Title: かも知れない女優たち Kamo Shirenai Joyūtachi
English Title:
- Maybe Actresses
- Perhaps Actresses
Language: Japanese
Year: 2015
Episode: 01
Cast:
- 竹内結子 Takeuchi Yūko
- 真木よう子 Maki Yōko
- 水川あさみ Mizukawa Asami
- 片桐仁 Katagiri Jin
- 升野英知 Masuno Hidetomo (バカリズム Bakarhythm)
SYNOPSIS
Maki Yōko is an actress that starred in popular films Pachigi!, Veronika wa Shinu Koto ni Shita, SP, Ryōmaden, Sayōnara Keikoku, and Soshite Chichi ni Naru. Or that would have been her life if she had passed the audition to the movie which she feels would have been the turning point of her life.
Yōko is still an actress, although a struggling one. She has always dreamed of being either an actress or a manga artist, and she considers quitting as an actress and pursuing her other dream.
Mizukawa Asami is an actress that starred in popular films Kindaichi Shōnen no Jikenbo, Saiyūki, Nodame Cantabile, Iryū, Yume o Kanaeru zō, Gō, and Ghostwriter. Or that would have been her life if she hadn't failed the audition to the movie which she feels would have been the turning point of her life.
Asami still works as an actress, but she's frustrated that she's always portraying small parts when her contemporary has had a flourishing acting career. She's thinking of giving up as an actress, and finding other permanent work.
Takeuchi Yūko is an actress that starred in popular films Asuka, Yomigaeri, Pride, Sidecar ni Inu, and Strawberry Night. Or that would have been her life if she hadn't refused to become an actress whens he was scouted in Harajuku, which she feels would have been the turning point of her life.
Yūko works as a magazine editor at a publishing company. She often daydreams about what her life would have been like if she had pursued being an actress, a profession she was always interested in.
REVIEW
Kamo Shirenai Joyūtachi is an interesting drama about three successful actresses, and what would their lives have been like if things had gone differently during what they think is the turning point of their lives.
Maki Yōko, Mizukawa Asami, and Takeuchi Yūko live completely different lives in a parallel universe. Yōko and Asami are still working as actresses, but they only get really insignificant roles that barely get shown on camera. Yūko is working as an editor but she's also not very successful in her career.
I don't know if I believe that people only have one turning point in their lives, simply because it's just too sad to think that if we miss that chance, then we don't get any other. I want to believe that there would be several major crossroads in a person's lifetime, as it seems more hopeful to think that way.
The drama has a marvelous concept of people's alternate lives, but I don't really like its execution because it doesn't seem to be very realistic at all. Although Yōko, Asami, and Yūko had gone through difficult times, they all became very successful in their chosen fields in the end.
It would have been better if one character becomes successful in a different profession, one character remains mediocre as an actress, and one character becomes unsuccessful either as an actress or in another career. That scenario would definitely cover all possible outcomes.
Anyway, I liked the part where Asami has an internal dialogue while she's having a conversation with her colleague Shiraishi Nao. What she is telling herself is completely different from what she politely communicates to Nao.
The drama didn't really show if Nao intentionally says insensitive things or that she willfully does things to offend Asami. It's difficult to say if Nao is a mean person, and maybe she's just clueless.
However, I think that scene presents Asami's own way of interpreting the situation, and it really says more about her and her state of mind and her own feelings.
Shimizu ?: A life according to the plan is not interesting at all... Like in dramas, isn't it boring if you know the development since the beginning? It's the fact that you don't know what will happen that makes it exciting.
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かも知れない女優たち Kamo Shirenai Joyūtachi
