Tokyo Tower

To those of you who have not watched Japanese, Korean or Chinese dramas dramawiki is definitely a good start. I guess many of you would have been confused by the post title, no this post isn't about the time I went to Tokyo Tower it is a post on the TV Show!
This is my 4th Hayami Mokomichi drama (if you don't know why I like him read my other blog which I'll be deleting probably in February), I'm amazed by how diverse his acting can be. He has played so many different types of characters that I can't wait to see what his portrayal in another series.
This series really made me think because I felt there were areas where I was very similar to Ma-kun; I kept on wondering whether I would be like him when I'm older?!?! At the start I loved the child that portrayed young Ma-kun; he was so cute and loveable but I didn't like the teenage Ma-kun maybe because I saw things that seemed very similar to me! I loved Eiko (Ma Kun's mother) she was sweet and delightful but I could imagine how annoying it would be to have such a mother in your teenage years! lol.
I really would have liked to see more of Ma-kun's younger to uni years because I'm currently at that stage but I don't know if I would have been able to stand the irritating teenage Ma-kun who was wasting his life away. I did feel that the story moved slightly too quickly - in my opinion besides the story between Ma-Kun and his mother the other subplots really did pale in comparison. I guess it was based on a true story so anything too fictional wouldn't work!
Towards the end I was so sad how Okan (Ma-Kun's mother) was contiuously bugged by cancer because I would have loved to see more sweet mother and son scenes. I would also have liked to see more of Ma-kun's work but sadly as I have said already all subplots were generally weak.

Ok now onto the characters
Ma-kun (Hayami Mokomichi): It was great to see how his character matured because it allows us to relate to him as nobody is perfect. I loved the young Ma-kun also, played by young actor Hirota Ryuhei. I would have loved to see more of his university life, his actual career and his love life to be honest. However Mokomichi gave another stellar performance and he is truly becoming my idol!

Nakagawa Eiko (Baisho Mitsuko): I felt the story was more about Okan actually because though we saw more of Ma-kun a lot was centered around Ma-kun's mother or family. I liked her since the start and towards the end where she died; she gave the show another dimension in my opinion, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Mitsuko as she's one of my favourite veteran actresses across Asia after watching Tokyo Tower.

Nakagawa Choji (Izumiya Shigeru): I liked how he slowly showed more emotions and the scene where he came back drunk was so amusing!

Sasaki Manami (Kashii Yu): I didn't really connect with her acting or character to be honest; it was Ok but as I said the substory was not strong so in general I didn't really like many characters besides the family.

Aunt: I liked her scenes with Okan most of the time.
Grandma: Yet again I thought all the family were likeable in general.
Baka-bon: He was a good character to divert the attention away from the family, he was definitely one of the supporting cast that got the most developed storyline.
The three Musketeers (as I call them): I didn't like them at the start as they kind of encouraged Ma-kun to be a lazy ass brat but then they were never really a vital part of the story but a group to lift the mood in a way.
There were also a lot of other characters in the story which I felt helped to relax the mood but there were also a lot of unnecessary characters which didn't really develop in any way.

Overall it was a very strong and emotional story about a mother and her son with some strong supporting casts, if they were the only part of the story this drama would have got a very high score but there were a few characters that the directors tried to develop but they just never really formed and were just left hanging in between. The story could have easily developed further if they were just a smaller character rather than verging on to a main one. Overall probably 8 out of 10.