Asian Beauty Appreciation

What begins as a Yakuza drama, changes direction rather quickly. You see, as we are told by Tsuyoshi Kusanagi who stars as Hikoichi Tsubasa, a Yakuza underboss, the heroic fighting, and feats of derring-do, are just in the movies. In real life, a Yakuza has a real struggle on his hands just to make a living. It seems that extortion and loansharking aren’t all that profitable. Instead of strong arming plain folks out of their money, nowadays the Yakuza must connive and scam – and it just isn’t that easy.

Well a big boss, in fact the head of this entire Yakuza family, the boss of bosses, dies. His successor is Tsubasa’s boss. This new boss has no recourse but to say to the gathered group that their Yakuza family is becoming an old fossil, and in reality is in pretty bad shape.

This group includes Tsubasa and 5 other underbosses and members of the family, one of which is the stunning Meisa Kuroki.

Okay, that will require a suspension of disbelief. Kuroki though only 21 years, is a group boss, and she is gorgeous. But besides that, she is plenty tough. She won’t take shit from anyone. In fact, when challenged about her her sex, she says, “Yeah, I’m a woman, so what?”

Well they’re taken directly from the old boss’s funeral and brought to a facility that we would call a cross between a nursing home and assisted living. They’re told that they will have to work there, learn the business, and adopt a new concept. No longer will the family abuse the elderly, weak, and poor. The times are changing. So going forward, the new family credo will be to help and support the weak, poor, and elderly. On top of that, who ever does the best job will get the promotion to being the 2nd in command, the replacement boss for the former No. 2 who is now the head of the the family.

They all hate it immediately. In fact right out of the gate, Tsubasa manages to wipe out one of the home’s resident’s life savings, most all of it finding it’s way into his hands.

I mean they’re now tasked with caring for those with dementia, changing diapers, giving old people baths, even wiping their asses. With an additional caveat – if any of these six screws up, or blows their cover as they’re actually working within the boundaries of another Yakuza family’s turf, or tries to escape this duty – all will be held responsible and all will face the consequences, which, this being about the Yakuza, could only be dire. I mean…is there any other kind?

Oh, and one more thing – this health care facility where they’re all working is about to be taken over by a huge health-care conglomerate. Only that is a misnomer. What this outfit cares about from all their nursing home franchises is not about care, instead,  profitability is all  that matters.

So the story changes from what you thought was going to a brutal  and violent crime story with Yakuza thugs to a human drama that is not only sensitive about care for the aged in Japan, but also does an excellent job to make you the viewers, take the time to care and consider.

And they really do make you care. Sure the trappings of the Yakuza remain – the black suits, the living body art aka tattoos, and some of the more arcane traditions that come with being a hoodlum in the Yakuza.

No doubt the eye candy provided by Meisa is indeed sweet. Not coincidentally, but that may have something to do with the fact that we have lots of her images are all over this review. Additionally, the beautiful Yu Yamada appears in a guest role in Episode 4.

Nevertheless, you’ll enjoy yourself with this drama which began its broadcast run, on the Fuji Network on Japanese  TV on July 9th and ended its run after 11 weeks .

At this time I have no details about when a DVD may be made available.