Nagareboshi 流れ星 (2010)

Nagareboshi (流れ星) is a Japanese drama that aired in 2010.  It starred Takenouchi Yutaka and Ueto Aya, among others.  I finished following the series the other day, and I really liked it.  It’s a romance embedded in a family drama, but unlike others of this kind of story, this one paid more attention to the family aspect of the theme. 

Kengo (Takenouchi) has a younger sister who is in urgent need of a liver transplant donor.  Risa (Ueto) is a girl forced to work in the sex trade in order to pay back debts accumulated by an extremely irresponsible older brother.  Kengo first meets her when she goes to the aquarium where he works to find some solace from her troubles by watching the calming motions of jellyfish drifting their lives away.  Later on, Kengo manages to rescue her from a suicide attempt.  It is then that Kengo proposes a disturbing and quite scandalous contract.  It is a fake marriage where Risa would “marry” Kengo so that she may donate her liver for Kengo’s sister.  Kengo in turn will pay off all of Risa’s debt.  Things get even more complicated when they start developing genuine feelings for each other, as well as when they are confronted with inevitable troubles, mostly coming from Risa’s creepy brother.

I like the way they treated the story.  More than anything else, it was about how much one is willing to sacrifice for the sake of saving the life of a beloved family member.  They used the stark difference between the two older brother characters (Kengo and Risa’s brother), and Risa’s character of the long-suffering younger sister to give this theme the impact and depth it needed.  I also liked the overall pace of the story.  It only had ten episodes, which was two episodes short of a usual drama, but it was more than enough to let the story play out well-paced and quite gracefully.  The actors were very effective – especially Risa’s brother; he was such a genuine creep, I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands every time he shows up on screen.  And of course I have a very special place in my heart for Takenouchi; he is just impossibly handsome and a great actor, too. I think I could listen to his voice all day and not get tired of it. I think (good) Japanese actors and actresses are awesome.  They are rarely overacting (unless they are playing a role that’s supposed to be exaggerated), and they are more often than not believable and compelling.  I recommend this drama to you, and I hope you’ll appreciate it as much as I did.  Enjoy!