Kahogo no Kahoko

A story about a girl who loves her family, her controling mother and a guy who has a different bilief on the matter. I did like the series, mainly because of the leading lady, who was adorable, innocent and had a major character development. I also liked that the drama focused on the family dynamics, although that ment that the romance was weak, even though the couple had chemistry. Great performances, good settings and a touching story completed the puzzle of a good drama.

"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.

This short,10 episode series from Japan, started off, charming and cute, but by the last few episodes everything just kind of fell all over itself as the multitude of inept characters continued to flop around the story like puppets with tangled strings.

Mitsuki Takahata is so cute and lovable as Kahoko - And the series starts out strong with a chance given her by tje male lead to break out of her overprotected shell, But it just veers all over the place ad all of her loving family completely falls apart during the remaining episodes.

You could say it's not cliché, in that Kahoko does not somehow break out and become super intelligent, super competent and super brilliant at something, As she would in many other cut and paste J dramas or K dramas. She doesn't, she runs around as an incredibly lovable, sweet, clueless woman-child throughout the entire 10 episodes.

But much of the rest of the families troubles is really cliché which becomes tiresome after four or five episodes in a row, where everyone is a complete mess.

So, I give it an A for effort, but a C- for writing and execution.

I also found it weird that episode 9 had that weird soap opera-like hyperealistic camera and lighting effect that the other episodes didn't have.

An awesome series that shows the love, care in once family and more. The Character building is superb. Every episode is full of warmth and love and emotion, and brings tears to eyes, literally each episode.