'Golden Bowl' w/Takeshi Kaneshiro - Episode 7
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Episode 7
This episode was a bit weird. Akutagawa's luck was a theme, but I thought it was a bit muddy, as the story about the childhood friend seemed to come out of nowhere...however, it was very touching by the end.
It opens with a young man visiting his wife in the hospital after their first child has been born; the young man asks her if she has any regrets (I shake my head over this every time - what a thing to say to your wife after she's just gone through labor!), and if she didn't rather that Akutagawa was the father. !!!!
At the bowling alley, Akutagwa is playing very well, and Hitomi marvels at his good luck because he doesn't seem to be a very serious player - Akutagawa tells her that he's very serious when he plays, but he's never really thought about his luck before - he doesn't even play the lottery. Hitomi muses that somewhere, a woman must love him deeply and therefore she must be his goddess of luck.
On the train into Tokyo, Akutagawa is still being his kind self - when Sakura asks him about his wrist, he tosses it off lightly, saying that it was nothing, that it was an accident - that he slipped and fell into Izumi's knife. What a guy! "Bad luck," Sakura responds. Sakukra then goes on to say that he is the one who now has good luck because his affair is over and Izumi is seeing someone else. However, he feels lonely because despite the breakup, he and his wife have not repaired their relationship yet: "we stay in separate room and hardly greet each other," he tells Akutagawa. "She locked her door."
Poor Akutagawa - I'm sure this is entirely Too Much Information for him. On the one hand, I think he's developed very strong romantic feelings toward Hitomi, but on the other, he knows that she still cares deeply for her husband, despite the recent developments, so he's in a really tight spot. However, this is Akutagawa we're talking about - he always chooses the noble path, regardless of his own feelings. Sometimes I think that there isn't a selfish bone in his body.
Anyway, to continue, Sakura tells him his suspicion that he thinks his wife might have a lover. Which therefore explains the camera clicks we saw earlier at the bowling alley, where someone was obviously taking photos of Hitomi and Akutagawa.
Hitomi confronting the young man from the hospital who is at Akutagawa's door is too cute - she doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but he's flustered, too, and then when she runs toward him with the broom, it's so funny! Funnier still is her little embarassed hopping about after she's chased him away. Clearly she didn't think she had it in her!
I'm reallly not fond of the next scene where poor Shibahara, who comes from a well-off family (so he has money) takes Akira out for lunch. Of course Akira brings Gorilla along with her, and really takes advantage of Shibahara by asking if he's treating them both and they both eat a very large expensive meal on Shibahara's tab. Now, of course Shibahara should stand up for himself a little more, but I really dislike seeing people be so rude and insensitive, so I cringed through this scene. Akira is far from my favorite character, even when she has her insightful and sweet or cute moments. But a lot of the time I want to shake her, and this scene is definitely one of those times. She's so wrapped up in herself that she can't tell that Shibahara likes her! And that is the reason why he's "treating" her. Good grief.
Gorilla threatening Akutagawa in the locker room is hilarious! It also segues us into the theme of violence (since Gorilla crushes a tin bucket with his bare hands). Akutagawa's bewilderment is so funny!
The next shopping trip looks like a real shopping trip as Akutagawa has a basket as well as Hitomi and he looks like he is selecting produce and other items for himself instead of trailing around after her. And, hmmm, I wonder why Akutagawa reveals to Hitomi that her husband has told him that she's locked her husband out of her bedroom! I wonder what kind of response he's fishing for here, because I can't think of any really good reason for him to broach the subject with her. I know he says that he's trying to play Cupid between them to get them back together, however we know that he's totally in love with her. So, what? He's just torturing himself because he's such a good guy. Actually later in the episode, we understand a little more of Akutagawa's personality, so the reasoning becomes more clear.
Hitomi makes light of it when he brings up her locked door - she claims it's because her husband is away at night so often that she does it for safety, and that she doesn't mean anything by it. But certainly Akutagawa knows that this means that she definitely is no longer sleeping with her husband.
