Taisetsu na Koto wa Subete Kimi ga Oshiete Kureta 5

This episode takes a turn that I was expecting, weakening the story's impact but also making it more palatable.  Ultimately, I'm OK with the change, if slightly irritated by how many problems have and will continue to stem directly from a lack of communication.  If characters just talked to each other in dramas, 99% of the issues would never even become issues...

It's set to continue with the angst and intensity in upcoming episodes, but they're now positioned to at least have the potential of a socially-acceptable happy ending.  But since it's a jdrama, they may decide to eschew the happy ending altogether.

Summary:
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As Kashiwagi is leaving, Uemura returns to the school and makes some attempt to defend him against the students' bullying.  Kashiwagi is awaiting discipline from the school committee and the principal insists he continue coming to school in the interim, to face what he's done to the students and Uemura.  Saeki's mother is keeping her home from school, but Saeki wants to go, saying she has something important to explain.

After school one day, Uemura meets Kashiwagi and explains her doubts that he actually slept with Saeki.  It's too unlike him and he could be covering up for Saeki.  She sets off, intent on finding the truth for herself.

She meets again with Kashiwagi's brother and learns the truth about that night after she left.  Kashiwagi's brother had attacked their mother and the brother had then proceeded to blame his entire life on Kashiwagi. Uemura then goes to the hospital to meet up with Saeki for her side of the story.  Before Saeki explains, Kashiwagi nearly collapses.  The nurse tells her she's anemic and should see a doctor; Uemura leaves again without an explanation from Saeki.

Tired of hurting people, Saeki goes to the school to the school to explain things fully.  As Kashiwagi is facing his students and taking the blame, she interrupts, saying everything was a lie.  We then learn the full explanation behind that night.

Saeki explains to the students about her condition, her dead sister, and her parents' broken marriage.  She says she had wanted to feel like her sister, so she'd dressed and put on make up, gone out that night and allowed herself to be picked up by a random man.  She slept with him and immediately regretted it.  She ran into Kashiwagi at a cafe later that night purely by chance.

Kashiwagi was drunk after the falling out with his brother.  Saeki struck up a conversation with him, then helped him get home that night.  He drunkenly stripped and went to bed and she followed him in without his knowledge.  Regretting her one night stand and wishing it had been with him, she crawled into bed with him and had taken the photo as a keepsake.

In the aftermath, Uemura talks about how everything can return to the way it was, but Kashiwagi worries that Saeki will have no one by her side.  When Saeki shows up to school the next day, Kashiwagi is the only one that greets her.

From a brief flashback, we find out that Uemura is 7 weeks pregnant and also submitted paperwork to cancel their wedding.  As the episode ends, she angstily muses that Kashiwagi may be in love for the first time and that she can't stand in the way...

Taisetsu na Koto wa Subete Kimi ga Oshiete Kureta Ep 4

Another crazy-intense episode and this time they break out the heavy hitting dialogue, too! This is definitely an "all grown up" series for Miura Haruma (although I suppose he's been playing some really mature roles even since he was a kid in "14 Sai no Haha").

Summary:
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After reading her worrisome journal posts, Kashiwagi runs to Saeki and meets her at a cafe.  Presumably, this is the cafe where they first met? It's unclear how he knew where to find her.  Uemura calls Kashiwagi while he's there and Kashiwagi hangs up on her.  Kashiwagi gives Sonoda's cell phone to Saeki and tells her the entries made him want to "see the real her".  She asks if they can just go back to being student and teacher, but Kashiwagi says he can't pretend nothing happened.

Kashiwagi missed dozens of Uemura's calls while he was meeting with Saeki and sending her home.  They meet in front of a park and Uemura freaks out on him a bit.  She asks if he's in love with Saeki.

The Nurse, Aya, visits a grave site and meets with Saeki's father.  Aya was apparently in the same accident as Saeki and her sister.  She also has a mini-flashback to her phone call to the school--it turns out she didn't tell them about the affair.

At school, Uemura is starting to lose it, while Saeki claims she's trying to forget the entire incident for Kashiwagi's sake.

Later, Uemura and her roommate are opening wedding RSVPs when Uemura begins to cry.  She tells her roommate about Kashiwagi's affair and admits she doesn't feel like herself anymore.  She skips school the next day.

Aya stops Kashiwagi for a chat after school and tells him it's because he's a teacher that she can't forgive him.  Kashiwagi takes it to heart and visit's his family's shop afterwards.  He apologizes in advance to them that things are going to be difficult, but he will work them out.

