mokudekiru

Marriage hunting. That’s the meaning of the title of one of this summer’s jdramas, Konkatsu!, which ended this past Monday.

Kuniyuki (played by SMAP’s Nakai Masahiro) is a tragically unlucky guy, and when he gets accidentally and unfairly fired from his job, he has to go job-hunting. In today’s crap economy of course, this means he is especially desperate, and ends up lying to get a job that is looking for a married person, claiming that yes, he is intending to marry soon.

Everyone who knows Kuniyuki’s family hears the news, assumes he’s engaged, and throws a big engagement party in his honor. Great, now all he has to do is find someone to marry, so he doesn’t look like a complete ass.

Instead of going for the girl-next-door, Haruno (Ueto Aya) who has clearly been in love with him for YEARS, he remains completely oblivious to her feelings, and instead twiddles his thumbs while wondering, “who can I get to marry me?”

Kuniyuki and Haruno at their best:

He gets two other coworkers to accompany him on various 合コン (goukon) excursions (group dates), arranged by a matchmaking service. He has to be kind of sneaky about this, because it’s really not smooth to be seen at a goukon when you’re supposedly engaged…

The matchmaking (konkatsu) dates are essentially a bunch of different parties where the men and women mingle for fixed periods of times and then switch partners. In the show, konkatsu parties included: golf-konkatsu, cooking-konkatsu, pottery-konkatsu, even buddhist-meditation-konkatsu parties!

The woman who runs the matchmaking service, played by Ryo, is Kuniyuki’s childhood friend, and though she appears as a potential marriage candidate herself, she has gone through divorce before, has two small children, and is a little too wise to just let Kuniyuki marry her out of some obligatory feelings.

Ryo, just as hot as she was in her premier Long Vacation in 1996:

At the matchmaking dates, they discover Shaku Yumiko’s character, who is an unapologetic gold-digger. She considers herself too old, wise, and down-to-earth for those romantic ideals that Haruno, in her early 20s, still possesses. Every guy just has to fall for her at some point in the show, but she’s pretty hard to get.

Shaku Yumiko knows what she wants.

Meanwhile, the best friend, Sato Ryuta, goes through heartache after heartache, as he falls for each girl in turn, none of who return his feelings. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box, but his naiveté is charming and he’s very loyal to his friends. Kuniyuki would be nowhere without him.

Sato Ryuta is lovesick:

Konkatsu is real:
So it turns out that marriage hunting is an actual trend in Japan, perhaps to help counteract that pesky old declining birthrate. Even the matchmaking agencies depicted in the show are real and apparently thriving. See this Japan Times article for more info — apparently there are dating services that match women up with single doctors and dentists (maybe Shaku Yumiko should have tried one of those!)

On the title of the show:
I already explained that konkatsu is marriage hunting. Normally the word would be written like this: 婚活, and see Japannewbie’s article on konkatsu, a great explanation of where the word came from (it’s not a standard Japanese word, it’s actually one of those hip new combo words). But note that the show’s title is written 婚カツ in which the second character is written in katakana (but pronounced like “katsu” still). The title is actually a pun (Ohhh Japanese and puns…) on the word トンカツ tonkatsu, a food you may be familiar with. Kuniyuki’s dad runs a tonkatsu restaurant in a declining shopping center, and sees almost no customers. Kuniyuki himself, hates tonkatsu. There’s probably lots of cute symbolism here that I don’t care to explore.

Kuniyuki’s dad is played by Kohinata Fumiyo, who, if you haven’t seen before, you’re probably living under a rock. But seriously, he’s great in any and every role I’ve ever seen him in.

In Konkatsu, Kohinata is a stubborn dad and tonkatsu chef:

The show is cute, has an all-star cast, aside from the weakest link is Kuniyuki himself. He’s not awful, but a little dull and I don’t see what Haruno sees in him… Otherwise though, all the other characters are scene-stealers and despite a slightly underdeveloped script, the cast kept me coming back for more every week.

If you’re still desperate for one more reason to watch the show, and you happen to be a fangirl of the KAT-TUN member with some seriously oversized lips, Ueda Tatsuya… you can see him play Kuniyuki’s little brother, an ultra-feminine hairdressing fiend who has a small but memorable role.

Tatsuya’s lips from an angle that makes them look almost proportional. Don’t let them fool you:

And one last thing I just had to include…
Although Tatsuya’s character is allegedly straight, there is this one really weird moment halfway through the final episode, between Kuniyuki and his creepy coworker. I didn’t notice any similar incidents anywhere else in the drama, so while all the other characters ended up with their mates predictably, this was some way random unfinished business. All I can say is, uhhh……. enjoy? I left a few seconds of Haruno at the beginning of the clip so you can see her with an undistorted face, unlike in the screencap above :)