Age Harassment: First Impressions (Ep 1-2)

Takei Emi works so much that it almost feels strange for her to be missing from the Jdorama scene for more than one season. Her SP for Senryokugai Sousakan aired recently but her last full on drama was Subete ga F ni Naru back in fall of 2014. At the beginning of 2015, I was slowly beginning to fall behind in Jdoramas and Jnews because I was so busy with my first year of university. Now that its summer time and I'm a little more settled, I can finally catch up! 

Age Harassment wasn't my most anticipated dorama of this season, but it has already become my favourite with only 2 episodes. Aside from my love for Emi, I find the issue of harassment in the workplace very interesting. We all know that it happens, but we don't realize how often it happens and how subtle it can seem. This drama focuses on age harassment since our main lead, Yoshii Emiri,  is a young female office worker who has just secured a new job at a big company. Because of her young age and beautiful looks, she is able to get away with almost anything and is always the center of attention with male colleagues. Despite these perks, she is unable to show her full potential and is only given jobs that require her youth and prettiness. On top of all this, she is also the target of fellow jealous female employees who were once youthful like her but are now just pushed aside. 

There are other types of harassment that are mentioned in this drama but the two prominent ones seem to be age and gender, which our characters seem to experience almost daily. It's almost hard to hate on the female employees because even though they appear to be bitchy, we see that they go through the same harassment. Growing old is not a crime, but the older female employees still have to suffer from constant degrading comments masked as just a little joke. This of course would make them self conscious on their actions. 

Even with all this happening, no one steps up to call anyone out. This is where our main character comes in. Through a series of events, she realizes that this harassment has happened and will continue to happen as she gets older unless someone speaks up to stop it. We haven't seen much change yet, but Emiri is already stepping up and calling people out for their shit at the end of the first two episodes. 

So far, I'm loving the role of Emiri and I feel really good about Takei Emi's portrayal. For the last few dramas she has done, her characters have all felt lacklustre and I get the feeling that she isn't putting her all but rather just getting by. I'm glad that she is getting the role of a more realistic character now because I was getting real tired of her deadpan and "quirky" characters.

This drama is the first time I've actually taken notice of Inamori Izumi. I didn't know she was in Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu even though I did remember her character. Her character here is much more memorable. She plays Osawa Yuriko, the direct supervisor of Emiri, and a victim of age and gender harassment. She is probably the best at hiding her feelings despite all the unfairness she goes through. But don't get the wrong idea as she isn't so innocent either. Her actions really confuse me because it seems like she takes care of Emiri but hates her for her youth at the same time. Anyhow, Inamori Izumi is really impressive so far because I've been scared of her character like multiple times in each episode. She has that gentle sheep appearance with a really subtle bitchiness.

Overall, I really like this drama and the storyline has really gotten me hooked. I'm hoping that it'll stay this way and become a example of a girl power drama done right!