Kashiwagi then tells Uemura he plans to tell the school he's slept with a student (although to protect Saeki he plans to keep her identity a secret).  Uemura asks him to forget about it, saying that she can forgive and forget, but only if no one else knows what happened.  She freaks out again, asking "What's wrong with living as a scumbag teacher who sacrificed his student for his own happiness?!"  Kashiwagi has too many principles and Uemura feels burdened by them.

Nurse Aya messages Saeki that she's coming to the school to tell them what happened.  She can't let it go.  Saeki runs to stop her, abandoning her cell phone on her desk in the classroom.  A classmate picks up the phone and finds the blackmail photo of Kashiwagi sleeping.  Soon, the entire class knows.

Kashiwagi walks into the classroom and they confront him.  Saeki tries to pass the photo off as something else, but no one buys it.  Kashiwagi admits it and apologizes to the class.  A lot of powerful accusations are tossed around and one kid attacks him.  The teachers get involve, send Uemura home and isolate Saeki in the nurse's office.

As Uemura is on her way home, she gets nauseous and then very worried--perhaps she's pregnant?

Saeki goes to leave with Sonoda but stops when she sees Kashiwagi bowing down to all the other teachers...

Scenes of Note:
There were a ton of noteworthy scenes in this episode, but the best might be the class confronting him.  There are a number of great Uemura-freak-out bits, too.

Taisetsu na Koto wa Subete Kimi ga Oshiete Kureta Ep 3

Another intense episode with character development out the wazoo--none of the roles are black-and-white at this point.  So much happened in this episode, I'm curious to see how the series will run for 10 episodes if this pace keeps up.

I wonder if it was weird for Toda Erika to be romantically involved with a younger actor?  It's only 2 years, but the difference between a 21 year old and a 23 year old can be pretty big...Miura Haruma was playing a high-schooler just one year ago (Bloody Monday 2) and Toda Erika's been playing post-high school characters since at least 2007 (Liar Game)...

I'm torn between loving the soundtrack by Pink and hating its upbeat placement among really serious scenes.  But her typically angry music sort of fits and it definitely adds to the tension of the serious scenes...

Summary:
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The episode starts with Uemura seeing the blackmail picture of Kashiwagi, sent by Saeki.  She now has no doubt that the two slept together. Before Kashiwagi & Uemura can talk things through, Uemura gets a call that her father's been hospitalized.  The two rush over and nearly run into Saeki at the hospital.  They learn that Uemura's father will be fine with just a hernia and they quickly go to leave.  Kashiwagi heads down to the lobby ahead of Uemura and has just enough time to run into Saeki and the nurse before Uemura catches up.  Saeki happily introduces them to the nurse as "the man I slept with and his fiancee".  Saeki makes it clear to the nurse how much she's enjoying messing with the couple.

In this episode, we learn the details of Uemura's condition.  She has Congenital Ovarian Dysfunction, in which medication is needed to produce secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts and menstruation.  We also learn that Saeki acquired her arm scars in an accident 4 years previous.

Kashiwagi follows Uemura home and says its up to her to decide if she wants to stay together or proceed with the wedding.  Uemura flips out at Kashiwagi, saying that she shouldn't have to decide all the important things and leaves it up to him to think about their future.

At school, they are both noticeably depressed.  Saeki corners Kashiwagi in the cafeteria, promising she'll do anything to separate them.

Uemura confronts Kashiwagi's brother at the family liquor store to ask about the night before school started. The Kashiwagi brothers were together when she had left early, that evening.  Kashiwagi's brother claims Kashiwagi had left early and that nothing had happened.

Uemura and Kashiwagi arrange to meet after school one night to talk things over.  When Kashiwagi gets home, he finds Saeki had used the key to get into his apartment.  Uemura walks in shortly after and almost flees, seeing the two together.  Kashiwagi gives a great little speech about how he loves Uemura and he's sorry that he hurt Saeki, but he has no intention of letting things continue.  Saeki returns the key and flees, while Uemura stays.  Kashiwagi then tells Uemura he wants to cancel the wedding before the school hears anything about the affair.  He's clearly still feeling guilty and wants to protect Uemura.  Uemura leaves, hurt and angry, grousing about how Kashiwagi is too honest and she would have forgiven him.

Saeki flees in tears to Sonoda, her short-haired friend with the money problems.  It becomes clear that Saeki  had been putting on a brave front and she truly did have feelings for Kashiwagi.  She associates Kashiwagi rejecting her with her not being a "real girl" because of her disorder.

Saeki skips school for several days and Sonoda begins to worry.  After Kashiwagi gives a lecture about how "slugs are not defective snails," Sonoda ties Kashiwagi back to Saeki's mystery man.  Saeki had posted the same comment to her blog, saying she'd overheard a man saying that and fell in love with him for it.  Sonoda corners Kashiwagi about the affair, claiming he'd played with Saeki's feelings.