"Why are you walking apart from me?" she asks later when they are walking home from the grocery store. He is on the other side of the street from her, and looking somewhat uncomfortable. "Your husband is getting suspicious," he replies. "He suspects you have a boyfriend. And he threatened to kill that man. Not a funny joke." (To Akutagawa it wasn't funny, but I thought it was hilarious how Sakura make a funny face and mimed poking Akutagawa's eyes out when they were on the train together!) But then Hitomi remembers: "You have a secret," she reminds Akutagawa: "You kissed me." Hee hee. Only seconds later, after speculating that the man she chased from his door may have been her husband's spy, she sees the young man at Akutagawa's gate. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays this scene beautifully as Akutagawa hides behind Hitomi in clear distress. When she asks what he's doing, he says "I'm trying to protect you," he says. Riiiiight.
The young man turns out to be an old classmate of Akutagawa's from high school, and they all go into Akutagawa's house for refreshments. One really funny thing happens - Hitomi freaks out when she sees a cockroach on the floor. Akutagawa catches the cockroch in a napkin and tosses him out the window instead of killing it! When they see that the light is on in her house, she goes to leave, but before she does, Akutagawa tells her not to lock her bedroom door at night. Then when she leaves, she drops some of her groceries and therefore she hears some of Dazai & Akutagawa's conversation: Dazai wants to challenge Akutagawa because he is certain that his wife, who was once Akutagawa's girlfriend, is still in love with Akutagawa, and so he wagers his wife. If he loses to Akutagawa, he will step aside so she can return to her childhood sweetheart.
When Dazai goes to Golden Bowl and shares his story of his teenaged years and his friendship with Akutagawa, I think it is very sad - this man has spent his entire adult life in Akutagawa's shadow, long after Akutagawa was gone from the picture - he always felt jealous and inferior to him because Akutagawa was the better ball player and because the girl he liked (Yuko), liked Akutagawa. He believes that both his friend and Yuko felt sorry for him, and worse, that Yuko only married him because she felt sorry for him. Yet despite everything, Dazai still admires Akutagawa for his talent and skill.
Later, there is a great, somewhat shocking scene that shows Akutagawa visiting Yuko in the hospital. When he walks in on her breast-feeding, he ducks away in embarassment, but then he adorably shakes the rattle for her to signal his intentions. :) In this scene, he leans over the newborn's crib while Yuko looks on, and Akutagawa has the most beautiful smile on his face as he looks down on the child. "Yuko," Akutagawa begins. "Are you happy?" He pauses. "It's ok if you aren't happy." "What?" she asks, looking at him with an indecipherable expression. Akutagawa looks up at her with another beautiful expression. "I can take you away," he says. They gaze at each other. The scenes cuts quickly away to the developer visiting Mr. Tanorae again, singing as usual. The goon on the left is hilarious as his eyes are rolled up, in boredom perhaps, and the same old deadpan expression while he sings. When they run the gauntlet of Shibahara and Takegami wearing pots on their heads and holding up orange barriers, they burst in on Mr. Tanorae asleep on his couch, sucking his thumb. Hee hee!
When we next see Hitomi and Akutagawa, they are bowling and she reveals that she heard a lot about his high school years from Dazai. "An enigmatic transfer student," she says. "I had to change schools because my family was in debt," he explains. "Really?" she asks. "Of course not!" he replies. Yet when they're walking home, she brings up his past again by exclaiming that if he'd stayed with the high school baseball team (Dazai believes that he resigned to give Dazai back his own chance with the team), he could have been recruited for a professional team. He doesn't think he would be so lucky. "But you are blessed with good fortune," Hitomi says. "Perhaps not," Akutagawa muses as he looks at the wrist that was cut by Sakura's mistress. He hides this from Hitomi when she asks what he means. Hitomi goes on to ask him if he looked down on Dazai because he felt sorry for him. She concludes that if he did, it was only out of kindness, since he's unable to harm even a cockroach. But then the more important part of this conversation emerges:Hitomi: You don't like to fight with others over something?
Akutagawa: [in English] Yes!
Hitomi: You don't want to be in the limelight?
Akutagawa: [in English] Yes! (he mimes adorably, as he pumps his fist)
Hitomi: You don't want to raise hopes and only be a bowling hero?
