"Kahogo no Kahoko" is one of those series that could easily fall into the cheesy, but instead delivers a very funny, touching and sweet look on humanity and family.
Kahoko is finishing her degree at university, but even though she is trying her best to find a job in a company, her job hunting has, so far, been a failure. In part, this is because she has always been overprotected (the 'kahogo' of the title), especially by her mother, who still treats her as if she was a little baby. The chance meeting with a male student who is trying to become a painter will change her life.
From the moment when Kahoko meets Hajime we will become spectators to her best efforts to grow up, become independent and learn to do things by herself. Of course, this will run awry with her mother's views. And around that, Kahoko's family (her parents and the more extended one), who till then had been all happiness and flowers and butterflies, will start to have its own problems.
This could easily have been a very annoying TV series. We get an overprotected character, Kahoko. An overprotecting mother, Izumi. A father who thinks he is the lion of the family, Masataka. A young man who cannot shut up and believes he is always right, Hajime. And all of family members with their own problems. But instead we get a very funny and touching series. The plot delivers, and it always has very funny situations and great moments (even if the 'problems' Kahoko and their family face are a little bit overstretch, some situations taking way too long to be resolved). The characters get their own particular arc and we get to know why everyone is how they are and we see change in their lives (even though, the mother, Izumi, has not so much as the others). And the actors are game, delivering the lines with so much glee (Mitsuki Takahata overacting but in a good way) that it is always fun to be with them.
Apart from an overstretching of the themes and some of the plot lines, the only minor quibble is that Kahoko has to meet a man to start her change and her desire to free herself from her mother. It would have been better if the change had been born within her. Also that we know how this will end from second one. But with so many laughs and moments that will mist your eyes, you won't care.
