Air Date: October 18 to December 20, 2010 on Fuji TV at 9:00 pm, average rating was 14.1%.
Main Cast:
Yutaka Takenouchi as Kengo Okada, Maria's older brother
Aya Ueto as Risa Makihara
Kii Kitano as Maria Okada, Kengo's much younger sister
Goro Inagaki as Shuichi Makihara, Risa's shady brother
Shota Matsuda as Dr. Ryo Kamiya
Yuka Itaya as Minako Aizawa
Tetta Sugimoto as Junji Kawamoto
Mieko Harada as Kazuko Okada, mother of Kengo and Maria
Haruna Kawaguchi as Mizuki Yasuda, Maria's best friend
Akito Kiriyama as Ryota Sawamura, also has the same illness as Maria
This is a bit of an intense drama, doesn't start out that way but really turns into one after this episode, what this first episode does is mainly introduce us to all the main characters and to set up all the storylines. Kengo is a man in his mid 30's who works at an aquarium which he has been doing for many years, he could be considered quite an expert at oceanography. Kengo still lives at home with his mother and much younger sister, their father has been deceased for some years now. He's also engaged to a really nice woman named Minako, the date for their wedding hasn't been set but it's scheduled to happen somewhat soon.
Maria is Kengo's 17 year old sister who is a senior in high school, when the drama starts off she is in the hospital under the care of Dr. Kamiya. Maria is suffering from a liver illness but she constantly says she feel fine and doesn't know why she needs to remain in the hospital. Kengo and his mother have been keeping a secret from Maria and that's that her liver is much worse than she's been told, she's going to need a transplant very quickly to keep on living, she has no idea about that. Her name is on the list for obtaining a transplant but by the end of the first episode she's still on the list waiting for a liver, she doesn't know it like I've said but she may not have much longer to live. Maria has also met a boy in the hospital around her age named Ryota who is suffering from the same illness, they become somewhat close and actually the two of them end up causing much trouble as they cannot stand being cooped up in the hospital.
The other real main character is Risa who has been working in a sex club called Sei Marin Gakuen. Risa has been working there because she really has a terrible brother named Shuichi, he constantly gets into debt from gambling, drinking, getting loans, etc, he's really the bottom of the heap as far as people go. So Risa for some reason always has to work to pay off his debts, I really don;t know why she does because she does love her brother but she's fed up with his antics and having to save him all the time by paying off his loans. Risa does seem to be an okay person, most around her don;t think of her that way but as the series goes on we can see how nice of a person she is, least for now up until episode 5.
The main reason Maria is on the waiting list for a liver is that there is no relative who can donate one to her, Kengo's liver had a disease when he was younger so he's not eligible nor will any relative be willing to donate one. Also his fiancee Minako does want to donate her liver, her liver is fine but if that happens her and Kengo will probably not be able to have any children, time is running out for Maria, what could possibly save her?
By chance, encounters like this happen often in drama, Kengo and Risa happen to meet outside her club when she was being bullied by some thugs. Kengo came to her rescue, the thugs were after her because once again her brother ran up a huge debt and once again she's being forced to go back to work at the sex club. After Kengo saved her they parted ways but as the conclusion of the episode once again they bump into each other near the sea where Risa has been drinking as she just wants to get drunk and forget all her troubles. Her and Kengo start talking and he discovers that Risa's liver would be a perfect match for Maria, he comes up with a plan that may not be morally correct. Right at the finale he learns of Risa's debts and offers to pay them all off plus give her even more money, quite a bit as a matter of fact if she will marry him and then donate her liver to Maria!
That's where we end off, kind of a much longer recap than I had planned it to be but all the info should help you to follow the other recaps for the drama. We don't know yet whether Risa is going to accept Kengo's offer to get married, accept the money and donate her kidney, it goes back and forth for quite a few episodes. All in all a really fine first episode, these current dramas just can't hold a candle to some of the older dramas like this one, actually it's not that old, just 3 1/2 years. Have a bunch of screenshots from this episode plus check out the next four posts as I'll be looking at episodes 2-5.
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