Aishite tatte, Himitsu wa Aru (2017)

Spare the rod, Spoil the child.

Non Spoilery things about the drama overview are the fact the drama is about keeping secrets from your significant other. We as the audience are let in on the BIG secret in the beginning of the first episode. But he is not the only one with a secret.

There were so many hands trying to expose his secret it was hard to exactly suss out who the culprit was until the last few episodes. It was done in such a way that the twist did not seem heavy handed or pushed by the writer.

The acting has been panned in few of the other reviews for this title and I would like to express my take on it. The actress who plays the his mother (Suzuki Honami) is excellent at playing the dead pan look, the fake smile when in fact there are other intentions behind that mask. By making the son (Fukushi Sota) mimic the same mannerism seems very natural to me. This is paralleled in the Father-son relationship in the Tachibana household.

As far as overacting in the Reveal episodes--I see Saku as a child doing things to bully the other sibling. in that light it did not seem out of place. (this is not a spoiler unless you have seen the drama in it's entirety).

Overall I would rate this an 8.5 because the forgiveness and One True Love were shoe horned in pretty heavily.

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I criticised a lot but you know it's a 9. It is a good drama. Go ahead and watch it!
Overall, I gave it a 9 but looking at other things u know it doesn't deserve this bias of mine.  Not fond of the two leads. thought I gave the acting of the male lead's actor a go after haven't watched him in anything for a long time and his acting is not favoured in the Jdrama-community. So what am I even biased about?  I can't figure it out. I just like it for it being able to coerce the lazy me to watch one episode after another and after another. . .
- Only 5.0 for acting/cast coz they can't emote to the maximum. The young lead actress delivers sometimes but cannot sometimes. Aside from the 2 leads,  many casts are all good.  The police was great and the male lead's mom did the best acting job, second would be Kento Kaku.
- Story is 9.0 coz I like the twists, but the director shouldn't have hinted at EP8 about who it is coz smarter viewers would already be guessing right on who that is.  That hint was so obvious. Should have waited until final episode to shock viewers.
- Music: 5.0 coz I like Leo Ieiri . If I didn't like her I wouldn't even rate this this much. The way the music is used it is tooooo much; annoying is a harsh word,  and it is not annoying at all, so I would say the soundtrack is just not optimised. Scenes that shouldn't have it should not have it playing over the moment they are doing some big thing, revelation, or an epic scene, or a crucial scene. The song just makes it awkward and cheesy.
- Rewatch: 1.5  for all the reasons above.

but I'm satisfied with having watched this show. It is not a regret. It is a good show.  Recommend for everyone.

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