In this post, I will show you what this dorama did to me.

For most people, asadora (morning dorama) is too boring and long.

But not for Okaeri Mone!

I could marathon watching it for a week until I reach week 20.

When I write this post, the dorama had been airing to week 22 from 24.

Please watch this another good asadora that makes me curious

in the field of weather forecasting work.

 

 Okaeri means welcome home in Japanese.

And Mone is the name of this dorama's heroine, Nagaura Momone, called Mone.

I have been liking Kiyohara Kaya ever since meeting her in Natsuzora,

another asadora I have watched.

When I was watching Natsuzora, it was without subs since the Eng subs

took too long to be translated.

So I want to give many thanks for the subber who subbed Okaeri Mone in d-addicts forum.

I couldn't watch Okaeri Mone without subs since the field of work

is too hard to be translated by my retarded brain.

This will be the third time Kiyohara Kaya became an actress for NHK asadora.

Most pictures here are taken from official instagram, nhk_okaerimone.

My review contains SPOILER.

The opening part of this dorama told about Nagaura Momone (Kiyohara Kaya)

as a forestry worker in Tome.

Her hometown, Kesennuma, is only a few hours long by bus.

She worked in Tome and lived with the property's owner there, Nitta Sayaka (Natsuki Mari),

introduced by Mone's grandfather, Nagaura Tatsumi (Fuji Tatsuya).

She worked wholeheartedly in Tome, while having trauma for her hometown.

In Tome, she met a doctor who worked between the facility Sayaka's own in Tome

and Tokyo university faculty, Suganami Koutaro (Sakaguchi Kentarou).

At first, Doctor Suganami was cold to her and they only exchange greetings.

There was a time when Mone's father, Nagaura Kouji (Uchino Seiyou) came to Tome,

but Suganami refused to greet him because he rarely talk to people.

But Mone's interest changed after meeting a TV weather forecaster,

Asaoka Satoru (Nishijima Hidetoshi), who could predict weather 10 minutes before.

Mone became more interested in that field to help Sayaka and her hometown from disaster.

It's because she wasn't there when tsunami hit Kesennuma,

leaving only her little sister Nagaura Michi (Makita Aju) and

her grandmother Nagaura Masayo (Takeshita Keiko) alone at home.

At that time, Mone and her father were in another island because they went to

see Mone's college exam result, which was failed.

And her mother, Nagaura Ayako (Suzuki Kyouka) went to work at another place.

It's basically wasn't her fault, but Michi blamed Mone for not seeing the disaster herself.

 

 Mone's urge to study weather forecast became stronger after Asaoka helped her

and a kid from heavy rain at Tome's forest.

She wanted to start studying for weather forecasting exam, with only 5% success rate.

Doctor Suganami helped her studying little by little every nights.

But she failed for twice and the last, the third time, Mone finally got the certificate.

Though she had a hard time explaining to Sayaka, since Sayaka had a difficult time too.

In the end, Sayaka knew Mone's current situation from Suganami, and let her go to Tokyo.

In Tokyo, Mone stayed with a bathhouse owner, Inoue Natsu (Maiko) who also

lives with her grandparents.

And since Mone's childhood friend, Nomura Asumi (Tsunematsu Yuri) had to leave

her former living place, she also stayed at the bathhouse together with Mone.

When Mone finally started doing her job at the same company as Asaoka,

she befriend another forecasters, Jinno Mariana Riko (Imada Mio),

Uchida Mamoru (Shimizu Hiroya), and Nosaka Midori (Morita Misato).

 

 Mone and her weather team helped Asaoka of his personal plan of

forecasting weather to help a paralympic athlete, Samejima Yuki (Sugawara Koharu)

to win her trial by acknowleging her weakness with the help of wind course.

When it's finally the H-day with the help of Suganami as her doctor too,

Samejima won the trial thanks to Mone's suggestion and Asaoka's prediction.

 

Not long after working there, Asaoka retired from being a news weather caster

and decided to work in the back office and focus on his plan

to build sports section at Weather Experts.

Jinno replaced Asaoka for news part, and Mone replaced Jinno

from weather relay caster position.

She received well opinions by showing her face on TV at morning news.

And the first time she appeared, Suganami held his breath the entire show for a few minutes!

 

Mone's father and grandfather were visiting Tokyo.

Kouji, her father, came at the wrong timing since Suganami tried to touch Mone.

It was because she felt burdened by her job.

It was the time Kouji realized that Suganami might be Mone's boyfriend.

They had a fun time eating oyster, when Suganami forced himself to eat one

despite he couldn't eat oyster previously.

Before going back home, Kouji had approved Suganami to take care of Mone.

At a later date, Mone's sister, Michi, came to Tokyo too.

She needs to attend a seminar for her work and their mother wants a picture of Suganami.

 

But the problem arise when Oikawa Ryo (Nagase Ren) ran away from the ship he works

as a fisherman.

It's because he had issue with his father's drinking habit after his mother went missing in

the tsunami and earthquake that hit Kesennuma while Mone was away.

Ryo's grandmother asked his father to approve of the death certificate of his mother,

causing his father's bad habit of drinking to awaken again.

At that time, Ryo only had Mone to ask and it made Michi jealous of her older sister

since she have feelings for Ryo for a long time.

 But he made up his mind quickly after meeting Mone alone at a cafe,

and accepting his mother's death.

But after their friends arrived in Tokyo, Ryo confessed his feelings to Mone.

Mone only thought pity of him, though.

