Going to try to keep this somewhat brief but don't know if I can, though a fairly simple drama as far as the plot goes just so much happens during the drama to make it an interesting watch.
Taro Sato has been poor all his life. Since the death of his wife, his situation has become even more desperate as he has to raise his three kids by himself and has no real marketable skills. So when he applies for a job that he doesn't expect to get, as a chauffeur to a rich young woman, he's surprised when he does.
His employer is Alice, your usual spoiled rich kid. Her father is a hotel magnate and her mother a popular actress. She's never wanted for anything her whole life and expects to get everything she wants. She and Taro have nothing in common, and, at least in the beginning, all they do is get on each other's nerves..... from Asianwiki
And rich she was with anet worth of 7 trillion(!) yen, though she was so rich and smart and had such a cushy background she didn't know much about other people at all nor some of the simpler things about life. Taro was the complete opposite, growing up in poverty and still was in it to the beginning of this show, he worked so many different kinds of jobs to support his 3 children, his wife who had also been his high school girlfriend had passed away a few years earlier. One day Taro went in for an interview to be her driver and was turned down by Alice's assistants but for some reason after just looking at his application she decided she wanted him to be her driver. So that's where the story really starts, though so much different and always fighting they tend to hit it off well, least in his eyes until one day he had his license suspended for speeding and couldn't be her driver for a month though he was still called by her to do various projects, one of which was acting like her boyfriend.
Main reason for that was to discourage Gotoda, her ex-boyfriend, from coming back into her life as he wanted Alice to become his bride. What had happened was he suddenly vanished 3 years before this, Alice had thought he just dumped her but as it came out, unknown to her though, was that her stepmother Makiko had talked him into leaving her in an incident 3 years ago thinking he wasn't good enough for her. In the meantime he had built his company up and now was quite a rich person and could have had any woman as his bride but went after Alice again. Her stepmpther who she hated so much came back to Tokyo from New York and tried to get them back together after seeing how well off he now was but Alice still wanted nothing to do with him, she didn't know it was her stepmother who had broken them up. Meanwhile a project called Alice Town was started up by Gotoda and the stepmother in the neighborhood where Taro lived, mainly they picked there to get rid of Taro as him and Alice had become so much closer, all the others eventually sold their houses and buisnesses to Gotoda as they felt they had no chance to stop the project. Alice ended up saying yes to his proposal to marry him in exchange for him stopping the project but she later reneged on this promise but also eventually relented and was about to marry him. However this was a scheme set up by Gotoda as after she signed some papers he swindled all of her assets from her and left her at the altar, he really proved to be one bad person but luckily got his due at the end.
Alice and her stepmother had gone from riches to rags overnight, they started to get along with each other though and were living in a shabby place while also doing a singing act together to get money to survive which they somehow did. To make this a bit brief, the two of them along with Taro and the others from the neighbohood managed to con Gotoda at an auction, they swindled back all of his money which they sent to a children's relief program, now he too was left in poverty. There really ends the show, that happened right at the end of the last episode as Alice and Taro get back together and it appears as though they're going to be married perhaps, the show left us hanging on what's going to happen with those two.
Tried to keep it brief, there really is much more that happens but those are really the main points and highlights from the show which did end up being a nice watch, beat all my expectations. Aya was good as usual acting both serious and funny at times too, don't think she has ever looked better in a drama than this one. Taro(Kamiji) also did a solid job but thought he acted a bit over the top on occasion but that's the way his part was probably written. Gotoda(Kashiwabara) also did well, if you end up disliking a character because of his evil ways then it means that they did a good job and he did. One other person not mentioned was Sachiko(Ryoko), she did very well especially at the end because it was her character which was the main reason they were able to get revenge on Gotoda but it wasn't a meaty role, she does well in her parts but wish they had given her a much more expanded role. Overall would recommend this drama, would rate it a solid 8.5/10, started out a bit slow but just got so much better after the second episode, wasn't expecting too much from it going in so it turned out to be a nice surprise when it ended up being a good show. Also check out the next 4 posts as there are many, many screenshots from the show.
Air dates and other info: October 14 to December 23, 2008, Tuesdays at 9:00 pm on Fuji TV with an average rating of 13.1%.
Cast:
Aya Ueto as Alice Mitazono
Yusuke Kamiji as Taro Sato
Ryoko Kuninaka as Sachiko Yasuda
Takashi Kashiwabara as Tsukasa Gotoda
Mayumi Wakamura as Makiko Mitazono
Morio Kazama as Yasuo Gunji
Shinji Yamashita as Keiichi Yasuda
.... and many others, that's the main cast there.
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