Papadoru Episode 6 : Life’s a Bitch When You’re 17

But it’s a bigger bitch when your stepdad is the hottest member of one of Japan’s top idol groups.

Every episode of Papadoru thus far has focused on Ryo trying to earn the respect, approval, and trust of everyone around him. It first started with the mother-in-law, then the youngest daughter, his wife, then on upwards to the middle son, and then finally Kanjani8 themselves. So, it’s only logical (funny using that term with this show), that the final person that he needs to win over is obviously the one that’s the most aggressive and resistive — the eldest daughter, Mei.

Ryo has a collection of terrible shirts.

Mei’s story had been slowly building up throughout the show. As an escape from her somewhat chaotic family life, she’s been caught up on one of the hottest boys in the school. Suddenly, in the last episode, he asks her to meet him right away. Now, this chick is all the way in Osaka — a fucking 2 hour shinkansen ride away (200 dollar ticket, mind you, we’ll also be ignoring the fact that Ryo was flying back and forth to Tokyo from Osaka in a 24hr period as well) — and jumps on a train to meet with her crush because he said so. Suddenly, a love blossoms and insert Ryo to play the role of paranoid father protecting his daughter’s virginity.

Of course, Ryo ends up pissing her off and now is stuck trying to figure out how to win her over. He even consults with her two younger siblings which ends up in a hot mess, literally. It takes public humilation and a 13 year old fangirl’s wet dream to get Mei to overcome her douchebaggy attitude towards Ryo and for the family to finally be the Nishikidos rather than the Hanamuras plus Nishikido.

This episode wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated mainly because Mei wasn’t an abusive cunt throughout this episode. In every episode, Mei has done some of the most disrespectful things possible to Ryo and the only assumption was to believe that it would be amped up 10x the usual. Instead, Mei was so caught up in love that she seemed to forget that she used to slapping the shit out of Ryo or publicly berating him whenever she sees him. But, it doesn’t seem as if this episode tackled the core problem between her and Ryo.

This scene was funny. IDEKY

Mei never respected Ryo as a father. She never accepted him as one.

Suddenly, he shows up at her school’s festival, upstages the event, gets her some popularity and now she’s nice to him.

It’s a mary-sue fanfiction resolve that further goes to show that Papadoru’s plotline is absolute fermented shit. And also, again, Haru-chan is missing to play mommy dearest majority of the time. All these kids have issues and its always Ryo running to the rescue. I pretty much resolved myself to the theory that the character of Haruka Hanamura is purposely written to be as bleak and devoid of personality to 1) not enrage the fangirls and 2) to allow the fangirls to personify themselves in the role. Ryo and Haru-chan’s relationship is weak and seems more like two really close friends living together than a husband and wife who are madly in love with each other.

I keep thinking back to Inu wo Kau to iu koto and how wonderful Asami and Ryo played that young married couple. The chemistry was just flowing between those two and then I see this drama and I’m still trying to figure out what, exactly , is keeping these two together. They say time and time again that Haruka was the woman that allowed Ryo to finally relax, but, really, is that all? They are never on screen with each other or truly interact with each other. There’s really no reason to even cheer this couple on because there’s nothing to cheer on.

Hell, even in Chonmage Pudding, I was left in tears at the end because Ryo couldn’t be with Hiroko and that was a 2 hour movie. Here was a 6 episode drama and I could not give a flying fuck whether Ryo stays married or not to this chick.

The next episode is about the former husband coming back into the lives of the Hanamura family, which gives Ryo competition for Haruka. I honestly want to care but I really don’t. I’m more wtfing over the fact that her ex-husband is the guy that played Ani from Kisarazu Cat’s Eye. How is this chick hooking up with these guys?

I don’t think I would like my stepdad to parade around as my prince charming. That’s awkward as fuck.