Jotei

[Dail Yomiuri, Televiews, July 20, 2007, Wm. Penn]: In the geisha category, we have Jotei (Fridays, 9 p.m., TV Asahi network), the closest thing to an engrossing drama on offer this quarter. Set in the murky waters of the modern-day hostess world, or mizu-shobai ("water business") as it's euphemistically known, the underlying theme is a bitter desire for revenge.

Starring in her first continuing series, Kyushu actress Rosa Kato does well as Ayaka, a difficult role that requires her to transform from a cheerful high school student to a power-obsessed bar hostess virtually overnight.

She is a happy, studious teen in Kumamoto, who sometimes helps her mom run her small bar after school, until a series of tragedies befall her. Ayaka's mother dies suddenly and a classmate, the son of the region's kenryokusha (power broker), tries to molest her. A teacher catches them before anything "happens" but the boy claims Ayaka initiated the encounter. As the daughter of a bar owner, her denial is not believed, and the kenryokusha reminds her that his money and influence mean both the police and the yakuza are on his side.

Ayaka quits school and boards a bus for Osaka, vowing to use her looks and feminine wiles as weapons to become a kenryokusha herself. She is determined to return one day and make them all perform dogeza (abject prostration) before her.

In Osaka, she meets Naoto (played by Shota Matsuda, son of the late actor Yusaku Matsuda of Taiyo ni Hoero fame). This young Osaka yakuza becomes the love of her life even though his original plan was to entrap her and sell her off to other yakuza, who could easily make 100 million yen off her in the darker corners of the mizu-shobai world.

If nothing else, the series should be instructive for young women unaware of all the pitfalls out there, although the way Ayaka will quickly rise from Osaka to the highest levels of hostess power in Tokyo's Ginza district may still make the water trade look unrealistically attractive. And as if her life is not complicated enough, Ayaka's powerful dad, whom she has never met, is out there somewhere, too. The dialogue is sharp, the script detailed and realistic. Worth a glance. Two up-and-coming stars.

STARRING: Kato Rosa, Matsuda Shota
NETWORK: TV Asahi
Theme Song:  
DURATION: July through September 2007