Fishbowl Wives

I really enjoyed this series... until the last episode.

The series revolves around the relationships of some couples living in a high rise condo, focusing mainly on a single wife per episode.

Most of the episodes offer poignant, if sometime predictable, stories. The biggest problem I had with the individual episodes was that the writers failed to "wrap things up" before moving on to the next one.

Interwoven through all this is the story of Sakura, who is in an abusive marriage and trying to find happiness away from her husband. Unfortunately, the writers lead you on, and then gut punch you in the final episode with one of the worst endings I've ever watched. Disappointing hardly covers it.

It seems to be a trend in recent series that writers want to give you the worst ending possible.

This short series is based on a manga and tells the stories of a group of ladies living at the top of a high rise who all enter into affairs. It has a main story running through of a successful businesswoman and a goldfish seller and these two appear in a thread throughout the series. Over the eight episodes it also looks at five other women who enter into extra marital relationships and their reasons behind that decision. It is quite an erotic series and it may overdo the titillating sex scenes but it does not judge the women and leaves you to decide if the ladies actions are justified.

In Last Cinderella (2013) Ryoko Shinohara stars as Sakura, a hairdresser who is torn between the salon manager and a guy, Hiroto, half her age. In Fishbowl Wives (2022) Ryoko Shinohara stars as Sakura, a former hairdresser who is married to a salon chain owner, but has an affair with a guy, Haruto, half her age. Coincidence? Seems implausible. My interpretation is that FW is an alternate universe continuation of LC in which Sakura had chosen her boss over the young pup, and this is her second chance to get it right. Too bad FW is nowhere near as entertaining as LC. It's impressive how little Shinohara has aged, though.

The series focuses on 6 wives, with the major focus on Sakura i.e our main character for the series. They are all caught up in their own marriage related problems and seek other people to fulfil their desires or deal with their problems. It was honestly a refreshing take, since it was up to the viewer to decide whether the actions of the wife in focus was justified or not. Honestly i really enjoyed the aesthetic of the series and the multiple storylines were sown together well. However, some of the characters extremely pissed me off- Sakura's husband and the wife who stopped running. They made the show slightly intolerable but the other characters made it bearable. THe ending was also left very open ended which could be a bad or good thing based on the viewer discretion. Personally loved how it ended. Definitely a worthwhile show.

If this is your 1st drama. Then you will probably like this more than most people. In which case, I would recommend to watch the kdrama movie called-High Society 2018 (Sanglyusahoe) on Netflix.

Other than that, Fishbowl Wives is average at best. But at its' worst, it is like a 4.5 stars-that keeps dragging on and on.

Reason why I say this, it relies heavily on the softcore sex scenes. In order to cover up the weaker elements of the script. Kdramas on the other hand, have less scenes like these, but manage to be more entertaining.

However I will admit the softcore sex scenes were well done, enjoyable, and I hope more dramas put them in. Without sacrificing the storyline, dialogue, and character development.