Review of Koi ni Ochitara Ep 1

Review of Ep 1 (Zutto sagashiteta hito - The person I've been looking for)

Well, I have mixed feelings towards the first episode. To begin with, the highly publicised trip to Hawaii for the shooting wasn't that necessary to me in the first place. I'll explain why later. I was prepared to surrender until I saw Kusanagi sprang into action towards the last 10 minutes to save the day so I'll continue to watch this since it seems really interesting from now on.

Just to give a brief writeup on the first episode and what happened...

Suzuki Shimao (Kusanagi Tsuyoshi) quit the Uni 6 years ago to take over his father's factory after he passed away and operates it with his team of close-knited workers and mother. His younger sister, Mariko (Kimura Yoshino) works as an OL in a company located in downtown Tokyo. One day, Shimao wins a trip to Hawaii from a lucky draw and brings his mother along. He happens to bump into Shirakawa Kaori (Matushita Nao) by the poolside and they fall into the water. Since then, he's been smitten by her and his mother invites Kaori for dinner. The next day, Shimao goes to Kaori's room to return her notebook to her and meets Takayanagi Tooru (Tsutsumi Shinichi) for the first time. Shimao is in awe when seeing Takayanagi's extravagant lifestyle and how he describes his endless ambitions but Shimao doesn't see what Takayanagi will actually achieve when he fulfils all his goals since he thinks that money is not all that is to life. Takayangi tells Shimao straight in the face that he is not cut out for business but he is OK with this remark but offers him help if he needs it. When he returns to Japan, his factory has folded due to fraud by one of his trusted employees. His mother also collapses from the shock and passes away since he cannot pay the operation fees of 50 million yen. Being totally broke, he even has to scrimp on his mother's funeral arrangements. Shimao plans to go to Takayanagi for help but is blocked by his employees like Kamiya Riku (Tanihara Shosuke) and Miyasawa Shu (Suzuki Kosuke) as someone who is out to make trouble. Having no choice, Shimao resorts to being a security guard at the building in order to meet Takayanagi but to no avail. However, Shimao saves Takayanagi's company from trouble when he manages to restore the server in the nick of time. It is then when Takayanagi's ex girlfriend cum senior manager Kirino (Wakui Emi) comes to him with a newspaper article which shows that Shimao is an IT genius who was taking a correspondence degree in the Uni six years ago...

OK, coming to the review proper, I'll start talking about the story before the Hawaii trip first. We first get a feel of the basic setting and some basic relationships whereby Kusanagi plays another goody-two-shoes guy who is really too good to be true. As his friend puts it, Shimao is behaving like an oyaji whereby he replies that he always speaks what he was taught by his father so he might be behaving like an oyaji after all. He doesn't take offence by what other people say and is only too glad to help people when he can. To him, money is not that important as long as there is sufficient to make ends meet. He was even that kind to give his money to his employee to pay the loanshark even though that money was for a trip to Hawaii to celebrate his mother's birthday. To me, that was stupid since there is a limit to how much you should help people. I may be very sceptical but you will know later that being suspicious and not too trusting may be better after all.

To be frank, I was prepared to write Kusanagi off by now since I am really sick of him playing such nice guy roles AGAIN. However, if you actually have the patience to watch till the end, we can see that there is something different after all in Shimao which brings up to the Hawaii trip.

Well, I must say he really got on my nerves in the earlier part of the Hawaii trip since Kusanagi was behaving like a hyperactive kid cum country bumpkin when he was in Hawaii. And to coincide with the title of "falling in love", he did fall into the pool with Matsushita Nao (how lame it seems...) so that's how Shimao's attraction towards Kaori came about. Now, the highlight of the Hawaii trip is not the scenery (although it does look like a heavenly place) but rather his meeting with Takayanagi. A cleverly thought-out scene is where Takayanagi goes on and on about what he hopes to achieve and yet Shimao silences him with a simple question, "what are you going to do after you have achieved all your goals?". Takayanagi mentions that his greatest joy in life is to enjoy a glass of champagne but Shimao counters that by saying that he is ALREADY doing that now regardless of whether he achieves the next set of goals he sets. That is why Takayanagi writes Shimao off by saying that he's not cut out for business since Shimao doesn't seem to be motivated by monetary success. A clash of views which is really interesting in my opinion...

Next part would be what happens after that Hawaii trip. Shimao's life becomes a mess when his factory folds due to trust placed on the wrong person and his mother dies. He is helpless because of his lack of money so this becomes the primary factor as to why he goes to Takayanagi. I don't think he really wanted help from Takayanagi in the first place but what happened to him should have changed Shimao's mindset. Maybe he realized that his old thinking is not helping him to survive in the world of today. As what his mum said when they were in Hawaii, Shimao used to be studying IT when he was in the Uni and had to give it up when his father died. That is why his mum thinks that it is a pity to give up his talent where he could have achieved more in life but Shimao did not think so. However, it would not be an easy task to get close to Takayanagi since he's the CEO and this makes Shimao realize the vast difference between him and Takayanagi.

Now, the finale section where Frontier (Takayanagi's company) gets into some trouble and Shimao saves the day. It sure was cool seeing Shimao typing furiously on the keyboard while putting on a relaxed front as he restores the server and leaves without a word once the job was done. It is rare to see Kusanagi acting in cool roles so this part is a must-see to see a different side of him. Oh, I forgot about something. Kusanagi seems to have put on a bit of weight and looks more healthy than his sunken cheeks look in his past few dramas where he looked undernourished. Now, he's looking slightly better than before... Since Takayanagi has realized that Shimao is an IT whiz, he's going to join Frontier and probably cause some tensions among the staff there with his talent by the next episode.

Initially, I think the news reports mentioned that Shimao is modelled after the famous IT entrepreneur Horie Takafumi but it seems like Takayanagi seems more like Horie with his acqusitions of the soccer team etc. Anyway, I'm not too concerned with that.

The theme song is rather plain, a typical R & B song but it may take a few times for me to remember the melody.

I'm going to put this drama on my must-watch list now (the first for this season) since I like such office-setting dramas and the clash between Kusanagi and Tsutsumi is so interesting. Ai kurushii, if it makes me kurushii (painful), I'll drop it ASAP by the 2nd or 3rd episode. I don't wish to watch a tearjerker at the moment and Nojima Shinji's style just doesn't work on me. I still have Attack No.1, Yume de Aimashou, Kegaretashita and Ruri no Shima to watch...