Papa wa Idol - (Ep 1) First Impression

The drama stars Nishikido Ryo who plays as himself. He is one of the members of a group called Kanjani8 who also plays as themselves. The group’s Jimusho or talent agency has very strict rules on what they cannot do outside the idol group such as falling in love and marrying someone. Since Ryo is an idol, he has a very tight schedule and doesn’t get much free time for himself.  However, Ryo meets and falls in love with Haruka (Yuka), a single mother with three children and works at two different part-time jobs in order to support her family financially. 

 

After six months of seeing each other, Ryo decides to pop the question and asks her to marry him, knowing that this goes against the Jimusho’s rules. He tries to keep this a secret to his group, staff, and manager, until he is ready to reveal it all. But eventually the word has gotten out. And now, his manager finds about this and gets very upset. So, his manager punishes him to make a decision within three months to either get a divorce or retire from Kanjani8.

Despite the mother agreeing to marry him, the kids, however don’t agree with this. Especially with the oldest daughter, Mei (Kawashima Umika) who won’t easily accept him as part of their family.  However, I loved the youngest daughter, Maru-chan (Tani Kanon), because she is a fan of Arashi’s Sakurai Sho and I thought it was cute. And, the funniest part was that in order to test Ryo on how serious he is about marring their mother, she asks him to get her a signed autograph from Sho. As a result, Sho and Ohno Satoshi make a small cameo appearance in the first episode. But it was hilarious to see a Kajani8 asking Arashi for an autograph. 

I’m not really a huge fan of Ryo or the Kanjani8, but I thought that this drama might be fun to watch. Plus, other Johnny boys might make cameo appearances throughout the show which I am looking forward to it.  So, I guess the rest of this series will explore Ryo's struggle to balance his celeb life with his family life and to try to convince the kids to like him. 

Update: I know that I said that this might be be fun to watch, but after watching the fourth episode, I kind of lost interest in the story. I liked the first-two episode because it was funny, especially the first episode because of the guest appearance from Arashi. But I guess I was caught in the moment. And, I thought this might be a good drama to watch. However, I am going to have to drop this drama because there's just nothing that draws me in to continue to watch this drama.