Family: Absence of the Wife, Existence of the Husband

An interesting drama set in a family that stops working (or at least the wife thinks so). It's got eight episodes of 45 minutes each (except for the first one); it went by quickly, it had a nice brisk pace, and I didn't even get bored. Ishida Yuriko, Takenouchi Yutaka, and Watari Tetsuya all acted well, sometimes more and sometimes less. Except that the boy didn’t, not at all. I'm sorry, but this child actor was just really bad, and it spoiled the experience of an otherwise pretty solid story. Plus it also lost points for the scenes where I was like "that didn’t 't have to be here" and "please no, I don't want to see that". They were scenes that just brought an unpleasant disruption to an otherwise pretty cool series (despite the subject matter). But still a nice series, if you're in the mood for a family drama that doesn't have a bloated running time and is a bit naive, I definitely recommend it. (18/01/2014)