Title: Private Banker / プライベートバンカー
Rating: 6 / 10
Recommended for:
Those who are interested in a finance & investment-themed drama with mind-boggling concepts packaged in easy-to-understand formats, want to see a family fight over their fortune and inheritance and/or are fans of Karasawa Toshiaki and Suzuki Honami
* Potential spoilers ahead!
Liked:
- I liked how the drama managed to break down very difficult and complicated financial and investment concepts into very easy-to-digest and perfectly understandable titbits while not sacrificing the entertainment factor. While I already knew most of the topics mentioned in this drama, it was refreshing to see them explain things in this manner so you will still pick up some knowledge and new understanding of the things you may already know very well.
- Karasawa Toshiaki's acting as Anno was very interesting on various levels because he could be dorky, charming, serious yet somewhat sinister and switch between these facades at ease. His chemistry with Suzuki Honami who was like his mentee and assistant throughout this drama was intriguing and fun to observe from the sidelines. Her character also served as a representative for viewers and asked seemingly silly but very useful questions to make the financial explanation parts flow more naturally. I also thought that the parents of the Tenguuji family played by Hashizume Isao and Natsuki Mari were especially brilliant and definitely carried the family feud part of the story very well.
Disliked:
- Due to the fact that the family feud part of the story took up a significant share of the airtime, it was essential that this had to be exciting enough to hold the viewers' attention. Unfortunately though, it was not meant to be and the way things were going, it was easy to see where it was heading towards i.e. nobody in the family would win the fight. The sole saving grace was seeing Suzuki's character Iida Kumiko i.e. the unexpected outsider taking on the role of being the new president of the company which I thought was a nice ending note to a somewhat meh part of this drama. It would have been disastrous if Anno ended up taking this post for himself because that defeated his purpose and mission as a private banker.
- While Hashizume and Natsuki were great in their roles, their children and the actors playing them were comparatively weaker both in terms of onscreen presence and within the story. It would have been better if the kids gave the parents a run for their money instead of being overpowered completely since this would have provided better dramatic effect to last the entire season. A tug-of-war featuring equally matched-sides is better than an one-sided affair where the winner is clear from the start. Nonetheless, I liked Tamaki Hiroshi's guest appearance as the meek son-in-law who stood up for himself in the end but it was too bad he only starred in one episode.
- Given that Anno is a key figure in this story, I was disappointed to see that there was very little about his background and his motivation for being a private banker. At the end of the story, there was a hint suggesting that he works for someone even more influential and has darker motives when compared to the Tenguuji patriarch. It looks like TV Asahi is leaving the possibility of a sequel or SP open for now depending on the response to the drama series but the incompleteness of Anno's narrative left much to be desired, at least for me personally.
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