Review-Hikon Kazoku

Yosuke works for a snack food company, married with a young son. He is content with his routine life, but one day his wife Hikaru decides to leave the family to become a Tango dancer. Yosuke eventually loses his job and gets forced to leave his company-provided housing. By that time, he has met his ex-wife Chikako, who is single and successful, but is struggling with an affair with a married man. Chikako offered Yosuke to live with her temporarily, and so Chikako, Yosuke and his son Shota started a quasi-family life together.

Yosuke tries hard to convince Hikaru to come back, but her decision to move away from the traditional wife role is hard to change. On the other hand, Chikako feels closer to Yosuke as he puts an effort to change himself, and develops motherly love to Shota. Yosuke finally decides to divorce Hikaru and gets a new job, but just about they all seem to settle into the right place, a young aggressive man comes into a picture and things starts to take a strange turn.

Fans express mixed reviews about this drama, but personally, I really like because it hits the reality in various ways. It was also supported by middle-aged men at the time of showing, when lots of them were actually losing jobs in Japan. The lines are sharp and realistic, and the supporting characters, with varieties of values and viewpoints, are so vividly played. I especially liked Nezu, Chikako’s lover, played by a Japanese rock legend Ryudo Uzaki. The complex relationships of various characters are well constructed. The story portrays the harsh reality of changing Japan, punctuated by love, loneliness, passion and sadness.

Hiro expresses the changing attitude of Yosuke with his face expressions, often with humor, and is full of good taste of a matured man. And don’t miss the glimpse of Yosuke’s sexy “fantasy tango”, as well as the title back in which he walks through a foreign town as a reflection of his past life. It is remarkable to see that he is gorgeous even when he takes out garbage in an apron or washes a car.