(Jdrama Review) 35 Year old Girl

 

Original title: 35sai no Shoujo (35歳の少女)

Screenwriter: Yukawa Kazuhiko

Director: Inomata Ryuichi

Producing Director: Ikeda Narushi

Network: NTV

Broadcast: October 10, 2020 – December 12, 2020

Genre: Mystery, Life, Family, Romance

Episodes: 10

Casts:

Shibasaki Ko – Tokioka Nozomi

Ai Hashimoto – Tokioka Manami

Suzumi Honami – Tokioka Tae

Sakaguchi Kentaro – Hirose Yuto

Tanaka Tetsushi – Imamura Shinji

Tomita Yasuko – Imamura Kana

Ryo Ryusei – Imamura Tatsuya

I’m in the middle of watching this captivating drama in episode 7 that I really want to write down something about the drama. 3 more episodes to go :D

Can you imagine being trapped in 35-year-old body but you are 10-year-old at heart? Nozomi got a sudden accident when she was biking to buy tofu for her family’s sukiyaki. After the accident, she was in coma state for 25 years. When she woke up, she was no longer a 10 year old girl but she turned to be  35 year-old woman. As soon as she woke up, she was shocked to see her mother who looked like a grandmother for her. To her surprise, everything has changed while was ‘sleeping’ for 25 years that she could handle it for some time. The world didn’t turn out as she dreamt about, and moreover, her lovely family got shattered while she was sleeping. To make her surprise even worse, her loving and caring mother has turned into a cold, toxic, strict mother.

What did Nozomi miss for 25 years?

Let me talk about some brief descriptions of the characters here, since I don’t to spoil too much about the movie.

Tokioka Nozomi

Nozomi from time to time

Nozomi woke up from her 25-year-sleep only to find that the world didn’t turn out the way she dreamed about when she was 10 years old. Her inner voice, at first, used her 10-year-old voice, but as the show went on, she started to use her more mature inner voice. 35-year-old Nozomi was as naïve as she was in elementary school. She tried to clear up the mess by the means she used to do—she used her recorder to make up with her mother.  

Gradually, she had to deal with the life around her—her messed up family, her dream to be an announcer must be terminated due to her age, job was not easy to find (even her positive vibe didn’t help at all), her loving mother turned out to someone different, her kawai little sister was cynical towards her, her father had a new life after divorce. Everything seemed too much for Nozomi to handle.

Ko Shibasaki performed Nozomi perfectly. I watched her once in Galileo drama series. Well, yeah, she had bunch of movies and dramas, but one thing I could recall her face was in Galileo. I thought she would never use her voice when she talked in her inner voice. Who would have thought that the first time she used her own voice was when she cried after Yuto kun, her childhood friend, yelled at her. Her cry was really pure, just like a 10-year-old girl cried after being scolded.

I don’t know how long Nozomi finally accepted herself as she was. She had to finish her pending study in elementary, junior and senior high school. Not to mention her mental state. One time, she appeared impatient to grow up, at other times, she seemed to miss some missing moments with her family and her friends, especially Yuto kun.

Tokioka Manami

It’s hard to believe that Nozomi’s kawai little sister would turn out to be that temperamental. She seemed to idolize her sister, and easily being comforted. No wonder, her 25 years-moment was spent only to see her mother cared for her sleeping onee-chan. Her love life was in a mess, too. When her sister woke up from coma, she didn’t show whether she was happy or the opposite. But, she kept telling that all mess in their family was Nozomi’s faults, her mother’s faults and everyone’s faults, but hers.

I’m not sure if all accuses were right since I was still in the middle of watching the drama. Lol. To be honest, since it’s Japanese drama, I’m sure, there must be something behind at the end.

Ai Hashimoto nailed her character as Mana-chan perfectly. Her grumpy face showed how long she kept her feeling, not only to her family but also to men whom she dated with. She got too many hidden feelings even though she blurted out easily. She might miss her mother, her love, her sister, and the way her family used to be.