Akutagawa: [in English] Oh, yes!
Hitomi: Is that all it takes to make you happy? (she sounds a bit exasperated at him)
Akutagawa: I am happy.
Hitomi: Don't you want to be a more aggressive person? You must get what you want!
Akutagawa: What if I'm caught?
Hitomi: You must be brave!
Akutagawa: There's nothing I really want.
Hitomi: Really [she challenges him, getting in his face]
[Just then, an eyelash falls into his face, and they move into the pool of light from a street lamp while she bends close over his face to help him remove the eyelash. It's a rather intimate moment, and with just a tiny bit of help, it could be quite tender. Alas.]
"Last night...did you lock the bedroom door?" Akutgawa asks her as she gently lays one hand on his left cheek. She gazes back at him without changing her expression. "I merely closed it," she replies finally. Personally, I don't believe it - I think she's fibbing out of bravado.
It's very crowded at the bowling alley before the next competition - the alley has gained a lot of popularity from the competitions. Akira tries to make Akutagawa jealous in the locker room before the competition by telling him that Shibahara is interested in her, and that she might date him instead. But then she goes on to profess her affections for Akutagawa, and he just barely manages to escape from being forced to tell her plainly that he's not interested in her.
We next see a scene in a restaurant with Sakura and presumably the private investigator that he had hired to dig up the dirt on his wife. He is very surprised at the report and the hard evidence of a close relationship between Akutagawa and his wife. The audience can't help but think that Sakura is going to fly off the handle, especially when he sees the photo of Hitomi and Akutagawa in what looks like an embrace under a street light (although we know it to be eyelash removal scene) - it's clearly shows them in a compromising position. However, Sakura looks at everything, and doesn't react negatively. He laughs and realizes immediately that it was only an eyelash that his wife was helping to remove from their neighbor's eye. He laughs again. And we wonder how it's possible that he could defy stereotype and convention, and actually come to the correct conclusion?
Meanwhile, back at Golden Bowl, Hitomi and Akutagawa's opponent is Dazai, an inexperienced bowler, and his champion bowler friend. Dazai has designed a computer program to help him understand the correct amount of force necessary to knock over all the pins. [as an aside, that program sounds all very well and good, but wouldn't he actually need to have some practice in aiming the ball correctly and in physically calculating the force? It's one thing if a program tells you that you need X amount of force to accomplish Y, but how do you tell your body to actually provide that X amount of force necessary and also aim well, when you have no bowling experience? Ahem. I must leave this as a mystery explained only by the gods of Japanese television. *giggle*] Akutagawa scoffs at Dazai, but discovers to his chagrin that Dazai's method actually works.
There is a funny moment during the coin toss that determines who plays first. Dazai is staring determinedly in the direction of what looks like his partner's face. I thought at first that it was awfully strange to be staring at his partner so lovingly, until the camera shows us that he's actually staring at a slightly different angle, at his wife and newborn child who are in the crowd behind them. Yuko smiles at him sweetly.
A development between the real estate developer, his goons, and Mr. Tanorae is that they are now drinking together while they watch the competition! They've gotten quite friendly lately, it seems. "Kampai!" they all exclaim as they clink their large beer mugs and begin to drain them. "When did they become friends?" wonders Takegami.
There is a cute exchange where Hitomi accidentally drops that she knows about Dazai wagering his wife and child on this game, and Akutagawa scolds her for eavesdropping. Hitomi is adorable as she twitters for a few seconds, desperately trying to look less like the busybody he accuses her of being. And then we discover that the flashback scene we'd seen earlier of Akutagawa going to the hospital to visit Yuko and offering to take her away had been a joke, and that the two of them had laughed uproariously at his outlandish statement.
And then: we see Sakura coming up to Golden Bowl in the elevator. Dun dun dun. What conclusion will he come to when he sees Akutagawa and Hitomi bowling together in the competition? While he watches, Hitomi asks Akutagawa if he had feelings for Yuko when they were in high school together. He confesses finally that no, not really - Yuko had lent him money for a school trip and that was perceived as a relationship between them. He had transfered schools because his family really had been in debt - his father's factory had failed. His father had worked hard, yet he had still been unlucky. Akutagawa's mother had even left them after the factory's failure. "That's why you don't like to work hard," Hitomi says as she sits down next him, and he has the most beautiful open expression on is face. "You don't want to be like your father," she continues. "You are right," he agrees.
