![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiWhen you read the synopsis, you wonder how this could possibly be interesting. Sangenya Manchi is one of the top/legendary salespeople-real-estate-agent in her company. This is the story about how she sells houses..............
Not only that, Kitagawa Keiko pulls one of her most expressionless blank-faced acts, not that this is her fault because Sangenya is supposed to have 3 expressions - normal expressionless face, faint slight-relaxing-of-jaw "ochita" (got them) smile, and her ヽ(#`Д´)ﾉ GO!
In fact, most of the central characters are caricatures - from the icily efficient Sangenya, to the puppy-like Iwano, the try hard Mr-Nice-Boss Yashiro, the company "prince" Adachi, the waste-of-oxygen Shirasu, the cute-happy-to-be-adultress secretary, the sexy bartender....
Fortunately, it takes these caricatures and runs with it, doing what Japan does best, which is live-actioning what is essentially a moving comic book.
You keep watching because of the comic interactions, and then a few episode in you realise, actually, it's a pretty damn good drama.
As opposed to the tropey central cast, the guest stars are much more well-defined and multi-layered. The script is written by a woman, and after a while it shows - the amazing thing is that this show, not only in its central cast, but also in the numerous guests each episode, has an abundance of strong-willed, independent women that Japan often tries to pretend does not exist.
And through these women (and men), the series is actually a shrewd and often painfully realistic dissection about what family is supposed to mean. Rather than taking the moral high ground or the idealistic sundrenched tone of many a Japanese series, it accepts that reality isn't perfect and sometimes it's not possible to fix what has long been broken.
Sangenya's approach is incisive but also warmly empathetic, and she addresses what the customers need rather than what they want, and in that way reflect upon what "home" (ie) is supposed to be. For example, in the first episode, she convinces a gynaecologist couple to buy a unit much smaller than what they wanted or what their means could afford. Her reasoning, as she points out, is that their young son doesn't need a big empty house where his family is never home, but rather, a place close to where the parents work and a small living area where - in the rare moments that the family is home together - they can bond tightly, at least until the child is old enough to get past his loneliness.
In the second episode she addresses the Japanese "hikikomori" phenomenon, and in a twist on the usual J-dora way of encouraging these people to step out of their shells, she reasons that it's unreasonable and unrealistic to expect a man who's been cut off from society for 20 years to relearn the skills to live in society again, so she creates a home where he could self-sustain his wealth while living in as much isolation as he can.
Then there's the pair of lovers who adore each other emotionally but can't stand each others' living habits, the divorcee who keeps trying to get back with a guy she doesn't love but really just needs a home where she can be with her girl friends, the father and son who really want to live together but are too scared to bring it up with their hawkish wives who can't stand each other, the divorcing couple who actually become closer after given some distance....
It's a nice reflection of how society has evolved, and how the idea of home doesn't have to be the nuclear family. It can be for one person, it can be for a group of like-minded individuals who want to grow old together, or even the idea that a family can have two homes and be better off for it.
It's also a gentle illustration of how Japanese women are also evolving - that they can be measurably better than their male counterparts at their jobs (Sangenya and a number of other female guests), that they can now be single, that they can now be divorced, that they can now be the breadwinner while their husband looks after the domestics. Japan is without a doubt catching up with gender equality, but even these days the dramas that come out of Japan can be so...implicitly sexist in what they expected of the two genders. Female main characters are rarely high-ranking, high-achieving or highly skilled in their field, and if they are (e.g. in Doctor X) there's always friction with hoards of ageing men that try to maintain their iron grip on authority.
It is a fun series and the strategies about selling the right house for the right person are interesting, but the pleasure is the underlying commentary on society and the quiet revolution it leads for the overturning of Japanese gender stereotypes.
Not only that, Kitagawa Keiko pulls one of her most expressionless blank-faced acts, not that this is her fault because Sangenya is supposed to have 3 expressions - normal expressionless face, faint slight-relaxing-of-jaw "ochita" (got them) smile, and her ヽ(#`Д´)ﾉ GO!
In fact, most of the central characters are caricatures - from the icily efficient Sangenya, to the puppy-like Iwano, the try hard Mr-Nice-Boss Yashiro, the company "prince" Adachi, the waste-of-oxygen Shirasu, the cute-happy-to-be-adultress secretary, the sexy bartender....
Fortunately, it takes these caricatures and runs with it, doing what Japan does best, which is live-actioning what is essentially a moving comic book.
You keep watching because of the comic interactions, and then a few episode in you realise, actually, it's a pretty damn good drama.
As opposed to the tropey central cast, the guest stars are much more well-defined and multi-layered. The script is written by a woman, and after a while it shows - the amazing thing is that this show, not only in its central cast, but also in the numerous guests each episode, has an abundance of strong-willed, independent women that Japan often tries to pretend does not exist.
And through these women (and men), the series is actually a shrewd and often painfully realistic dissection about what family is supposed to mean. Rather than taking the moral high ground or the idealistic sundrenched tone of many a Japanese series, it accepts that reality isn't perfect and sometimes it's not possible to fix what has long been broken.
Sangenya's approach is incisive but also warmly empathetic, and she addresses what the customers need rather than what they want, and in that way reflect upon what "home" (ie) is supposed to be. For example, in the first episode, she convinces a gynaecologist couple to buy a unit much smaller than what they wanted or what their means could afford. Her reasoning, as she points out, is that their young son doesn't need a big empty house where his family is never home, but rather, a place close to where the parents work and a small living area where - in the rare moments that the family is home together - they can bond tightly, at least until the child is old enough to get past his loneliness.
In the second episode she addresses the Japanese "hikikomori" phenomenon, and in a twist on the usual J-dora way of encouraging these people to step out of their shells, she reasons that it's unreasonable and unrealistic to expect a man who's been cut off from society for 20 years to relearn the skills to live in society again, so she creates a home where he could self-sustain his wealth while living in as much isolation as he can.
Then there's the pair of lovers who adore each other emotionally but can't stand each others' living habits, the divorcee who keeps trying to get back with a guy she doesn't love but really just needs a home where she can be with her girl friends, the father and son who really want to live together but are too scared to bring it up with their hawkish wives who can't stand each other, the divorcing couple who actually become closer after given some distance....
It's a nice reflection of how society has evolved, and how the idea of home doesn't have to be the nuclear family. It can be for one person, it can be for a group of like-minded individuals who want to grow old together, or even the idea that a family can have two homes and be better off for it.
It's also a gentle illustration of how Japanese women are also evolving - that they can be measurably better than their male counterparts at their jobs (Sangenya and a number of other female guests), that they can now be single, that they can now be divorced, that they can now be the breadwinner while their husband looks after the domestics. Japan is without a doubt catching up with gender equality, but even these days the dramas that come out of Japan can be so...implicitly sexist in what they expected of the two genders. Female main characters are rarely high-ranking, high-achieving or highly skilled in their field, and if they are (e.g. in Doctor X) there's always friction with hoards of ageing men that try to maintain their iron grip on authority.
It is a fun series and the strategies about selling the right house for the right person are interesting, but the pleasure is the underlying commentary on society and the quiet revolution it leads for the overturning of Japanese gender stereotypes.
