Bara no Nai Hanaya is a Jdrama starring Katori Shingo (SMAP) and Takeuchi Yuko (Pride).
Synopsis:
Shiomi Eiji is forced to become a single father when his girlfriend passes away while giving birth to their daughter, Shizuku. Desolate after the loss of the woman he loved, Eiji has little time or desire to even consider remarrying, working part-time jobs just to make ends meet. The one thing that gives meaning and joy to his life is Shizuku, but even that begins to trouble him when Shizuku begins acting strange, hiding her face by putting a cloth over her head when around other people.
One day after opening his flower shop, Eiji comes across a blind woman standing by the door, taking shelter from the rain. When he invites her to come inside the shop, she at first refuses, but later gives in to Eiji’s kindness. They become intimate friends and she slowly grows to depend on Eiji’s sincerity and goodheartedness. After rescuing her a following evening when she walks into the street and is nearly struck by traffic, Eiji himself inexplicably discovers the cold of winter that has saddled his heart all these years slowly melting away…
I’ve always found Jdrama’s synopsis to be quite boring, and sometimes misleading. At first the drama sounds really boring to me… and the lack of a handsome male lead is another reason to be troubled over. But I gave this drama and chance anyway and surprisingly, it’s good.
Katori Shingo is not particularly handsome and he doesn’t carry a certain aura of attractiveness like Kimura Takuya. But, I love love love him in this drama as the almost-too-gentle Eiji aka hanaya-san. His smooth, deep voice is to die for… I think it’s his biggest attraction.
And plus, there’s Matsuda Shota.. what can you hate about him? The guy always has such weird roles that I’ve stopped being surprised. This time he’s a private-detective… but he’s almost playing something like Kurosagi. Everytime I think of Matsuda Shota.. it’s always that mystery… “is he a good person? is he a bad person?” His characters are always like that.. very mysterious… you can’t clearly say that he’s good or bad.. because he’s both. And I like those type of characters so much more than the one-sided “goody-two shoes” or the “beyond-bad-and-evil”..