Then, Dazai's partner only knocks over nine pins, leaving them in a tight spot. When Hitomi gets up to bowl, she suddenly see her husband standing there in the crowd behind the players. Akutagawa sees her face change, but she brushes him off and turns back to bowl. Unfortunately, her distraction means that she leaves the "Christmas tree" formation of three pins for Akutagawa to knock down. When Hitomi turns around, her husband is gone. She thinks she must have imagined it.
Dazai steps up to bowl his last ball and he aims it well. It looks very bad for Hitomi and Akutagawa as the ball slowly rolls toward the final remaining pin. Just as the ball looks like it will certainly strike the pin, it abruptly swerves to the right and lands in the gutter. Everyone gapes in amazement and this unexpected turn of events and Akira swings out to examine the lane. "An insect died here," she proclaims. "A dead cockroach." Akutagawa and Hitomi stare at her in confusion until realization dawns on their faces. It's so funny as they make the connections, and Hitomi is elated. "The cockroach!" she exclaims. "Surely not," Akutagawa replies in disbelief. "You let it go," Hitomi happily retorts, "so it returned to repay your kindness."
The last conversation between them, before he bowls the golden ball, is very sweet:Hitomi: I told you.
Akutagawa: What?
Hitomi: The goddess of luck dotes on you.
Akutagawa: There you go again.
Hitomi: Perhaps Heaven gave you the good fortune owed to your father.
Akutagawa: But I have never received anything in return. Like Santa Claus, I always do things for others.
Hitomi: Right. You won't gain personally even if you hit that Christmas tree. [she is referring to the bowling pin formation]
Akutagawa: Precisely! That's why I say I don't have much luck.
Hitomi: You can't say that. Dazai, Yuko, and the other team members believed that you could help them win.
Akutagawa: That's why I felt uneasy.
Hitomi: It wasn't about winning.
Akutagawa: Then?
Hitomi: It was a dream.
Akutagawa: Dream?
Hitomi: You can spin beautiful dreams for them. You let them feel life isn't so bad after all.
Dazai's final voice over is also very nice as Akutagawa goes into his final bowl: "This is what I want to see. You turned up in our school and mesmerized all in the stadium. Now I know I don't want to defeat you. My regret was that I couldn't see you play again. This time, I hope to see you score again." Akutagawa's final ball strikes, and knocks over all three pins. "This is like a dream," Dazai thinks as he watches the man who he idolized as a teenager score again.
At the end of the episode, Akutagawa and Hitomi are sitting at the empty bar of the Golden Bowl after the competition. The place is dim and empty, save Kuroda. They almost look like they're on a date! Hitomi is wearing a lovely black sleeveless dress (she's changed from her skirt and top of the game into this sexier outfit), although Akutagawa is still wearing his black competition shirt. They both appear to be sipping glasses of white wine. He shows her a lottery ticket he bought (his first). He tells her that he spent all his money to buy the lottery ticket! And then (he draws this out in a funny way) he tells her that he won....1000 yen. And he lost 29 thousand yen! "I still have no luck," he pronounces. He's disappointed that he won't get a present, but just then, Kuroda turns off the main lights, and pops a coin into the jukebox. He tells them he's leaving and walks off. Paul Anka's "You're my Destiny" comes on while Hitomi looks at Akutagawa sweetly and says "This is your present. A pretty lady by your side." His face falls just the teensiest bit, but he laughs and acknowledges it. "You're dissatisfied," she says, looking a bit disappointed at his reaction. But he smiles, and they toast each other with a clink and another smile.
To Be Continued...
ETA: In case anyone still cares...I haven't forgotten about these summary/reviews. I promise, I will finish out the series when the inspiration to rewatch and spend long hours writing these up comes back. I hope sooner than later, but I am easily distractable. That being said, I ADORE THIS DORAMA! So despite the ADD, I know these will get finished. [2006.08.16]
Episode 7
This episode was a bit weird. Akutagawa's luck was a theme, but I thought it was a bit muddy, as the story about the childhood friend seemed to come out of nowhere...however, it was very touching by the end.
