Titles:
Japanese: 最高の離婚 or Saikou no Rikon
English: The Best Divorce
Broadcast Year: 2013 plus a two-hour follow-up special in 2014
Subtitled Episodes Available at: Ondramanice and the special is at gooddrama
Spoiler-free Synopsis:
Two thirty-something married couples are having marriage problems. Mitsuo and Yuka have been married for a couple of years but are the classic odd couple: Mitsuo is fastidious and neat, and Yuka leaves the towels on the counter when she's done with them. Mitsuo is already reaching the end of his patience when he runs into his ex, Akira, who is now married to Ryo who is openly and obliviously unfaithful. The two couples try to resolve their differences, but divorce seems inevitable for both of them.
Crimes and Misdemeanors:
Marital Infidelity, Failure to Submit Documents to the Registrar
Awards: Best Drama, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Screen Play, Best Song
Cast:
The protagonist, Mitsuo, is played by Eita who was also in Soredomo, Ikite Yuku and anone, and won the Best Actor award for this performance.
Ono Machiko plays Mitsuo's wife, Yuka, and also plays the abusive mother in Mother. In the Best Divorce she very much steals the show from the rest of these superb actors, and won the Best Supporting Actress award for doing so.
Maki Yoko plays Akira who is Mitsuo's ex and the wife of Ryo. She is also the lead in Sakamoto's Mondai no Aru Restaurant.
Ayano Go plays plays the philandering Ryo, and also plays the abusive boyfriend of Ono Machiko's character in Mother.
Beyond Here There Be Spoilers:
It's a light, romantic comedy about divorce in which (spoiler) no one gets divorced - well, at least, not until the special. The special seems to be less well received than the original series, but I'd still recommend it for the performances, again, particularly that of Ono as Yuka. Her final statement of what she wants, and what love means is beautiful, and you'll want to shake Mitsuo for not being able to respond to it. The special does not give those two characters a happy ending, but it is true to the fact that these two mismatched humans almost certainly should have never gotten married in the first place.
The Best Divorce is a tricky series from an actor's perspective because none of the four principal characters are particularly likeable.
Eita as Mitsuo has to walk a pretty fine line between his compulsion for neatness and order, and still show some affection towards Yuka who never gives neatness and order a second thought. It would be easy to hate Mitsuo's desire to control Yuka, and Eita plays the comedic beats with a delicate touch that humanizes the character, and let's us know that he's not entirely unaware of his own foibles.
Ayano as Ryo also has a difficult role since Ryo's routine philandering is obviously hurting all the women he sleeps with including his wife Akira, and, yet, he remains seemingly utterly oblivious to that fact. He's supposed to be a TA at a college, and so he should be fairly intelligent; nonetheless, Ayano presents the character as operating in a kind of haze, only living in the moment, and moving from bed to bed as the opportunities present themselves. Ayano somehow convinces us that Ryo is possible, and that somehow the women in his life would still respond to his attentions even when it's patently clear that he will continue to drift.
Maki's Akira is a much quieter role than the other three. If you've seen Maki Yoko in other roles, you know that she can turn on her movie-star charisma and win you over at will. Here we only see that charm in flashes. Akira is calm and deliberate. She does not like Ryo's roving ways, but neither does she see herself as a victim nor Ryo as a villain. She also knows that he is still a better match for her than her ex, Mitsuo.
And then we come to Ono's Yuka. I would argue that Yuka is no more likeable than the other three. She's slovenly. She's enthusiastic, but scattered. She's not reliable in any sense. And, yet, Ono's performance is the real reason to watch this series. It's harder to see why Yuka could have fallen for Mitsuo, but it's very easy to see why Mitsuo would have fallen for Yuka. Thanks to both Ono and Eita's performances we can see that Yuka has something that Mitsuo needs, and that she could break him open and help him be a happier, healthier human being.
The Best Divorce is the stagiest of the Sakamoto dramas that I am reviewing in this series. The heights of this show occur when two to four of the characters are seated and talking to each other. Sakamoto gives us all the possible pairwise interactions, and we see the four grow closer together as they try to resolve the conflicts in the marriages. While the show does go to various locations, the best parts of this show would work as well as a play.
One of the themes of this series is that divorce is not only about the couple. Yuka has a wonderful relationship to Mitsuo's grandmother, and, though he dreads visiting them, Mitsuo is genuinely loved by Yuka's huge extended family. In fact, one of the sharpest moments of the series is when we realize that Yuka and Mitsuo relationship and problems are not all that different from those of their respective families. Leaving behind this marriage would also effect their families, and they genuinely like each other's families.
If this were Sakamoto's best series, it would be enough for an outstanding career. It is light, comedic and wise. The performances are superb, and direction lively and compassionate. While Sakamoto seems often to conflate drama with depth, when he ventures into comedy he often gets into subtler and more complex truths than his more melodramatic works. The Best Divorce might be his best exploration of what love means though the next series I shall look at, Mother, has a strong claim on that achievement as well.
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