Currently watching: Ashita no, Kita Yoshio

Over the long Easter weekend a bad knee kept me from any healthy outdoor walks I may have had planned, and so I spent the four days sitting down watching TV. I took the chance to catch up on a few things I’d always wanted to see and, of those, this was by far the most interesting. Five episodes in three days are usually enough to make me thoroughly sick of a series, but this one is keeping me intrigued.

In this series, a man – Kita Yoshio – decides to end his life in eleven days, and immediately is plunged into the most eventful eleven days of his life. In this mix is an ex-wife who hates him and who possibly murdered her second husband, a guy who’s helping him out while at the same time trying to bump him off for the insurance, a TV talent who’s trying to get out of the business, and a detective investigating the first wife but then gets sucked into following the ill-deeds of everyone else, perhaps thinking they’re all interlinked.

The improbable storyline is nicely written and genuinely funny, with some great performances. In fact, the acting is gold all the way down, with even minor characters catching the eye. It’s based on a novel, so I’ve got high hopes that it’ll have a decent ending. But it’ll certainly have to be terrible to ruin what is, so far, a splendid story.