It opens with a young man visiting his wife in the hospital after their first child has been born; the young man asks her if she has any regrets (I shake my head over this every time - what a thing to say to your wife after she's just gone through labor!), and if she didn't rather that Akutagawa was the father. !!!!
At the bowling alley, Akutagwa is playing very well, and Hitomi marvels at his good luck because he doesn't seem to be a very serious player - Akutagawa tells her that he's very serious when he plays, but he's never really thought about his luck before - he doesn't even play the lottery. Hitomi muses that somewhere, a woman must love him deeply and therefore she must be his goddess of luck.
On the train into Tokyo, Akutagawa is still being his kind self - when Sakura asks him about his wrist, he tosses it off lightly, saying that it was nothing, that it was an accident - that he slipped and fell into Izumi's knife. What a guy! "Bad luck," Sakura responds. Sakukra then goes on to say that he is the one who now has good luck because his affair is over and Izumi is seeing someone else. However, he feels lonely because despite the breakup, he and his wife have not repaired their relationship yet: "we stay in separate room and hardly greet each other," he tells Akutagawa. "She locked her door."
Poor Akutagawa - I'm sure this is entirely Too Much Information for him. On the one hand, I think he's developed very strong romantic feelings toward Hitomi, but on the other, he knows that she still cares deeply for her husband, despite the recent developments, so he's in a really tight spot. However, this is Akutagawa we're talking about - he always chooses the noble path, regardless of his own feelings. Sometimes I think that there isn't a selfish bone in his body.
Anyway, to continue, Sakura tells him his suspicion that he thinks his wife might have a lover. Which therefore explains the camera clicks we saw earlier at the bowling alley, where someone was obviously taking photos of Hitomi and Akutagawa.
Hitomi confronting the young man from the hospital who is at Akutagawa's door is too cute - she doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but he's flustered, too, and then when she runs toward him with the broom, it's so funny! Funnier still is her little embarassed hopping about after she's chased him away. Clearly she didn't think she had it in her!
I'm reallly not fond of the next scene where poor Shibahara, who comes from a well-off family (so he has money) takes Akira out for lunch. Of course Akira brings Gorilla along with her, and really takes advantage of Shibahara by asking if he's treating them both and they both eat a very large expensive meal on Shibahara's tab. Now, of course Shibahara should stand up for himself a little more, but I really dislike seeing people be so rude and insensitive, so I cringed through this scene. Akira is far from my favorite character, even when she has her insightful and sweet or cute moments. But a lot of the time I want to shake her, and this scene is definitely one of those times. She's so wrapped up in herself that she can't tell that Shibahara likes her! And that is the reason why he's "treating" her. Good grief.
Gorilla threatening Akutagawa in the locker room is hilarious! It also segues us into the theme of violence (since Gorilla crushes a tin bucket with his bare hands). Akutagawa's bewilderment is so funny!
The next shopping trip looks like a real shopping trip as Akutagawa has a basket as well as Hitomi and he looks like he is selecting produce and other items for himself instead of trailing around after her. And, hmmm, I wonder why Akutagawa reveals to Hitomi that her husband has told him that she's locked her husband out of her bedroom! I wonder what kind of response he's fishing for here, because I can't think of any really good reason for him to broach the subject with her. I know he says that he's trying to play Cupid between them to get them back together, however we know that he's totally in love with her. So, what? He's just torturing himself because he's such a good guy. Actually later in the episode, we understand a little more of Akutagawa's personality, so the reasoning becomes more clear.
Hitomi makes light of it when he brings up her locked door - she claims it's because her husband is away at night so often that she does it for safety, and that she doesn't mean anything by it. But certainly Akutagawa knows that this means that she definitely is no longer sleeping with her husband.
