Nao Minamisawa: Otousan wa Nido Shinu drama episode 1 screenshots and recap

 If you've noticed these shorter, late night dramas have become my fave watches, easier to zip through and they just seem so much more interesting than most of the prime time dramas, this one here was no exception.

Main Cast:

Nao Minamisawa as Maiko Osawa
Yumi Asou as Yukie Osawa
Kenichi Endo as Toshio Osawa
Reiya Masaki as Takashi Osawa
Ken Yasuda as Takafumi Muto
Midoriko Kimura as Rui Kanzo
Ikkei Watanabe as Kenji Sado
Takuya Uehara as Detective Inohara
Yoji Tanaka as Detective Hatano

 Except for flashbacks this drama just takes place during a 24 hour stretch at a funeral home where the Osawa family has gone to lay to rest the head of the family Toshio Osawa. He was the head candy salesman for a confectionery company and quite a good one too but he was also too hard of a worker as during the services his children realized how little they really knew him. Both of his children were older, the daughter Maiko was a 20 year old in college and the son Takashi was a senior in high school who was studying hard for his entrance exams. Most of this first episode took place right after the family arrived at the funeral home, meeting some of the fathers coworkers who the family knew and reminiscing a bit about their father. They did know him a bit when they were younger but eventually he never seemed to be at home nor at any of their special occasion such as school events or birthdays, in a way he was a stranger to them as all the workers knew him so much better than they did. But come to pay their respects they did as the company was paying for everything but also to learn a bit more about their father who they had also thought had died in an accident, even their mother didn't know the exact details but at this point they just accepted what they were told.
 So ends the first episode, the drama doesn't drag at all but at 28 minutes an episode there's only so much that happens in a short show like this. Actually most of the next two episodes continue in the same mode as this but just wait until the final episode until one of the biggest bombshells ever is dropped on us. Ending off are some really nice screenshots of Nao as Maiko, have only seen her in a few things but enjoyed her so uch in this will be hunting down more of her dramas.

Nao Minamisawa: Otousan wa Nido Shinu drama episode 2 screenshots and recap

 Back again for even more of the same for the Osawa family who are mourning the death of their father while he was on a business trip in Hokkaido. The family accepted the death was just an accidental one but we the viewer have learned otherwise, the father Toshio was actually stabbed twice for apparently no reason. A pair of detectives from Hokkaido have traveled to Tokyo for the funeral services but they never mentioned to the family the cause of his death, they for some reason presumed the family knew about him being stabbed though they didn't. The daughter Maiko(Nao Minamisawa) has grown a bit suspicious of things though, examining a bit her father's body she has noticed many bruises on him, where did they come from and were they a reason for her father's death? The detectives knew nothing about the bruises but they knew how he had died so they didn't pursue the reason for them making Maiko even that much more suspicious, even by this episode's end she and the family still didn't know the exact cause of his death. Few other happenings in this show was the family meeting with a few of the company people who had worked with their father, lot of secrets they had about him but weren't willing to share, now it seems the deeper we get into the show the family, especially the children, are becoming even more confused then ever about who really was this man they called father.
 Halfway through, it's only a four episode series, true it's been a tad slow but not in the least boring, the events are really building up, you'll learn much more of them in the following two posts.

Nao Minamisawa: Otousan wa Nido Shinu drama episode 3 screenshots and recap

  The Osawa family still hasn't learned about how their father died, he was stabbed twice while on a business trip to Hokkaido but they still believed he had died of natural causes and for some strange reason never pursued the real reason for his death. During the service for their father for some strange reason they were seated in the back row, Maiko(Nao Minamisawa) and her brother were quite confused about this, shouldn't they have been in the front row being his immediate family? They did buy the lame excuse from their mother but there were too many strange things that were unsettling Maiko and now she's determined to get to the bottom of what they were. And one thing she discovered that their father was in debt of 5 million yen, how could this be possible as was mainly a frugal man who didn't really even gamble, how was this possible? At a business party once while he was drunk he accidentally destroyed a painting and was told it would cost 5 million yen to get it fixed, it wasn't worth that much and what it was he was being hoodwinked by a few others, one of them also was a close 'friend' of his at work. It's coming down to the possibility that the father may have also been having an affair, could this be the major reason he was rarely at home?
  The answer to that along with the other perplexing facts about the father's life all come out in the final episode which you can read about in the next post, through me and I'm sure any other viewer for quite a loop.

Nao Minamisawa: Otousan wa Nido Shinu drama episode 4 screenshots and recap

  Finally the Osawa family has learned the real reason how the father died, it was no accident but he was stabbed twice, but why and by whom? The answers for why and by whom were very simple ones, he was stabbed by accident as the killer was going for someone else and the father Toshio happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, he was not targeted at all by the killer. Few other enigmas finally get answered but the biggest event by far and quite a bizarre thing it was too were that the suspicions that the father was having an affair were true.... Toshio was having the affair with his children's mother!!!! What a shocker to put it mildly, he was actually married to his boss at work, she knew about his other family but never would grant him a divorce so for over 20 years he had led a double life. The mother of his children was able to keep it a secret for all those years, they were one of the few people in the show who had no idea about his real life, needless to say they were beyond shocked as us viewers also were. There was nothing Toshio or the mother Yukie could do about it so they just made the best of the situation that was why he was rarely at home all those years, really don't know why Toshio's real wife wouldn't grant him a divorce except to see him suffer which he did all those years as he really wanted to live with his other family. The show did end on a somewhat happy note, the children realized what their father had gone through and he had really wanted to be with them, there was one last picture he had sent them which was a bit of a tearjerker to them and us, those are the last few screenshots below.
 Gave away many spoilers but hopefully just enough so you don't know everything that happened and perhaps make you curious enough to check this drama out, the finale with that bombshell that was dropped on us was one of the best ever endings for a drama. Would really recommend this series and will give it a final rating of a 8.5/10.