Carnation (2011)

Carnation is a biographic asadora based upon the life of Koshino Ayako who was the mother of the Koshino sisters Hiroko, Junko, and Michiko who all became internationally recognized fashion designers. One assumes that the story as been fictionalized a bit, and as the names have been changed for the sake of decorum with Koshino = Ohara, Ayako = Itoko, Hiroko = Yuko, Junko = Naoko and Michiko = Satoko.

The series faces the same challenges that all biographic asadoras do: most individual lives are not consistently dramatic and the entire life-span of someone who lived for 92 years is difficult to be portrayed by an individual actor. This particular drama works pretty steadily through the war years, but then starts to rely on pretty substantial time-jumps to find periods of interest in Koshino's life. She is portrayed by three actors: Ninomiya Akari for a week's worth of Koshino's life as a child, Ono Michiko who won a best actress award for this role for ages 16 to 60 and the vast majority of episodes and Natsuki Mari for ages 72 on and the last 4 weeks of episodes.

Ono Michiko's performance is well deserving of the accolades she received for it. Itoko was the oldest of three sisters and the daughter of a dry-goods merchant who sold kimono fabric who was physically and emotionally abusive and opposed to the trend towards western fashion which had been building long before the war. And so he sets Itoko the herculean tasks of making three other stores prosperous before relinquishing his own store to Itoko to make western clothing. In the course, of the war Itoko loses her father, her husband and two childhood friends and is left to raise her three daughters. Ono portrays her as obstinate but mercurial and, inevitably, hard-working. We get to see her in the depths of grief and despair in the war years, but also delightfully revitalized in a brief love affair with a married employee.

The story does cover why and how all three of her daughters became successful designers. Like her father, Itoko places challenges in front of her daughters before she accepts that design is truly their path. Ultimately, she treats her daughters as business rivals in the fashion industry, but it's a friendly rivalry. Poor Satoko is not treated well by the teleplay and is characterized as the stupid one of the three, but the real-life Koshino Machiko seems to have a good sense of humor about that characterization (“I thought they did a great and really accurate job. I loved the beginning, learning about my mother’s childhood and my grandmother. I hadn’t heard those stories before. I must also say, Misako Yasuda (who played the character based on Michiko) was amazing. She had really similar mannerisms to me. I had to apologize when I met her though, for her having had to play such a stupid lady!” - https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2013/01/michiko-goes-it-alone/)

The transition to Natsuki's portrayal of Itoko is a bit awkward. Ono can play 60 but not 72? I'm betting she would have even handled 92 with no real issue. Which is not to say Natsuki's performance is wanting in any sense at all - she matches many of the mannerisms of Ono's version of the character in a deft and professional way. It's just we go so far with Ono's Itoko that it's hard to understand why the entire span was not left to her superb acting ability.

It's an NHK asdora, and so the production values are excellent as usual aided by the fact that Koshino was born, lived her entire life and, essentially, died in the same two-story shop. Thus, most of the nearly 90-year span of the story can be conveyed through the costuming and relatively minor changes to the fittings and fixtures on the set.

If you are interested in the fashion of the three daughters, sadly, you will not get to see much of it. The show does visit one of Junko/Naoko's shows, but other than that we only get to see their work on the sisters themselves and tangentially in moments at their businesses.

In the end, the show is a bit uneven. Itoko/Ayako lived a life in which she consistently set herself challenges and then ... met them, and while that fact is wholly admirable, it does make it difficult to build a consistently compelling 151 episode drama around that life. The show is, nevertheless, worth watching for Ono's solid performance through the majority of the series.

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Clothing gives people hope

"Carnation" is my fourteenth asadora. I've wanted to watch it for a while since it kind of gives off the same vibes as my favorite asadora, "Ohisama" (which also aired the same year). I really liked "Carnation" overall, but it hits a stumbling block around week 17 that it never really recovers from. Well, for me, at least. Warning! Major spoilers follow~

The heroine, Itoko, is played by Ono Machiko. She really deserves all the praise I've seen her get for this role. Ono was able to play the stubborn, somewhat pigheaded Itoko in such a way that she never becomes insufferable. She stays consistently funny and enjoyable, despite her bad traits. Kuriyama Chiaki playing Otoko's childhood classmate, Natsu, also sticks out in my mind as a stand-out performance. Her relationship with Itoko made me laugh until the very end. I also quite liked Natsuki Mari as an older Itoko. Definitely a great actress. I only wish that they had introduced her a tad sooner as I think the transition from Ono to her was a bit awkward. The rest of the supporting cast I could best describe as comforting. I just loved continuing to see the faces of Itoko's family, friends, and neighbors.

On to the minor things that I didn't like which resulted in me giving "Carnation" a 9.0 instead of a 10. First, her father. I hated him. This has nothing to do with the actor (Kobayashi Kaoru) as I think he acted him really well actually. Even if I sit and think about it, I can relate to the dad's feelings. But... I just find it inexcusable for a man to hit his child so much and just generally act like a tyrant. I was really waiting for him to die, even if he finally chilled out a bit lol. Second, I thought all of Itoko's children were annoying. Tbh this is an ongoing issue with asadoras set around the war. The children that grow up afterwards are almost always intolerable. Yuko is probably the most tolerable, but her fights with Naoko (the most annoying) are so hard to watch. And poor Satoko is just portrayed as an idiot. And the third thing...

Itoko doesn't have a decent love interest. I really liked her husband Masaru (played by Suruga Taro) until he goes off to war and she discovers he was having an affair! After the war, she gets a new love interest in Suo (Ayano Go) but he has a wife! For me, this is where my interest started to wane. I don't really care that the show wants us to think that their love isn't "dirty." Whatever, he has a wife (who suffers from the aftereffects of the atomic bomb) and children. They eventually come to their senses and part, but I can't help but think about how painful this affair was for everyone. This was around week 17 and I didn't particularly like the weeks that followed since they started to focus on Itoko's daughters. And I said before, I find them annoying.

However, "Carnation" is a pretty solid asadora until week 17. I loved the focus on dressmaking and fashion, and Itoko achieving her dream of owning her own shop. The weeks focusing on the war are also very good and don't focus too much on the tragedy of it all. Following the war, Itoko is able to refocus on her dream and I really liked the 1950s fashions. It was also funny for her to realize that she has a harder time relating to newer fashions now that she's middle aged. Then I also really liked the final four weeks with older Itoko and her storyline with her granddaughter. I was reminded of my own grandmother and definitely cried a lot. It was surprising that they showed Itoko passing away as this is only the second instance of a heroine that I've seen. Even though she died of natural causes, it was still very sad.

Interestingly, I looked it up and the real-life Itoko (her real name was Koshino Ayako) really was a fan of asadora and wanted her life put to screen. It was kind of meta that they actually put this into the plot lol, but I loved it. Especially seeing Natsu watching it at the end. Cue tears.

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