"Why are you walking apart from me?" she asks later when they are walking home from the grocery store. He is on the other side of the street from her, and looking somewhat uncomfortable. "Your husband is getting suspicious," he replies. "He suspects you have a boyfriend. And he threatened to kill that man. Not a funny joke." (To Akutagawa it wasn't funny, but I thought it was hilarious how Sakura make a funny face and mimed poking Akutagawa's eyes out when they were on the train together!) But then Hitomi remembers: "You have a secret," she reminds Akutagawa: "You kissed me." Hee hee. Only seconds later, after speculating that the man she chased from his door may have been her husband's spy, she sees the young man at Akutagawa's gate. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays this scene beautifully as Akutagawa hides behind Hitomi in clear distress. When she asks what he's doing, he says "I'm trying to protect you," he says. Riiiiight.
The young man turns out to be an old classmate of Akutagawa's from high school, and they all go into Akutagawa's house for refreshments. One really funny thing happens - Hitomi freaks out when she sees a cockroach on the floor. Akutagawa catches the cockroch in a napkin and tosses him out the window instead of killing it! When they see that the light is on in her house, she goes to leave, but before she does, Akutagawa tells her not to lock her bedroom door at night. Then when she leaves, she drops some of her groceries and therefore she hears some of Dazai & Akutagawa's conversation: Dazai wants to challenge Akutagawa because he is certain that his wife, who was once Akutagawa's girlfriend, is still in love with Akutagawa, and so he wagers his wife. If he loses to Akutagawa, he will step aside so she can return to her childhood sweetheart.
When Dazai goes to Golden Bowl and shares his story of his teenaged years and his friendship with Akutagawa, I think it is very sad - this man has spent his entire adult life in Akutagawa's shadow, long after Akutagawa was gone from the picture - he always felt jealous and inferior to him because Akutagawa was the better ball player and because the girl he liked (Yuko), liked Akutagawa. He believes that both his friend and Yuko felt sorry for him, and worse, that Yuko only married him because she felt sorry for him. Yet despite everything, Dazai still admires Akutagawa for his talent and skill.
Later, there is a great, somewhat shocking scene that shows Akutagawa visiting Yuko in the hospital. When he walks in on her breast-feeding, he ducks away in embarassment, but then he adorably shakes the rattle for her to signal his intentions. :) In this scene, he leans over the newborn's crib while Yuko looks on, and Akutagawa has the most beautiful smile on his face as he looks down on the child. "Yuko," Akutagawa begins. "Are you happy?" He pauses. "It's ok if you aren't happy." "What?" she asks, looking at him with an indecipherable expression. Akutagawa looks up at her with another beautiful expression. "I can take you away," he says. They gaze at each other. The scenes cuts quickly away to the developer visiting Mr. Tanorae again, singing as usual. The goon on the left is hilarious as his eyes are rolled up, in boredom perhaps, and the same old deadpan expression while he sings. When they run the gauntlet of Shibahara and Takegami wearing pots on their heads and holding up orange barriers, they burst in on Mr. Tanorae asleep on his couch, sucking his thumb. Hee hee!
When we next see Hitomi and Akutagawa, they are bowling and she reveals that she heard a lot about his high school years from Dazai. "An enigmatic transfer student," she says. "I had to change schools because my family was in debt," he explains. "Really?" she asks. "Of course not!" he replies. Yet when they're walking home, she brings up his past again by exclaiming that if he'd stayed with the high school baseball team (Dazai believes that he resigned to give Dazai back his own chance with the team), he could have been recruited for a professional team. He doesn't think he would be so lucky. "But you are blessed with good fortune," Hitomi says. "Perhaps not," Akutagawa muses as he looks at the wrist that was cut by Sakura's mistress. He hides this from Hitomi when she asks what he means. Hitomi goes on to ask him if he looked down on Dazai because he felt sorry for him. She concludes that if he did, it was only out of kindness, since he's unable to harm even a cockroach. But then the more important part of this conversation emerges:Hitomi: You don't like to fight with others over something?
Akutagawa: [in English] Yes!
Hitomi: You don't want to be in the limelight?
Akutagawa: [in English] Yes! (he mimes adorably, as he pumps his fist)
Hitomi: You don't want to raise hopes and only be a bowling hero?
Akutagawa: [in English] Oh, yes!
