Stars in the Deep (2015)

I must confess that my not-so-high grade depends highly on the fact that I had expected something completely different, and was therefore a little bit (heck, a whole lot, actually ^__^) taken aback. In fact, judging from the synopsis and the "mystery" tag, I was expecting something more similar to the manga "6000", but I soon realized how wrong I was.
In this short dorama, the mystery part is rather a pretext to portray, in an original setting, a very Japanese (and per se quite beautiful) story of a good daughter trying hard to realize her late father's dream (for those of you familiar with East Asian / Confucian values, that's one of their cornerstones of course: filial piety!).
All that might have been wasted on some, who even went so far as to throw around some deeply insulting accusations - I noticed in fact a comment actually accusing this dorama of sexism (!) - needless to say, I couldn't disagree more, that's a totally preposterous accusation (tantamount to accusing all Asian dramas of racism because they don't have black actors! >___<). Sorry to sound so harsh, but the only explanation I can find as to how such a baseless accusation was formulated is a total lack of understanding of Japanese culture in particular, and more generally, of East Asian values and traditions.
The character portrayed by Arimura Kasumi is on the contrary a very strong young woman (the fact that she doesn't behave like a man doesn't mean she's weak in the least!), who overcomes many difficulties and even some mistakes (not depending on the fact that she's a woman, but rather on her young age and inexperience!) so as to grow stronger. And she does so brilliantly, improving herself deeply, and in the end having a profound impact on the people around her and ultimately on the whole story. A beautifully scripted character indeed!
Endo Kenichi's character is also nicely scripted, imho, whereas the rest are a bit "meh", unfortunately...
The lovely music accompanying the whole series is a nice touch too, imho!
Too bad the mystery part is quite dull, honestly...in Italian there's an idiom, "la montagna che partorì un sassolino" ("the mountain that gave birth to a pebble"), that can be used for a situation like this where the buildup makes you expect something big, only to be revealed as...a big letdown in the end...and that's the reason why I didn't give this a higher grade. Still, it's a pleasant watch! ^___-

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