gaijinmark wrote:

That's Asano Atsuko: http://jdorama.com/artiste.12.htm She's one of the best!

But I really don't like how the director used her in this one. She's a very talented actress and the director basically turned her into a nodding idiot. She's got it in her to give a much better portrayal of someone with mental illness if she'd been given a chance.

But overall, the drama was pretty good. All the other actors did a good job. Naoto Takenaka as the father was very good. It cracked me up how he went from "You need to get a job!" to "You need to get married!" Parents are the same everywhere.

Btw, there was a special, it aired Oct. 4th, DramaWiki has the synopsis and cast:http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Freeter,_Ie_o_Kau.

Jun Fubuki as Karina's mom could be interesting.

So, I watched the special. Usually I'm not a big fan of specials, seems like most of the time they just rehash what we've already seen. But this one was different. As expected, Jun Fubuki was very good as Karina's mom and they expanded on a lot of things from the series.

I would say anybody that watched the drama should also watch the special.

At the end of the SP, Take-san runs in to some stranger at an airport or something and is really surprised. We didn't really know what to make of this? Who was this dude? A Japanaese celeb I assume?