Titles:
Japanese: あのね or anone - the title card in the episodes is written in romanji
English: anone (which can be translated as "you know what", but is also the personal name of the central character)
Broadcast Year: 2018
Subtitled Episodes Available at: Ondramanice
Spoiler-free Synopsis:
A young woman, Tsujisawa Harika, was abandoned by her family as a young girl is making her way in the world and living in an internet cafe. She and a couple friends hear of an abandoned bag full of cash at the beach and go and attempt to find and retrieve it. She and several other misfits are then brought together into the life of the wife, Hayashida Anone, of a printer who died a year or so earlier.
Crimes and Misdemeanors:
Counterfeiting, Child Abandonment, Theft, Betrayal, Marital Infidelity, False Confession
Awards: None yet - it ended two months ago at time of writing
Cast:
The protagonist, Harika, is played by Hirose Suzu who has not appeared in any of Sakamoto's other series, but she's already slated to lead one of next year's asadoras, Natsuzora (2019).
Tanaka Yuuko plays the titular Anone as well as mothers in Mother and Woman.
Eita plays the main antagonist, Nakaseko Riichi, who coerces the group of misfits into this criminal adventure. He also plays the brother seeking vengeance in Soredemo, Ikite Yuku, and the uptight lead in The Great Divorce. He has far and away the widest range of roles in Sakamoto's dramas.
Beyond Here There Be Spoilers:
anone has a somewhat more sophisticated plot than most of Sakamoto's work. It is a tale of a bunch of misfits from disparate parts of society forming a tiny family of crime. It explores the backstory of three of the five main characters to some depth. We learn where Harika came from though neither she nor we ever really learn why she was abandoned. We learn why Riichi is obsessed with perfecting the counterfeiting operation he started with Anone's husband. We learn why Anone welcomes Harika into her life and becomes her surrogate mother. The terminally ill diner operator, Kaji, and the somewhat mysterious and strange Aoba are less developed, but their motivations are, nevertheless, well delineated.
anone is also a bit different than the other series by Sakamoto-sensei in that he dips his toe a bit into magical realism. Harika's initial memories of the institution her mother placed her are clearly a fantasy, and Aoba's ability to see spirits are outside the usual bounds of Sakamoto's narratives. In no sense does this series venture into science fiction or fantasy, but, clearly, one of the major themes of anone is deception and that includes self-deception and how a group accommodate the deceptions of its members. And so, while it's not a fantasy we do, for instance, in the end get several scenes of Kaji as something like a ghost.
Sakamoto's characters in the other series we are discussing do occasionally tell lies to protect others - in fact, each of the three mothers played by Tanaka Yuuko does so. In anone, the three principal characters all do so, and the show is largely about exploring why they do so. Sakamoto does not tend to focus his series on setting up and resolving mysteries, but it is a part of his narrative palate. In anone, however, the various mysteries in the backgrounds of the principals are the prime drivers of this interwoven plot because the key questions considered here are epistemological: how do we know in terms of human relationships what is real and how do we confirm the reality of those relationships?
All of the members in this self-formed family of five ultimately confirm the reality of their relationships by acts of self-sacrifice. Harika's entire motivation is seeking money to help Hikoboshi get the medical treatment he needs, and when the way to get that money means denying that she loves him, she does so knowing he can never see him thereafter. Riichi sacrifices the personal freedom that counterfeiting would provide him for the sake of his extended family. Anone perjures herself in custody for the sake of the rest of the group. Aoba sacrifices her independence and the independence of running off with the money to tend to Kaji as he ends his days. Kaji sacrifices the last months of his life for the sake of this group of strangers.
anone is, ultimately, a tale of misadventures and deceptions, but through those misadventures the characters are left with each other as a new and resilient family. The other side of deception is trust, and in the end all of the characters trust each other and the familial relationship that they have formed. Ultimately, it's not about the family they were born with but the family they make through acts of mutual reliance and trust.
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