Kekkon Dekinai Otoko

[Excerpt from Daily Yomiuri, July 14, Wm. Penn, Televiews]: Tuesday: Kekkon Dekinai Otoko (10 p.m., Fuji network) Despite the script, Hiroshi Abe is giving a great performance as a smug, clueless guy. He is turning 40 without a woman in his life because he is too frank, detached and content with himself to really connect with others. He is lonely, but too proud to admit it. It shows through though in the quirky mannerisms he has developed.

There are lots of characters like him in today's cool, detached urban landscape, and it could have been an interesting topic to seriously explore, but then they had to ruin it by giving him a hemorrhoid problem. This requires him to be examined by the lady doctor, who will grow into the love interest in his life, not once but twice. In the second scene, we get a full nude shot of Abe's derriere. Thank goodness, they spared us the colonoscopy.

Previews for episode two show he will undergo a successful operation, but will soon be back in the lady doctor's office with an injured arm. I'm afraid he will have to continue his treatments without this viewer in tow. Hope he has a four-star insurance policy. The series gets only one star for Abe's outstanding efforts to resuscitate it.

Excerpt from Televiews, July 26, 2006, Wm. Penn, Daily Yomiuri: Kekkon Dekinai Otoko (Tuesdays, 10 p.m., Fuji TV network) did well in the summer season's first-week ratings. If they can keep him out of the emergency room and crank up the romance, it might even be able to recover and challenge that supplemental drink for the season's most invigorating drama.

STARRING: Abe Hiroshi
NETWORK: FUJI TV
Theme Song:  
DURATION: July through September 2006