Sachiiro No One Room Review

Drama: A Little Room For Hope (English title)
Romaji: Sachiiro no Wan Rumu
Japanese: 幸色のワンルーム
Actors: Anna Yamada, Shuhei Uesugi
Director: Ryuichi Honda
Writer: Hakuri (webtoon), Shinya Hokimoto
Network: TV Asahi, ABC

The backslash this drama is getting is coming from people who think this drama is romanticizing the idea of kidnapping, but if they just proceed and watched the show they would realized why the guy done it, in fact I wouldn't call it kidnapping but giving shelter to a pitiful girl. 

I'll give you a heads up if you expect something like romantic love in this drama you would be a bit disappointed as I don't see it as portrayed as romantic but more of a platonic love, it's the same feeling when we see a cute stray cat, it makes us wants to keep it and make it safe from harm.

Sachiiro no Wan Rumu is based on a manga of the same name, it's kind of famous on manga fans so expect it will also get anime adaptation soon. As for the story, it's about a girl who experienced all types of abused imaginable, from being bullied at school, raped by a teacher and even his parents abused her at home. She's probably one of the most miserable characters I've ever seen. She doesn't have a place where she can feel comfortable. One day, a man wearing a mask kidnapped her and gave her the name Sachi. He promised Sachi to make her happy and for the first time Sachi felt loved and finally experienced happiness. Sachi then propose the two of them play tag with the police, if he managed to get away they will get married but if they get caught they will commit suicide together.

This is slightly darker but heartwarming drama which presents you gray areas in life, a story that transcends our definitions of moral and immoral. It has meaningful dialogue just like your typical thought provoking Japanese drama, it grabs you at times. Technically what he has done is called kidnapping but she has experienced many hardships in life to a point where she's ready to commit suicide. Now that she's finally knows the word happiness, would you consider that as immoral?

Though this drama has interesting theme and message that was conveyed so well, it's the bad pacing that makes it from an almost masterpiece to just a good watchable drama. It is slow at the beginning and it is at episode 4 where we finally see the story moving, but when the time it became a bit engaging it's the time I felt the story felt rushed and characters underdeveloped. The biggest turn off for me is the characters of her parents and teacher, there is lack of depth in terms of their characterization, no explanation why they became that bad to a point those characters became unrealistic and border line funny. You would have a feeling that you just watched an incomplete story and might resort to read the manga to be fully satisfied. 

Cinematography beautifully supports the tone of this drama - slightly dark, eerie and melancholy. Music is good with a really catchy ending song. The chemistry between the leads is great and they really look like the manga characters so kudos to the person who cast them. As for the acting, I would say Anna Yamada is one of the futures of Japanese Cinema, I've also watched her movie Liverleaf where she's also fantastic. I just hope she won't get typecast to play distressed characters.

It's a nice and fast watch and though there are things that I didn't like about this drama I still don't regret that I watched this. Each episode is just over 20 minutes so it's really easy to binge watch.