Ryusei no Kizuna

I've been drama hopping for the past couple of weeks. I haven't really been able to get into any one series. I've started and stopped several from the past 3 years that were supposedly top shows - but none was able to hold my interest. And then I came across Ryusei no Kizuna. It has been on my list for a while, but for some reason I kept skipping over it. Well, I'm glad that I finally decided to try it out. It's my favorite since Orange Days.

Synopsis: I guess, I'd put this series in the 'Family' genre. The story centers on three siblings whose parents were killed when they were younger. They are bonded with each other in large part b/c they are committed to finding their parents' killer. Along the way they decide to engage in swindling activities - which leads to hilarious situations - and brings them closer to discovering the killer's identity.

Characters:
1) The oldest brother Kouichi - was the main character in Chichuie-sama. It was hard for me to see him as the older wiser serious brother b/c he looks so young to me. It was only in the scenes when his inner dork would show that I felt his character fit his face.

2) The younger brother - was the abusive boyfriend in Last Friends. I did not think that I would be able to see him as anything but that character. Surprisingly, I was able to forget about that character most times and see him as the naive and emotional younger brother.

3) The sister, Shizuna - was one the interns in Code Blue. Like in Code Blue she's supposed to be pretty attractive. But, she's so much more sentimental and less cocky about her looks in this series. I still don't see her as being particularly attractive -- but that's neither here nor there.


Impressions: This show has a wonderful mixture of humor and sentimentality. And it is only slightly predictable -- meaning at the beginning I had no idea how it would end, but within the last 2 episodes, it was pretty clear how things were going to end -- but I could easily deal with that.
It had enough sub-plots and twists to keep me engaged the whole way through. Also the main premise is one that you want to see to the end. If there's anything that I could complain about it would be the ending of the show. When you see what they're all up to now -- it was a bit vague and sappy for me. But, that only lasted for 5 minutes and was a very minor drop off in quality.
Two thumbs up for me!!