[REVIEW] Sapuri
Title: Sapuri
Genre: Office romance
Episodes: 11
Cast: Kamenashi Kazuya (KAT-TUN), Itou Misaki, Sato Koichi, Shida Mirai, Eita
Plot: Work-oriented office lady working with loveable lunatics at an advertising firm meets gorgeous young part-timer. I like to think of it as "Anego-lite".
Fuji Minami (Misaki) is a typical j-drama office lady in her late twenties - hard working, good at her job, can't keep a man to save her life and worries about getting left on the shelf. Why this is such a big deal, I have no idea. Her workplace is lovely - all open spaces and sunshine, filled with eccentric creative types, including her laidback boss, Imaoka (Sato), whose answer to everything is "enjoy". Fuji's smart, a little quirky and she's good at getting things done.
Ishida Yuya (Kame) is everything Fuji isn't. He doesn't know what he wants to do (other than surf and enjoy himself), or how he wants his future to develop, so he drifts from job to job, never settling on anything. Family connections (of a sort) with Imaoka land him a job at the same firm, where he quickly gets to grips with making drinks, doing the photocopying, running the errands…you get the picture. It's not a career, and while everyone likes the cute new part-timer, they don't expect miracles from him. Ishida doesn't expect them from himself, so why should anyone else?
A lost cell phone means Fuji meets Ishida before he even gets the job, but she certainly doesn't anticipate seeing him again, much less in her own office. She's older than him, she's got her life goals and they don't include getting involved with a freespirited toyboy…yet she can't help having less than innocent thoughts about him. (Kame has fantastic hair during this series - you'd be having impure thoughts too.) The problem is that she also has an older sister/mentor relationship with him, and this - and the attraction - is mutual. The longer Ishida stays with the company, the more seriously he takes his work, especially when he's encouraged to develop his own ideas and contribute to the team effort. Fuji's his biggest supporter and his best guide to the world of advertising.
Naturally, they work pretty closely together. But there's a spanner in the works by the name of Ogiwara (Eita). I find him sleazy and unattractive, and therefore am quite happy when his life is difficult. He's got problems of his own, principally his affair with a married woman (who works in the same company), but he likes Fuji too. It's not so much a love triangle as a love pentagram as Ishida has an admirer also, this one closer to him in age. Relationship difficulties abound, involving alcohol, petty jealousies, curry and a great deal of overtime.
The most interesting relationship in the series is actually the little family unit that springs up between Imaoka, his estranged daughter Natsuki (Mirai) who suddenly comes to live with him, and Ishida, who is already living with him. Neither father nor daughter are happy with the situation, but having Ishida in the middle helps enormously; the cutest scenes, I think, are when they're together. Ishida manages to make himself into a responsible, caring big brother even though responsibility is usually to be avoided like the plague.
Because if you have responsibilities, you can't run away. You can't pack up and go if you decide you've had enough. Or can you?
'Sapuri' is nice, lightweight fluff with likeable characters (mostly), relatively nice music (KAT-TUN provide the OP, 'You'), and enough cute moments to balance out some of the more pointless angst and drama. Ishida's personal development is enjoyable to watch, and he's actually quite romantic in some ways. But even for Kame, I wouldn't watch this a second time.
Genre: Office romance
Episodes: 11
Cast: Kamenashi Kazuya (KAT-TUN), Itou Misaki, Sato Koichi, Shida Mirai, Eita
Plot: Work-oriented office lady working with loveable lunatics at an advertising firm meets gorgeous young part-timer. I like to think of it as "Anego-lite".
Fuji Minami (Misaki) is a typical j-drama office lady in her late twenties - hard working, good at her job, can't keep a man to save her life and worries about getting left on the shelf. Why this is such a big deal, I have no idea. Her workplace is lovely - all open spaces and sunshine, filled with eccentric creative types, including her laidback boss, Imaoka (Sato), whose answer to everything is "enjoy". Fuji's smart, a little quirky and she's good at getting things done.
Ishida Yuya (Kame) is everything Fuji isn't. He doesn't know what he wants to do (other than surf and enjoy himself), or how he wants his future to develop, so he drifts from job to job, never settling on anything. Family connections (of a sort) with Imaoka land him a job at the same firm, where he quickly gets to grips with making drinks, doing the photocopying, running the errands…you get the picture. It's not a career, and while everyone likes the cute new part-timer, they don't expect miracles from him. Ishida doesn't expect them from himself, so why should anyone else?
A lost cell phone means Fuji meets Ishida before he even gets the job, but she certainly doesn't anticipate seeing him again, much less in her own office. She's older than him, she's got her life goals and they don't include getting involved with a freespirited toyboy…yet she can't help having less than innocent thoughts about him. (Kame has fantastic hair during this series - you'd be having impure thoughts too.) The problem is that she also has an older sister/mentor relationship with him, and this - and the attraction - is mutual. The longer Ishida stays with the company, the more seriously he takes his work, especially when he's encouraged to develop his own ideas and contribute to the team effort. Fuji's his biggest supporter and his best guide to the world of advertising.
Naturally, they work pretty closely together. But there's a spanner in the works by the name of Ogiwara (Eita). I find him sleazy and unattractive, and therefore am quite happy when his life is difficult. He's got problems of his own, principally his affair with a married woman (who works in the same company), but he likes Fuji too. It's not so much a love triangle as a love pentagram as Ishida has an admirer also, this one closer to him in age. Relationship difficulties abound, involving alcohol, petty jealousies, curry and a great deal of overtime.
The most interesting relationship in the series is actually the little family unit that springs up between Imaoka, his estranged daughter Natsuki (Mirai) who suddenly comes to live with him, and Ishida, who is already living with him. Neither father nor daughter are happy with the situation, but having Ishida in the middle helps enormously; the cutest scenes, I think, are when they're together. Ishida manages to make himself into a responsible, caring big brother even though responsibility is usually to be avoided like the plague.
Because if you have responsibilities, you can't run away. You can't pack up and go if you decide you've had enough. Or can you?
'Sapuri' is nice, lightweight fluff with likeable characters (mostly), relatively nice music (KAT-TUN provide the OP, 'You'), and enough cute moments to balance out some of the more pointless angst and drama. Ishida's personal development is enjoyable to watch, and he's actually quite romantic in some ways. But even for Kame, I wouldn't watch this a second time.