Hankei 5 Metoru (2021)

Highly recommended

I thought of giving up after the first episode, which didn't seem well organized or interesting. I'm glad I didn't. It turned out to be one of the best drama series I have recently watched. Kitamura Yukiya is excellent in portraying a man, who wants to live as a woman after having married and fathered a daughter, and does so without annoying mannerisms to caricature his character. The scene of his getting re-acquainted with the daughter after seven (?) years is both touching and funny, calm but powerful. Nagasaku Hiromi is marvelous in playing the character, who always wears a smiling face to mask her wisdom, defiance, and pain. The story of redeeming herself over a hasty report that caused irreparable damages to her subject ten years ago is skillfully and convincingly told (a rare feat for a TV drama series involving a long time gap). The series also ends with another moving story to raise awareness and encourage action on the part of mass media to report truthfully and responsibly. Maiguma Katsuya gives credibility to the character of a boy friend torn between his love of the girl and his rivalry with her for being in the same business. Finally, Yoshine Kyoko has a perfect balance of dramatic and comic qualities to play her role, a young reporter with heart and commitment. Is there really a magazine office that is so relaxing and friendly?

I changed my score for music. There is Bach in the background piano music, though not quite the tempo and version I would like, but it's still Bach!

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Ordinary life problems can be the most interesting stories

I've seen a lot of people question the title of the drama, but how I see it it's pretty simple: The stories they cover are close to everyday life and affect normal people with normal problems. Problems that happen in their 5m radius.

I loved pretty much everything about the drama. The stories they covered were well thought out and had depth. They were about normal people having everyday problems but they were all interesting in their own way. What made it even better was the absence of an antagonist. Usually these dramas about working women have some kind of stereotypical villain character that does everything in their power to hinder the main characters' growth/success. Be it some mysoginistic colleague, a power harassing boss or even the overambitious female colleague who spreads bad rumors behind someone else's back. Another thing that made me real happy was the absence of my most hated topic you see in every workplace drama about women, the marriage hunt. There are no goukons, no potential omiai partners, no pressure from friends and family to "settle down, find a good man and marry him" and no female colleague who dates another guy every second day and boasts how popular and cute she is. Over 35% (and rising) of working Japanese women don't care if they ever marry and want to be independent, so all the drama writers who write "working female centered plots" should go with the times instead of trying to project a certain image of women in the workplace.

The characters felt like normal people, both the ones working at the publisher and the people covered by the stories. A lot of Dramas have the bad habit to overdramatize characters' backstories or their problems, but this drama did a real good job showing that you don't need a tearjerker history to create an interesting character. It's probably redundant to add seeing how much I liked the drama and characters, but all the actresses and actors did a real good job in making me believe that's how they are even off camera and not that they're acting as someone who's like this.

The only subtraction why I didn't give a 10: I think the Yamabe character was boring most of the time and annoying the rest of it. To me he felt super bland and indifferent to everything. Especially his relationship with Fumika seemed like the question she asked him in Ep1, "are you just coming to my apartment because it's near the company?". Which made it worse was the end. Why did he break up with her? Because she was better at their job? Because he couldn't cope with the fact that it's his girlfriend who showed him how shallow his coverage is? Or was it that his job was just more important than her? It made him seem petty in addition to indifferent. Maybe I'm reading it wrong or too much into it, but if one of those reasons was why he left, then it's no wonder the majority of women in Japan still don't want a career (besides the fact they don't even get a chance to have one in most companies). It's probably still a real problem that a lot of (most) men can't cope with it when the women are better at their jobs, make more money or simply have more fun working. But, like I said, that's just my opinion and how I perceived his character.

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