The summer 2018 J-doramas are done or nearly done with airing and there were three big name cast ones caught my eye. Ueno Juri was back with the J-remake of Good Doctor and Ishihara Satomi was being her most fabulous self with Takane no Hana (English title Born to be a Flower), but the ratings winner ended up being Ayase Haruka‘s family slice-of-life dorama Gibo to Musume no Blues (Stepmom to Daughter Blues) adapted from a popular manga. The dorama started off with 11.5% ratings and nowadays premiering in double digits is a win already, and the ratings went up steadily with a few small blips to the most recent episode 7 hitting 15.1%.

Audiences are connected to the story of a capable working woman who marries a man with a daughter and becomes her stepmom, and there is a twist in this story as well, but it boils down to she tries her best in her no nonsense work style way to raise her and be a good stepmom. Ayase Haruka gets two awesome leading men here in Takenouchi Yutaka as her husband and Takeru Sato as the younger man with a crush on her, and the story spans 10 years in narrative from when the little daughter is in elementary school through high school. I’ve heard nothing but raves for this dorama so check it out! Continue reading →