An update in regards to Housekisho Richard-shi coverage. Amun decides to drop these cute boys and their gems so I will take over full-time now, with him covering Kyokou Suiri instead. These past two episodes saw Housekisho Richard-shi goes through some highs and lows, but overall I’m happy with what the show has to offer. The drama in its weekly case is low-key and mundane, and while Richard and Seigi aren’t necessary there to “fix the issues” (well, at least Richard doesn’t), in this show, inconsistencies in how the customers behave reflect their own insecurities and their own personalities. Add that to the gems they seek in which they usually have some interesting message behind, and it’s pretty much the appeal of Housekisho Richard-shi to me. The other aspects of the show, namely the chemistry between the two leads and Seigi and Shouko’s romance, aren’t that interesting to me, which I will address that in later paragraphs.
Episode 4 focuses on the themes that I enjoy the most in the show: a lowkey drama about a woman who struggles with her own identity and her own look. The woman in question here is Yamamoto, who asks to buy a garnet engagement ring. She has this insecurity about her plain look (which in all fairness, WHAT THE HECK she looks attractive to me), and Seigi’s careless comments regarding Richard put both Richar and Yamamoto in an uneasy situation. Richard is pretty much an object to me, too perfect to resemble a real person, but credits for Housekisho Richard-shi to acknowledge that fact and make something out of it. The key thing here, as Richard points out, is her own strength that speaks more than mere look, which for me is a positive and nice little message from the show.
Episode 5 again builds from the foundation of inconsistency to its subject this week, Keigo, Seigi’s senpai. While the events led up to his lies can be a bit obvious and too coincidental (like the fact that Hata visits the shop right after Keigo came), the way he lies not only reflect the pressure he’s on, but also has an impact to Seigi as he initially looked up to him. His farewell words to Seigi “Don’t talk to me again. It’s too hurtful to bare” packs quite a punch, especially to the naive and simple -thinking Seigi and for once, I can feel for him.
While all these weekly cases have been a joy to watch for me, I’m sadly not totally in sync with Seigi or Richard’s character. Seig’s blunt comments do him more harm than good and it usually feels like a plot device to push the story forward to me. And I’m not too fond of Richard’s passive-aggressive approach in episode 4. It does the job, but I can’t help but think that he’s judging Seigi’s behavior a bit too strongly. Add to that, the show has been developing the relationship between Seigi and Shouko for quite awhile now, but without any proper payoff, these segments feel like they don’t belong to the rest of the episode.
All in all, while Housekisho Richard-shi doesn’t really break any ground, and even with the “sleeper hits” status I would put some other shows above it (which you will know next week with State of the Season post), these lowkey character drama and what the gems might represent are still interesting enough to keep me engaged.