Hirose Yuto

It’s clear that Yuto kun was no ordinary friend for Nozomi, even when they were kids. Yuto-kun was the one who lent Nozomi a book that kept her move forward and have positive feelings, Momo written by Michael Ende. Unfortunately, the world turned out differently from Momo book. Yuto-kun was also the one who woke up Nozomi from her delusions of a perfect world. Her 25-year sleep kept her from the changing of the harsh world. But, was it really impossible to create the world that Nozomi dreamed about—everyone smiled and happy?

Yuto-kun used to be an elementary teacher as well as a homeroom. However, he quit due to students’ nasty behavior that he couldn’t avoid. From then on, he worked in a service agency that provided service for people who need any service—like dating, relatives in wedding or funeral ceremony, etc. He could be anyone depending on what service people needed. For Nozomi, this kind of work was like running away from reality. What she didn’t know was life was not as easy as falling off a log.

Kentaro Sakaguchi surprisingly looked more mature with moustache and a little beard to show that he was as old as Nozomi (35 years old, he is 31 years old this year), and he acted brilliantly here. His blurt out to make Nozomi realize about the surrounding was like speaking up what people think about the world these days. His love to Nozomi apparently was deeper that I previously thought. I once was worried to have love triangle among Nozomi-Yuto kun-Mana-chan. Thanks to the producer not to include this cheesy topic. Lol.

Tokioka Tae

It was unbelievable to have such power to keep staying at Nozomi’s side for 25 years. She must have great persistence, strength, and belief that her daughter would wake up someday. But 25 years was no joke. No wonder that her family got messed up, not to mention her changing characters, from gentle, soft spoken to firm and cold. Her overprotective state was a bit annoying that you may think that she both had complex traits.

So, whose fault was it for Tokioka’s shattered family? Was it Tae-san, or Nozomi? Tae-san persisted that she never regretted whatever she did—taking care of Nozomi and divorcing her husband. She seemed too full of herself. I wonder what or who could touch her deepest heart?

Suzuki Honami is as pretty as I first knew her for the first time in Tokyo Love Story in 1991 as Rika Akana. Anyone remembered her there? This drama, somehow, showed that her acting aged radiantly. The way she pursued her lips, pouted, somehow, similar to Nozomi and Mana-chan. No wonder that she was selected as their mother.  I just hoped that Tae-san would endure until the last episode. I can’t accept if anything happened to her at the end.

Imamura Shinji

He used to be a happy and proud father for his daughters. That’s before Nozomi’s accident that caused her in coma. Countless fights and negative thoughts revolved around the family until Tae-san divorced him and Mana-chan preferred living by herself. His new life with his wife and son didn’t turn out as good as he thought. His ikikomori or otaku son (or NEET?) made his family even worse. His uncool and indecisive sides worsened the situation. When Nozomi finally woke up, he appeared to run way from his own family.

I’ve seen Tanaka Tetsushi a couple of times in detective or police dramas/ movies. But I also have seen him in some family dramas. But the remained memory of me watching him is in Bloody Monday as Haruma Miura’s father and Bitter Blood, in which his character was about to get trapped in a marriage fraud (if I’m not mistaken :D). His character seemed developed from episode to another. I was waiting for him to blurt out what he had been hiding in his hart, towards his ex-wife, his present wife and his son (from his present wife). I felt kinda relieved when it was time for him to speak up.

A-used-to-be happy Tokioka family

This drama has been in my list as soon as I read the synopsis since I thought it was based on book by Keigo Higashino sensei. I was mistakenly regard this as Kiken na Venus. LOL. But I was happy to watch grow in each episode. The drama has a romance as the genre but it’s not a kind of fluffy cheesy drama that is full of romantic scenes. Words of compassion and forgiveness are quite typical in Japanese dramas, but this one might touch your heart deeply. You can give it a try as my highly recommended drama in this early year of 2021.

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