Would like to make this brief but not sure if it's possible, not a complicated drama with many plot twists but there is quite a bit that goes on in our main character's life which may or may not take a bit to explain. I had never heard of the term IS before this show, for those who also don't know what it is here's an explanation of what it is and supposedly affects one out of every 4,500 people: “IS” stands for “intersexual,” a term referring to people who cannot clearly be classified as male or female, and who may biologically possess characteristics of both sexes.
And that's why our main character Haru(Saki) and another IS person she meets at high school, Miwako(Ayame) have such inner turmoil and it's easy to see why, should they have an operation to amke them either male or female or continue living the way they do, it hasn't been too much of a problem for Haru but it has been for Miwako and her parents up to the point when this series starts.
Our story starts off with Haru entering high school, her/his(I'll refer to Haru as a female from now on) dream is to become a pastry chef and open her own bakery. Problem is she's been leading her life as a boy up until this point but to enter the bakery program at school she needs to be a female so she chooses to act and dress as one so she can fulfill her dream, though to be honest Haru certainly looks like a cute female, not too much like a male. The main school staff knows of her condition and as long as she keeps what she is to herself they have no problem with her being a female. At school she meets another student Miwako, where eventually it comes out that she is also an IS person however as Haru and her parents have dealt and lived with her condition rather well for Miwako and her family it's the complete opposite, she is confused about what to do and is getting immense pressure from the mother to have an operation to make her 100% female.
For the most part things remain going well for Haru in school until she meets a male classmate called Ibuki, they go out together but more as friends, both share many common interests such as soccer but of course what happens is they both start having feelings for each other, Haru knows this is wrong but Ibuki for the longest time didn't know she was an IS person. Miwako though has had problems throughout this time, she has a mother who really cares for her but not in the right way, she really pressures Miwako to change completely to a female and doing things like locking her in her room and other various underhanded schemes to do it but all to no avail, her mother views her too much as a trophy and everything about her has to be perfect, what a problem she has dealing with her daughter being an IS person. Haru's family is the complete opposite, they really just look at her as a normal child and whatever she wants to do, have the operation to become male or female or remain living as she does, they leave it up 100% to Haru to make her own decisions and support her in whatever choices she makes.
Knew this was going to end up long, could probably go on for another couple thousand words but will try to wrap it up somewhat quickly. As mentioned all was somewhat fine with Haru but she hated keeping the secret of all at school about her being an IS person, she comes to the decision to tell everyone at school about her and her parents backed her 100% though they weren;t sure if it was the right thing to do. Episode 8 is when this happens, Haru lockes herself in the school announcement room and and broadcasts her story thoughout the school, shocking most everyone, as a matter of fact almost the entire school had never heard of the term IS. Haru after 'coming out' had some difficulties, most of the friends she had made now tended to ignore her and above all Ibuki didn;t know what to think, he had started to fall in love with someone who was also a male? But none of this got Haru down too much, she tried various methods to educate the others on her condition and to show eveyine though she was different she still was the same person as before. Naturally being a drama most everyone comes to their senses about Haru, her friends come back to her, perhaps even closer with her now incuding Ibuki, who realizes that although they can;t be a couple her just really likes her as a person and once again they become friends. Also at the end of the show all of the adults, Miwako's parents and Ibuki's father who had problems dealing with the IS situation in these two females also come around and once again everyone is happy and that's how it ends!
Of course there's a lot more to this drama than mentioned here, didn't go into real depth about Miwako and her parents nor Haru's friend since childhood Reon but you should be able to get the main gist of the story by this. Had put off watching this for a while, thought the subject matter would be a bit depressingor uncomfortable but it wasn't the case at all, this really turned out to be a fine show and one that I would recommend. Saki and Ayame are both fine actresses and both do a top nitch performance here, especially Saki and also kudos to the entire cast, really a fine effort with everyone involved in this drama. Hopefully if you've been waering about whether to view this it's helped you to decide to watch it, liked it so much more than I had anticiapted, final rating of this drama is a solid 8/10. Check the next few posts for many screenshots of Saki and Ayame from the show, also gave a tad more info on their characters in those posts.
Show info: July 18th to September 19th, 2011 on TV Tokyo. Aired on Monday nights at 10:00 pm and had a final rating average of 2.4%
Cast:
Saki Fukuda as Haru Hoshino
Ayame Gouriki as Miwako Aihara
Masahiro Inoue as Kenji Ibuki
Jinji Irie as Reon Irie
George Takahashi as Taro Hoshino
Kaho Minami as Yoko Hoshino
Kasumi Yamaya as Natsu Hoshino
Masahiko Nishimura as Kenichi Aihara
Naomi Nishida as Naoko Aihara
Ren Osugi as Soichi Ibuki
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