Hitomi: Is that all it takes to make you happy? (she sounds a bit exasperated at him)
Akutagawa: I am happy.
Hitomi: Don't you want to be a more aggressive person? You must get what you want!
Akutagawa: What if I'm caught?
Hitomi: You must be brave!
Akutagawa: There's nothing I really want.
Hitomi: Really [she challenges him, getting in his face]
[Just then, an eyelash falls into his face, and they move into the pool of light from a street lamp while she bends close over his face to help him remove the eyelash. It's a rather intimate moment, and with just a tiny bit of help, it could be quite tender. Alas.]
"Last night...did you lock the bedroom door?" Akutgawa asks her as she gently lays one hand on his left cheek. She gazes back at him without changing her expression. "I merely closed it," she replies finally. Personally, I don't believe it - I think she's fibbing out of bravado.
It's very crowded at the bowling alley before the next competition - the alley has gained a lot of popularity from the competitions. Akira tries to make Akutagawa jealous in the locker room before the competition by telling him that Shibahara is interested in her, and that she might date him instead. But then she goes on to profess her affections for Akutagawa, and he just barely manages to escape from being forced to tell her plainly that he's not interested in her.
We next see a scene in a restaurant with Sakura and presumably the private investigator that he had hired to dig up the dirt on his wife. He is very surprised at the report and the hard evidence of a close relationship between Akutagawa and his wife. The audience can't help but think that Sakura is going to fly off the handle, especially when he sees the photo of Hitomi and Akutagawa in what looks like an embrace under a street light (although we know it to be eyelash removal scene) - it's clearly shows them in a compromising position. However, Sakura looks at everything, and doesn't react negatively. He laughs and realizes immediately that it was only an eyelash that his wife was helping to remove from their neighbor's eye. He laughs again. And we wonder how it's possible that he could defy stereotype and convention, and actually come to the correct conclusion?
Meanwhile, back at Golden Bowl, Hitomi and Akutagawa's opponent is Dazai, an inexperienced bowler, and his champion bowler friend. Dazai has designed a computer program to help him understand the correct amount of force necessary to knock over all the pins. [as an aside, that program sounds all very well and good, but wouldn't he actually need to have some practice in aiming the ball correctly and in physically calculating the force? It's one thing if a program tells you that you need X amount of force to accomplish Y, but how do you tell your body to actually provide that X amount of force necessary and also aim well, when you have no bowling experience? Ahem. I must leave this as a mystery explained only by the gods of Japanese television. *giggle*] Akutagawa scoffs at Dazai, but discovers to his chagrin that Dazai's method actually works.
There is a funny moment during the coin toss that determines who plays first. Dazai is staring determinedly in the direction of what looks like his partner's face. I thought at first that it was awfully strange to be staring at his partner so lovingly, until the camera shows us that he's actually staring at a slightly different angle, at his wife and newborn child who are in the crowd behind them. Yuko smiles at him sweetly.
A development between the real estate developer, his goons, and Mr. Tanorae is that they are now drinking together while they watch the competition! They've gotten quite friendly lately, it seems. "Kampai!" they all exclaim as they clink their large beer mugs and begin to drain them. "When did they become friends?" wonders Takegami.
There is a cute exchange where Hitomi accidentally drops that she knows about Dazai wagering his wife and child on this game, and Akutagawa scolds her for eavesdropping. Hitomi is adorable as she twitters for a few seconds, desperately trying to look less like the busybody he accuses her of being. And then we discover that the flashback scene we'd seen earlier of Akutagawa going to the hospital to visit Yuko and offering to take her away had been a joke, and that the two of them had laughed uproariously at his outlandish statement.
And then: we see Sakura coming up to Golden Bowl in the elevator. Dun dun dun. What conclusion will he come to when he sees Akutagawa and Hitomi bowling together in the competition? While he watches, Hitomi asks Akutagawa if he had feelings for Yuko when they were in high school together. He confesses finally that no, not really - Yuko had lent him money for a school trip and that was perceived as a relationship between them. He had transfered schools because his family really had been in debt - his father's factory had failed. His father had worked hard, yet he had still been unlucky. Akutagawa's mother had even left them after the factory's failure. "That's why you don't like to work hard," Hitomi says as she sits down next him, and he has the most beautiful open expression on is face. "You don't want to be like your father," she continues. "You are right," he agrees.