Because Saeki had skipped school for so many days, Kashiwagi has to do a home-visit.  He meets with Saeki's mom while Saeki is at the hospital.  Saeki comes home as he's leaving, along with the nurse from the hospital.  The nurse is now able to connect Kashiwagi as both the guy Saeki slept with and her homeroom teacher.

Saeki and Kashiwagi go for a walk, in which Saeki explains about the accident which killed her perfect older sister, some details about her illness, and her true feelings for him.  Kashiwagi begins to feel bad for her.

Uemura goes to the wedding planning office and picks out the cake and menu.  She calls Kashiwagi to tell him she needs him and still wants to get married.  They're on the verge of making up, when Kashiwagi gets a call that Saeki is missing.  Seeing her recent foreboding blog posts, he gets a bit freaked out and goes running off.  Meanwhile, the nurse calls the school office with some information about Kashiwagi...
Scenes of Note:
The scene where Uemura tells Kashiwagi she still wants to be together on the phone, then Kashiwagi goes running off and you're not quite sure who he's running to...

Taisetsu na Koto wa Subete Kimi ga Oshiete Kureta Ep 1 & 2

This series has much greater intensity than I expected.  For the longest time, the uber-dorky promo picture had turned me off from this series, even though I knew I wanted to see it.  So far, I'm nervous the entire time I'm watching it.  I'm rooting for Miura Haruma and don't want to see bad things happen to his character, even if he's partially at fault.

It definitely has some of the appeal of Akai Ito and Koizora, for their similar focus on teenage sexuality and the anticipation of bad things happending to the characters (and maybe they deserve it a little, but you still root for them).  It has less similarity with Majo no Jouken, even though they both focus on teacher-student relationships.  In Majo no Jouken the teacher-student couple was the one to root for and this is definitely not the case here.

Summary:
Show Summary

The basic premise is that Kashiwagi Shuji (played by Miura Haruma) is a young high school teacher.  He's popular with students, parents and other teachers.  He's currently engaged to another teacher, Uemura Natsumi (played by Toda Erika) to complete his ho-hum perfect life.  The series starts with Kashiwagi waking up late on the first day of school, with no memories of the night before, and finding a strange girl in his bed.  He gives her a key to lock up after herself, with instructions to leave the key in the mail box (this apparently is the choice way to handle a one night stand in Japan according to all the dramas I've seen).

At school, he starts his first day of class and soon finds that the girl he slept with is a student, Saeki Hikari (played by Takei Emi).  Throughout the episode we learn she's sort of obsessed with Kashiwagi and she starts to get close to his fiance, Uemura, by joining the basketball team where Uemura is the coach.  Saeki isn't at all secretive about her dislike for Uemura--she says things like "I adore you and want to destroy you" and tosses a basketball at Uemura's face.  She's further developed as the villain by her blackmail material--a photo of Kashiwagi sleeping from the morning-after on her cell phone and has held onto the key that she was supposed to lock up with and leave in the mail box.  Saeki also has a mysterious illness that apparently requires taking medication at school and frequent trips to the gynecology department of a hospital.

Kashiwagi goes through his days feeling horrendously guilty and hypocritical.  He tries to continue as a strong role model to his homeroom and even has to give a mini-lecture on teenaged sex.  He emphasizes the importance of not sleeping with someone casually and how sex will change you and your relationships, feeling like a hypocrit the entire time.  Kashiwagi is paranoid that someone will find out throughout the episodes, and rightly so, as by the end of the second episode Saeki has emailed Uemura the sleeping blackmail photo.

As a side note, we learn about some of the individual students who are facing problems such as working part-time at a maid cafe due to their parents debt and a high school couple who is adjusting to their relationship becoming more serious and intimate.  We also learn that Uemura's roommate, who is planning their wedding, is a childhood friend of both Uemura and Kashiwagi and was previously in love with Kashiwagi.  Kashiwagi's brother also appears to hold some grudge against the couple.

Scenes of Note:

• The first few minutes of the first episode, where Kashiwagi finds an unknown girl in his bed.
• The middle of the first episode, where Kashiwagi has a nightmare that Saeki announces the affair in class.
• The end of the first episode, where Kashiwagi gives a lecture on teenage sex.
• The end of the first episode, where Saeki confronts him, asking "did you change after you had sex with me?"
• The beginning of the second epsiode, which sums up the first episode.
• The scene toward the beginning of the second episode, where Kashiwagi freaks out, "Why are the woman I'm marrying and the woman I slept with playing catch!" and then Saeki confronts him in his lab.