Traditional Japanese Arts in Dramas
It’s been a while since I decided to write an article but after watching this drama I felt the need to convey its amazing charms so it can reach more people. I find this drama is so underrated, it has only been seen by 363 users and has been rated by 72 users. Those statistics are really sad to see for such a nice drama.
Shizuka-chan to Papa’s genres are Comedy, Family, and Sitcom but this could easily fit in the Slice of Life and Romantic Comedy genres. This drama is a short story of 8 episodes but every episode is full of warmness and endearing characters.
The story follows Shizuka and her father who is deaf since birth. They both live in a small town which has been scheduled to be demolished as part of a project of town renewal. Shizuka and her father live peacefully and happily in that town along other neighbors who are considered part of their family. The Male Lead is part of the team for the town renewal, so that’s how he comes into play.
First of all, I would like to talk about the characters. All of them are really well written and have a definite purpose. Each character plays an important role in the story and helps it move forward. The interesting part of the characters is that there’s not really a villain in the story. At first glance, there are characters that will make you think you found your villain but then the story will give you a slap in the face. One of the greatest strengths of this drama is how they tell you that every person can be “defined” a certain way depending on the eyes of the person who is looking at them. There’s a phrase one of the characters says that really reflects this:
The only person who can decide whether someone is pitiful or not is that person alone. Do not make assumptions about whether someone should be pitied.
You get to see several types of relationships: The friendship, or should I say family, that is made between all the neighbors living there. The friendship/sibling relationship between Shizuka and her childhood friend, Yasu-nii, which is really refreshing to see because most of the time this kind of relationships ends up becoming an unrequited love from the guy and makes us enter the most cliched love triangle. There’s also a platonic relationship that is formed between Papa and a teacher called Sakura. And more importantly, there are the father-daughter and mother-son relationships of our main leads. Though the mother-son relationship is not the main focus nor is displayed throughout all of the drama, it’s an important one that also brings us one of the greatest scenes in this drama when Keiichi’s mom has a talk with Papa.
There’s also the romance part that, even though romance is not a genre of this drama, is definitely present here. Shizuka and Keiichi have one of the sweetest romances I have seen in a dorama. The love confession is also one of the sweetest ever! Both characters grow together and improve their current selves by learning from each other and discovering things totally new to them. In some way, they encourage each other and learn to be comfortable with their personalities which many found to be not “normal”. Their relationship development is really natural in the way they end up understanding each other. There’s also another phrase the ML says that really resounded with me:
Dreams are not a requirement. Dreams aren’t something you look for, they come from behind you. They chase you whether you run away or not, so you don’t have to look for them.
Finally, I want to mention the incredible casting because nothing I mentioned before would have been possible if they didn’t have the correct actors to display such an amazing script. This is the first time I had the chance to see Shofukutei Tsurube in a starring role and I do understand why he has been in the entertainment business for so many years, it wasn’t easy to portray a deaf person but he did it magnificently. There’s also Nakajima Yuto who is making very good choices with the characters he’s playing so I believe he will keep growing as an actor, I’m looking forward to seeing that.
So I hope that, if you read this till the end, I have intrigued you enough to give this lovely dorama a try because I really think it deserves more love than it’s getting.
Edited by: devitto (1st editor)