Then, Dazai's partner only knocks over nine pins, leaving them in a tight spot. When Hitomi gets up to bowl, she suddenly see her husband standing there in the crowd behind the players. Akutagawa sees her face change, but she brushes him off and turns back to bowl. Unfortunately, her distraction means that she leaves the "Christmas tree" formation of three pins for Akutagawa to knock down. When Hitomi turns around, her husband is gone. She thinks she must have imagined it.
Dazai steps up to bowl his last ball and he aims it well. It looks very bad for Hitomi and Akutagawa as the ball slowly rolls toward the final remaining pin. Just as the ball looks like it will certainly strike the pin, it abruptly swerves to the right and lands in the gutter. Everyone gapes in amazement and this unexpected turn of events and Akira swings out to examine the lane. "An insect died here," she proclaims. "A dead cockroach." Akutagawa and Hitomi stare at her in confusion until realization dawns on their faces. It's so funny as they make the connections, and Hitomi is elated. "The cockroach!" she exclaims. "Surely not," Akutagawa replies in disbelief. "You let it go," Hitomi happily retorts, "so it returned to repay your kindness."
The last conversation between them, before he bowls the golden ball, is very sweet:Hitomi: I told you.
Akutagawa: What?
Hitomi: The goddess of luck dotes on you.
Akutagawa: There you go again.
Hitomi: Perhaps Heaven gave you the good fortune owed to your father.
Akutagawa: But I have never received anything in return. Like Santa Claus, I always do things for others.
Hitomi: Right. You won't gain personally even if you hit that Christmas tree. [she is referring to the bowling pin formation]
Akutagawa: Precisely! That's why I say I don't have much luck.
Hitomi: You can't say that. Dazai, Yuko, and the other team members believed that you could help them win.
Akutagawa: That's why I felt uneasy.
Hitomi: It wasn't about winning.
Akutagawa: Then?
Hitomi: It was a dream.
Akutagawa: Dream?
Hitomi: You can spin beautiful dreams for them. You let them feel life isn't so bad after all.
Dazai's final voice over is also very nice as Akutagawa goes into his final bowl: "This is what I want to see. You turned up in our school and mesmerized all in the stadium. Now I know I don't want to defeat you. My regret was that I couldn't see you play again. This time, I hope to see you score again." Akutagawa's final ball strikes, and knocks over all three pins. "This is like a dream," Dazai thinks as he watches the man who he idolized as a teenager score again.
At the end of the episode, Akutagawa and Hitomi are sitting at the empty bar of the Golden Bowl after the competition. The place is dim and empty, save Kuroda. They almost look like they're on a date! Hitomi is wearing a lovely black sleeveless dress (she's changed from her skirt and top of the game into this sexier outfit), although Akutagawa is still wearing his black competition shirt. They both appear to be sipping glasses of white wine. He shows her a lottery ticket he bought (his first). He tells her that he spent all his money to buy the lottery ticket! And then (he draws this out in a funny way) he tells her that he won....1000 yen. And he lost 29 thousand yen! "I still have no luck," he pronounces. He's disappointed that he won't get a present, but just then, Kuroda turns off the main lights, and pops a coin into the jukebox. He tells them he's leaving and walks off. Paul Anka's "You're my Destiny" comes on while Hitomi looks at Akutagawa sweetly and says "This is your present. A pretty lady by your side." His face falls just the teensiest bit, but he laughs and acknowledges it. "You're dissatisfied," she says, looking a bit disappointed at his reaction. But he smiles, and they toast each other with a clink and another smile.
To Be Continued...
ETA: In case anyone still cares...I haven't forgotten about these summary/reviews. I promise, I will finish out the series when the inspiration to rewatch and spend long hours writing these up comes back. I hope sooner than later, but I am easily distractable. That being said, I ADORE THIS DORAMA! So despite the ADD, I know these will get finished. [2006.08.16]