Niini no Koto wo Wasurenaide – Don’t Forget About Niini

In Niini no Koto wo Wasurei nai de, or Don’t Forget About Niini, Ryo Nishikido of Kanjani8 and NEWS fame places the title lead of Keisuke Kawai, an upstanding middle school student who has everything going for him in life. He has a supportive family, top grades, and a promising future.

But one day all of that ends when he collapses in his own room and is taken to the hospital. Soon, his world crashes down on him as he’s diagnosed with brain cancer. School days are replaced with hospital visits, the sound of The Beatles are replaced with the sounds of hospital monitors, and his dreams are replaced with the fear of the untimely death his about to face.

I did not go into this drama with high expectations. Considering the many made for TV drama movies that I have seen with Kanjani8 in them, majority of them have been less than spectacular with only one ultimately standing out as a well written and produced drama special, Jitensha Shounenki. But I ended being surprised by the end of the drama. I was caught off guard, emotionally pulled into the struggle of Keisuke’s Mother, Kasumi Kawai (played by Hitomi Kuroki), of having to deal with the fact that her son was dying with no possible cure.

I will be honest and admit that I don’t view Nishikido to be a strong actor. He can act, yes, but I do not view him as the strong actor that everyone claims him to be. I do not believe his role in Last Friends was amazing; it doesn’t take much to play a psychotic stalker boyfriend who slaps around his girlfriend and gives her friends the Death Glare from ten feet away. He sorely disappointed me in Ryuusei no Kizuna and I won’t even get into what I think of his character in Orthros no Inu.

But I will admit here that, despite the slight over acting in some of his ‘shining moments’ of the special, he had pulled out a performance that actually pulled at my heart strings slightly that made me sympathize with his inner struggle. How do you go from having everything to having nothing? How to do you cope with that? How do you move on? I think he nailed that struggle in this drama, especially when he delivers this line to his mother, “ Why was I born? What do I have to live for? Tell me. “

In some ways, the supporting cast of Don’t Forget Niini out performed Nishikido. Veteran actress Yumi Shirakawa played her role flawlessly as Keisuke’s Grandmother, Chiyo Kawai; supporting Kasumi through her struggle as a mother losing a son and giving her the strength to go on as well as her grandson the leverage to keep him looking towards another day. Jinnai Takanori’s character of Keisuke’s Father, Yoichi Kawai, gave a humility to a character a-typical in Japanese dramas that seems to lack in many of them. He was out going, caring, and trying to be the matriarch of his family, even if it was falling apart around him.

Then we have Ryousuke Yamada playing the role of Keisuke’s younger brother, Yuji Kawai, who looked up to him as a hero. I was not disappointed in him at all. There wasn’t this need to facepalm or jump into a river like I did when I suffered through Koishite Akuma with Yuma Nakayama. He seemed to flow effortlessly in his role as Yuji, which was surprising considering I don’t think much of him as a Johnny or an entertainer.

With this drama, I do not feel as if Ryo is ready for a lead. Though he did well, I do not think he can pull this off for 9 – 10 episodes. He’s still weak and falls short, though the potential is there when he puts the effort into his work. The one problem I have with his acting is that he seems to act with no effort; there’s no passion behind his characters. It comes off stotic or sometimes robotic, so I was glad to see some humility in Nishikido this time.

One other thing that slightly bothered me about this drama was casting in Ryo’s case. In the beginning he plays the role of a 15 year old student, but he looks nothing like a 15 year old Japanese boy. In fact, when you remember what he looked like at the age of 15 you start to realize how odd this all looks. The make up crew really didn’t put much effort in aging the cast members at all and when you realize that there was an 8 year jump in the story, everyone looks as if they were the same on the day Keisuke collapsed in his room.

When you’re filming stories like these, especially ones with drastic time jumps such as this one, there should be efforts made to emphasize the passing of time. 8 years is nearly a decade, and when you’re trying to pass off Ryousuke Yamada as a first year college student when he still doesn’t look a day over sixteen, it comes off unconvincing. They should have just hired an actor closer to Niini’s age in the book and transitioned to when Ryo’s character arrives in the drama rather than shoving Ryo in a school uniform and having him sit in a classroom with a bunch of 15 year olds. It makes it look like you’re watching the movie Jack instead of Don’t Forget About Niini.

Despite the major transitioning setbacks, I definitely recommend you guys to watch it at least once. Its roughly 90 minutes and does pull at you. Though I did not cry at the end, I did get teary eyed at the end. If the lesson of this drama is not learning how to smile at the end, then it’s learning that in the end it’s the mother that always suffers the most with the loss. When the camera pans out on Kasumi holding her son’s cell phone close to her heart everything in the drama finally comes full circle in those final minutes.

If I had to compare this to Door to Door starring ARASHI’s Kazunari Ninomiya, I’d definitely say that Door to Door, even if it was dreadfully slow, executed human hardship and triumph more effortlessly and flawlessly than Niini. Even if Door to Door strictly relied on Ninomiya and Kato’s characters to carry the burden of the story on their shoulders, it did it a lot better than Niini; which had bumps along the way (one standing out the most being Keisuke’s attack on his family in a blind rage).

You can pre-order this drama at Amazon.co.jp, which is under a pre-order discount of 26% off. Not bad. I might grab a copy for myself.

Edit: Sep 2 -> Kyousuke = Keisuke. This is what happens when you’re working on two shows at the same time. Kyousuke = Karei Naru Spy, Keisuke = Niini *facepalm*