When Michi heard that, she said that Mone gave the right answer but was cold.

That time, Mone remembers about Suganami, maybe they are the same?

She begins to think about Suganami more.

 

 But Suganami wanted to focus his work in Tome and won't come to Tokyo anymore.

Maybe part of it is a jealousy from Ryo.

It made Mone realized that she need Suganami by her side.

She holds his hand and Suganami hugs Mone tightly,

the start of their long distance relationships.

Their separation finally came after Suganami decided to focus as a doctor in Tome.

They didn't have much time together because of their busy jobs.

It's too bad since the two of them has only just begun.

They could only meet once every 2 months.

It makes Natsu, the house owner in Tokyo sad, because they only talk about work when they meet.

But Ryo said she only have naive thoughts of helping her hometown.

Mone didn't want to take it to mind and started doing local radio broadcast about weather,

with the help of her childhood friend, Hayasaka Yuto (Takada Hyoga)

and a senior civil servant in Kesennuma, Endo Katsutoshi (Yamadera Koichi).

Little by little, her seriousness got good reviews from locals and they accepted Mone's

weather forecast to help them doing activities such as catching abalone or autumn festival.

What will happen in the future?

Another 5 weeks to go before the ending.

Will Mone's work bring people to happiness?

Will she get married to Suganami?

And what about her family?

All of them has different paths.

But will they reach a meeting point?

I hope Mone can find her happiness too by being at her beloved people's side.

What I like about asadora is the stories are mostly about women's struggle at work.

Okaeri Mone followed that pattern very well.

It is mostly divided into three parts of the heroine's life,

from childhood, teen, adult.

 If I must compare with Natsuzora, I like Okaeri Mone more.

It has more cute and funny moments, more touching dialogues,

more interactions with people, more serious problems at work.

Okaeri Mone could bring in the audience into the disaster Mone and Weather Experts team

were working at.

At week 18, there was a typhoon in Tokyo, followed by flood at Banba River,

and tornado in Kesennuma.

I could feel their hard working moments in numerous days of disaster,

the news team must do overwork and stay at the office.

Also, I laughed a lot at Mone and Suganami moments.

Suganami couldn't catch things easily and explained about his right brain.

Mone gave him a comment not to think anything while catching though.

At the time Mone's father came, Suganami was nervous.

He was cute there, when refusing to eat oysters and put the plate back to Kouji.

They are a cute couple, but always talk about work.

Most people will find it boring as a drama,

but I like couples like that who can separate problem at work and love,

backing each other's problem and gives solution.

Suganami is also a good and caring guy inside.

He changed from a cold person after meeting Mone,

but he's actually caring in the past.

It's because of a trauma.

 

 

I mostly cried when Sayaka must cut her favorite 300 years old tree.

And about Mone's family, especially her grandfather's story.

Maybe because I had lost all of my grandparents that I could feel

Mone's feelings of protecting her old parents.

 

But I found stories, example about Ryo's father, Oikawa Shinji (Asano Tadanobu) boring.

And also story about Ryo itself, maybe because he have many depression moments.

A bit boring about Samejima actually, but I was glad that at that time,

Mone and Suganami got closer too.

Actually, I'm still curious about Udagawa, who live with Natsu in Tokyo.

But until Mone went back to Kesennuma, that person didn't appear at all.

And now, I'm interested if Mone will accept Suganami's marriage proposal later.

I want more of Mone-Suganami screentime!

Please let them meet again.

When Mone worked in Tokyo, Suganami decided to work full time in Tome.

And at the time Suganami chose to study more as a surgeon in Tokyo so

he can marry Mone, she went back to Kesennuma!

Gosh, I want them to live together as Suganami wish!!!

But at that time, Mone was still 24 years old.

Suganami accepted that and let her do as she wish.

Please try watching Okaeri Mone, especially if you just start watching asadora.

The setting is in modern time, not old in the past, for example word war era.

And more funny scenes!

There are many good dialogues there to empower people at work.

Especially to give something to one's hometown.

The nature's environment really boost up my mood (especially in Tome)

and they are beautifully shot.

I like how Japanese drama's characters are wearing normal clothes in rural area.

They really are depicting Japanese daily fashion so much.

Mone is mostly using oversize shirts in white.

So when she wears dark blue clothes, she feels different, prettier.

 

 After Okaeri Mone, the next asadora will be Come Come Everybody.

But I don't know if I will watch it or not, since the actors are mostly unknown to me,

especially the predicted male leads.

Kamishiraishi Mone is not my favorite actress too.

Although the first part might be about wagashi, I love them.

I'm afraid it will be boring compared to Okaeri Mone.

But might try if I find it interesting later.

Maybe doing marathon like this will help me watching long episodes

because I can't stand long stories.

The series has ended now.

I thought of not updating my review,

but I chose to write my feelings about the final week.

It is not as I thought.

The series ended without much conclusion to Mone's job.

She is still living in Kesennuma, maybe helping the people there.

But I don't understand with what happened after 2,5 years

of supporting the village through radio.

Mone might have changed her job?

The finale doesn't describe that.

And what surprised me is this!

She didn't live together with Suganami even after marriage (?)

I don't know if they've married or not in the last scene because

they haven't met for 2,5 years!

But considering the scene where Mone's father asked Suganami

if they will live separately after getting married,

I think they've married in the last scene.

It's just that they're not living together.

This couple really gives me a refreshing story of hardworking couple.

I like this kind stories rather than happily ever after.