Dare Yori mo Mama wo Aisu synopsis

 Papa/Kazutoyo Kamon is a stay at home father, 25 years ago he quit his job as a banker to stay home with their new born child Yuki and let his wife Chiyo pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer, which she did. Along the way the way they had 2 more children, Akira who was born 2 years after Yuki and then a birth which surprised the family, their second son Kaoru who was born when the couple were in the young 40's. Quite a bit of the drama is told thru the eyes of the young son Kaoru, though he loves them all deeply he knows they are quite a unique family, with a pair of strange and funny siblings plus he's the only person he knows who has a stay at home dad, most of the neighbors and such look at that situation in a perplexing way.

 The oldest child Yuki(Uchida) is probably the strangest and wackiest of the family, she's 25 yet still lives at home, her one dream is to find a rich, handsome husband so she doesn't have to work and work is one thing she's not good at, going thru job after job and never being successful at any of them, though she finds a lot of suitors they tend to dump her for various reasons. On the other hand Akira(Tamayama) is a bit of a ladies man, he has to turn most of them away and for being quite a smart guy he's working as a hair stylist, but of all the characters to change thru the series his did the most, in a way none of us thought would happen. And the youngest child Kaoru(Nagashima) is in the 6th grade, he do has all sorts of problems, the biggest is his crush on Tomo(Kawashima), the 2 of them have some sad, funny and uplifting moments during their time together until she moves away.

 Papa(Tamura) as we hear thru the voice of Kaoru loves his wife more than any husband in Japan, he's a funny character too though doesn't try to be. He easily beats any wife as far as being an excellent homemaker, plus he has such an open mind which he needs having to deal with all the problems that constantly arise in the family. Mama(Ito) is quite a successful lawyer but doesn't spend that much time with the family due to that fact, is always working late and it seems as though some of the family's problems over the years were because of not having her around enough, especially Yuki's problems.

 There were also a few major characters outside the family, their next door neighbor Kozue(Kobayashi) who had just moved in, for the first half of the series she came off as an irresponsible woman who drank too much, though ended up she may have been the most sane person on the show as she was a doctor who eventually went back to th eprofession and may have saved Mama's life. There was also Pinky-san(Abe) who was a gay cross dresser and somehow comes into contact with the womanizer Akira, their relationship quite funny and sad but he really contributed to Akira growing as a person and helped the famly out with some of their problems too though they always didn't realize it. There was also Tomo(Kobayashi) who was Kaoru's classmate and first crush, they came from different backgrounds and her family looked down on the Kamons but that too worked out in the end.

 Final conclusion of mine is this is one of the finest family dramas that has come out, didn't have high expectations going in but it ended up being perhaps not a must watch but one that is highly recommended. Started out a bit light hearted and fluffy, still stayed that way until the end of the show but also became quite dark and depressing at times as some of the storylines dealt with cancer, gay relationships, attempted rape amd more, they really made it an interesting watch and what sets it apart from most others in the family drama genre, would highly suggest this drama for anyone, think you'll really enjoy it. Check the next 2 posts for a mega amount of Yuki Uchida screenshots from the drama, cast and other info are right here.

Cast:
Masakazu Tamura as Papa Kamon
Ran Ito as Mama Kamon
Yuki Uchida as Yuki Kamon
Tetsuji Tamayama as Akira Kamon
Mitsuki Nagashima as Kaoru Kamon
Satomi Kobayashi as Kozue Tsunami
Sadao Abe as Pinky-san
Hitori Gekidan as Yamashita
Seiko Sakurada as Sato-sensei
Umika Kawashima as Tomo-chan

Year: 2006   # of episodes: 11   Average rating: 10.4%