of a cool job, working at an observatory. There is also a very young daughter, but our main eyes through this drama is the younger son, Horo, who is a typical 5th grade student whose dream is to one day save the world. That's quite an ambitious dream, but you can bet that his role in this drama will be to save his family at least.

Horo serves as the narrator for this drama, and it does show his life at school a little bit, but doesn't focus on it too much, so this isn't really a school drama. At least in the first episode, the lives of Horo, Gou, Michiru, and their father seem to be shown for an almost equal amount of time. Most of the advertisements for this drama featured Ichihara and Ayase a lot, since they are the popular young faces of the show, and people have been waiting to see Ayase again since her first and role in Sekai no Chuushin de, Ai wo Sakebu. They certainly will be two of the bigger characters, but will probably have to give a lot of screen time to Takenaka and Kamiki Ryuunosuke too.

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The whole family

In case you hadn't noticed the huge cast/character list up there, this drama has a lot of characters worth mentioning - many of them played by pretty well-known actors. There are quite a few other characters outside the Mashiba family as well. The couple played by Takahashi Katsumi and Takahashi Hitomi are close friends of the family, and their son is a friend of Horo's. There is a small local drinking establishment that Takenaka and Takahashi Katsumi's characters frequent that is run by a single woman whose spoiled son is an outcast from Horo's school. Also, I'm not really sure how they will fit into the drama yet, but there is also a single man named Nakagawa who works at a lumber yard who has an adopted daughter who hates him and is always truant from school. She seems to have taken a liking to Gou. Finally, there is a young guy who works at the hospital where the mother is staying played by Oguri Shun, who makes advances toward Michiru. There's also another guy at the hospital who is played by Tanaka Koutarou who you can assume will play some part since he is played by a well-known actor.

Yes, this drama has a ton of characters, and you probably don't care who they all are at this point. I just wanted to cover all the bases, since I'm sure they will all be prove to be important as the drama progresses. They just didn't have enough time to show us everything in one episode (even if it was an extra long first episode). Sure, maybe this is one of those dramas which I could have wrote a better summary of had I seen more than the first episode, but this is the first drama to air this season and I wanted to be sure to cover it before the others begin.

You may not be exactly clear on what this drama is about yet, but it is going to be a drama about a family and their struggles; and there are some good actors and characters which have been set up, so entertainment value shall be present. Set this all to the melody of Michael Jackson's "Ben" (interesting choice of theme music, though not performed by the actual artist anywhere in the show) and you've got a drama.

The one thing that impressed me most about this drama was its very realistic portrayal of Japanese country life, and that of the families who live there. It doesn't glorify or idealize the Japanese countryside as so many other dramas do. The scenery in this one is not necessarily picturesque, and does show just how dirty and rundown rural areas of Japan can actually be. It also shows the shortage of good jobs and how difficult it can be to make ends meet there. I also like the overall shabbiness of the family's house. Though it could still be worse - lots of families in rural Japan live in small houses which are little more than large tool sheds. Readers in less fortunate countries are probably reading this and saying, "Oh boo-hoo. They have it so hard there in Japan, one of the wealthiest countries in the world." But it is important to remember that even in Japan, not everyone necessarily lives as well as the stereotype. At least the often poor and tight living conditions of Japan are pretty well-known. It's important to see things like this drama sometimes and to remember that not all Japanese have life handed to them on a silver platter - as the characters in these dramas all-too-often do.

Anyway, I think this drama is going to be pretty decent, and there are plenty of good reasons to watch it - besides just wanting to see Ayase Haruka again. Check it out.

Source: JFan

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Aikurushii

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Cast

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Review @ JFan

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