Karei Naru Ichizoku

English title: Story of a splendid family/ The Grand Tribe

For a starter, I intentionally choose this drama for some reasons. It is quite unusual for me to be interested in a serious drama that full of family’s problems and politics. Aside from that point, I do like the fact that my favorite actor, Kimura Takuya, took the main role here as Manpyo Teppei. If you one of Kimutaku’s fans, this is a must watch. You will see another side of Kimutaku’s acting.

The backgrounds

The story takes place in Kansai prefecture in the late ’60s, which is considered as industrial time in Japan. The center of the story is all about the conflict and hatred between father and his first son.

Main characters

Manpyo Keisuke, actually he is a side-character but it seems that he is the source of the problems occurring in the family. Keisuke was a very successful businessman who owned the major business and bank in the country and everyone respects and remembers him as a wise and great leader. Nevertheless, he was also secretly known as a playboy. Keisuke may have done something to his own son’s wife and some other women (mentioned in the story). Because of this, his son, Daisuke has never liked him. Moreover after Teppei was born, Keisuke kept telling Daisuke that Teppei has more potential than Daisuke and he would be like his grandpa, a successful person. Keisuke had a big koi fish called Shogun. The strange thing is that only Keisuke and Teppei can call the fish by clapping their hands, even Daisuke cannot call Shogun.

Manpyo Teppei is the eldest in the family and the first grandchild of Manpyo clan, one of the wealthiest families in Kansai. He is also an expert in steel product, who graduated from Tokyo University and received a master degree from a university in US. After his grandfather, Manpyo Keisuke died, Teppei was given the steel factory (Hanshin steel factory) while Teppei’s father, Manpyo Daisuke inherited the bank business (Hanshin bank). Like in the common traditional noble Japanese families, Teppei was arranged married with one of the most powerful minister’s daughter, Sanae. Fortunately, they are matched for each other and blessed with a son.

Manpyo Daisuke has a wife, a mistress (will be explained later) two sons and two daughters, Teppei, Ichiko, Ginpei, and the youngest Sugiko. Since the beginning of the story Daisuke shows that he dislikes his first son very much even he knows that Teppei has a big potential and the talent to bring Manpyo business to the top.

Back to the time before Teppei was born. Daisuke’s wife, Yasuko was bathing when suddenly grandpa Keisuke entered the bathroom only in his towel. Due to the room temperature and her confusion, Yasuko fainted without knowing what happened afterwards (the movie’s synopsis wrote that Keisuke did rape Yasuko in the bathroom). Young Daisuke, who just went back from work, ran fast to his room to check his wife condition (he’s informed about Yasuko’s condition by the maid) and found Keisuke was in the room taking care of Yasuko and praising her beauty in front of Daisuke. After Keisuke left the room, Yasuko slowly awoke and when she learnt that her husband had already been there, she start crying aloud in confusion.
Not long afterwards, Yasuko became pregnant with Teppei. Since that day onwards, Daisuke suspects that Teppei is actually not his.

Yasuko, Daisuke’s wife and Teppei’s mother who comes from a noble family in Japan. She always appears wearing a traditional Japanese kimono in the dorama. She was educated as a Japanese lady who dedicates her life fully for her husband and family. As the result, she cannot say a thing against her husband and his mistress but still she patiently does her role as the official first woman in Manpyo family without complaining.

Takasu Aiko, she came to Manpyo family as private teacher for Daisuke’s children 19 years ago. As the time passed, she slowly gained trust and attention from Daisuke. These have made her to be unofficial Daisuke’s 2nd wife and takes care all the household affairs including omiyai (arranged married) for each Daisuke’s children. All Manpyo’s family members except Daisuke and Ichiko’s husband dislike her but can do nothing because she is protected by Daisuke. Daisuke shows his affection towards Aiko even more in front of Yasuko as his revenge to what had happened in the past. Even worse, Daisuke, Yasuko, and Aiko sleep in the same bedroom with three beds.

Manpyo Ginpei, the second son in the family (and always be the second in everything). He is envying his brother very much as he is never given such a big company like Teppei, cannot speak out against his father, and he works only as an ordinary employee of Daisuke’s bank. However, Daisuke always shows his care and encourages Ginpei to do his best because someday Ginpei will be given the bank.

The story of Blast Furnace & the Banks

After finishing his study in US, Teppei works hard together with all workers to produce best quality steel in the country. For making good steel, the company needs two kinds of irons. The first one is scrap iron, which is easy to get from unused irons (trash) and the other iron is “pig iron,” which at that time is only produced and supplied by one company in Japan (Teikoku steel). The fact that the supplier of iron pig is also Teppei’s biggest competitor has made it even difficult to get adequate supply. Moreover after the customers like Teppei’s steel more than the competitor, they decide to limit and plan to stop the supply so that Hanshin cannot manufacture steel anymore.

Teppei grew up and he resembles grandpa Keisuke more and more everyday. This convinced Daisuke even more that Teppei could be the fruit of Yasuko and grandpa Keisuke’ relationship. Obviously, he never speaks it and Teppei can only feel that his father treats him differently from his only younger brother, Ginpei. Therefore Teppei tries to get his father’s attention by working hard to make his company become Japan’s number one in steel business.

His biggest dream is to build a Blast Furnace to produce his own “pig iron” in order to overcome the limited supply of this iron. For this project purpose, the company does need huge amount of money and yet it is not easy to get loans. As his father is the head of Hanshin bank and the main funds of his company come from this bank, Teppei expects his father to support his proposal with open heart. Unexpectedly, Daisuke truly expects that Teppei will fail terribly by limiting and making difficult the fund injection from his bank to finance Teppei’s project.

Meanwhile all banks in Japan are facing finance-restructuring. The ministry of finance is planning to merge some banks especially from the big ten (Hanshin is number 9th). Teppei may have come at the wrong time of that period, when he sends his proposal, almost all banks see the projects too risky and decide to reject the proposal in order to defend theirselves from merger and hostile takeover by other banks. As I remember, Daisuke gives Teppei a deadline to collect the funds. If he fails, Daisuke asks Teppei’s to forget about the dream and to never bother him again with the project.

In the end, Teppei receives a hand from his father-in-law, who is no other than the minister who is running for prime minister election in few months. Teppei always considers his father-in-law as his godfather (actually he loves Teppei as his own son even more than Daisuke). Through him, some banks approved to inject some funds for the Blast Furnace proposal.

Comments

So that’s just a brief introduction of this dorama. I wish I could put some more pictures (of Kimutaku of course hohohohoho–just kidding) and review each episode. But it takes time and I need to find that time. Anyway, from this dorama I learn that business is interesting to tell as a story. It can be so tricky and yet so cruel and dirty; betraying own family and utilizing many tricks just to survive and be the biggest of all. The good one is not always the winner.

 

J-dee

I like watching Asian dramas, especially Japanese ones. Japanese drama is mostly known as J-dorama or just dorama (ドラマ the katakana is read: dorama). As you can notice from the pronounciation, dorama is nothing else than the word “drama” in Japanese.

The idea of this blog is simple, it is created to review those J-doramas that I know. Some may sound quite new while the other dorama may be very nostalgic (back to my ’90s). Hopefully, the review would be also useful for those of you who are dorama’s lovers.

Lea