Kaseifu no Mita

Plot

The Asuda family, who are still grieving over their mother's death, hires a new housekeeper to take charge of the housework. They get Mita, a cold-faced housekeeper who does everything that she is ordered to do, even killing people, except tasks that requires her to smile or to reveal her past. During this period of time, the family becomes fragmented, as they each blame themselves for their mother's death. Mita helps guide the family through these problems, though she did not explicitly give them advice.

Eventually, the family manages to come to terms with their mother's death. They in turn help Mita to overcome her extremely traumatic past, the reason for which she cannot smile or speak her mind. Thanks to their constant care for her, Mita gradually starts to discover love again. However, Mita knows that she cannot become the stepmother of these children, and thus takes the drastic step of becoming a cruel and ultimately short-lived stepmother. In the end, Urara, the children's aunt, becomes their stepmother. Mita then revealed that she cannot work for them anymore, since she has found employment elsewhere. On Christmas Eve, the family finally managed to make Mita smile during their last dinner together. With the family having found their priorities in life, Mita leaves the family on Christmas Day to work for yet another household.

Harumi Housekeeping Agency

Nanako Matsushima as Akari Mita (三田 灯, 36 years old)

The housekeeper of the Asuda household. She does not smile, and is very efficient in carrying out her duties. Beneath her facade however, she have had the traumatic experience of losing all of the people that she had loved the most in her life. These people includes her father, husband and son. All of them had died under tragic circumstances. Because of this, she dare not start to love another person, for the fear that she might bring them ill-luck. Eventually, she starts to feel emotions again after the Asuda family's constant pestering for her to show her own feelings.

Yumi Shirakawa as Akemi Harumi (晴海 明美)

She is the head of the housekeeper agency that Akari is from. In addition to that, Harumi also used to be the housekeeper for Mita's family, and therefore knows her the best. She hopes that Mita would eventually smile on her own free will. Harumi later shifted the housekeeping agency to Okinawa, bringing Mita along with her.

Asuda Household

Hiroki Hasegawa as Keiichi Asuda (阿須田 恵一)

He is the head of the Asuda household. However, he wanted to divorce his wife to marry Kazama, with whom he was having an affair. This led to his wife's suicide. After the children found out, he and his children fell apart, and were only reunited with Mita's help. This also led to him being sacked from his prestigious job as a section chief in a reputable company. On the other hand, after this incident, he realized that his children were very important part of him.

Shiori Kutsuna as Yui Asuda (阿須田 結, 17 years old)

The eldest child in the family. She is a second-year high school student, and is a member of her school's photography club. She blamed for being the cause of her mother's misery, because her parents were forced to marry due to the fact that Nagiko was pregnant with her. Yui nearly committed suicide after discovering that her boyfriend was actually toying with her. She even asked Mita to kill herself, though Mita was stopped in time. Yui later acted as a mother to the rest of the family, helping out with housework and making important decisions for them. Yui's name implies her role in the family - the role of being the one who bonds the family.

Taishi Nakagawa as Kakeru Asuda (阿須田 翔, 14 years old)

The eldest son in the family. He is a student in a public junior high school, and the captain of the school's basketball team. He is also a hot-headed person, and always makes rash decisions. However, he is very protective of his family members. His name Kakeru symbolizes his role as the protector of the Asuda family.

Shūto Ayabe as Kaito Asuda (阿須田 海斗, 12 years old)

The youngest son in the family. He is a sixth-grade student in elementary school, and is the class president of his class. Kaito aims to achieve high grades in order to enter a prestigious privately run junior high school. He has a calm personality, and is the one who comes up with solutions to solve the family's problems. Kaito's name is a pun, meaning that he will be "the one who finds answers to the family's problems".

Miyu Honda as Kii Asuda (阿須田 希衣, 6 years old)

The youngest member of the family. She is a very inquisitive girl, and always asks the question of "What is [that]?" whenever somebody uses a difficult word or phrase in front of her. The family decided to come and live together once again because of her suicidal threats. Kii's name comes from the term "key person", which reflects her role of being the key source of happiness in the family.

Yūko Daike as Nagiko Asuda (阿須田 凪子)

The now-deceased wife of Keiichi. She had committed suicide after Keiichi gave her a set of divorce papers to sign. Because of her suicide, the Asuda family was thrown into turmoil.

Yuuki Household

Saki Aibu as Urara Yuuki (結城 うらら, 28 years old)

She is the sister of Nagiko and a PE teacher at Yui's high school. Urara is always doomed with bad luck, and everything she undertakes in good faith ends in failure. Despite that, she has a cheery personality and always wears a smile on her face. She later confessed her love for Keiichi, though knowing that the love was ill-fated, she married someone whom she had met at a marriage meeting. However, thanks to Mita, the Asuda family realized that she was an important member of the family, and she actually wards off the family's bad luck. In the end, the Asuda family choose Urara over Mita to be their mother (which was Mita's plan) and removed Urara from her wedding ceremony. Urara agreed that she will not marry Keiichi, though she will still be the family's "mother".

Sei Hiraizumi as Yoshiyuki Yuuki (結城 義之, 68 years old)

Keiichi's stubborn father-in-law and a school principal. He disapproves of Keiichi after his shotgun marriage to Nagiko, believing that his daughter was seduced by him. He nearly adopted the Asuda children against their wishes, believing that he can do a better job raising them than Keiichi. However, he soften his attitude towards the family after Mita pretended to be Nagiko's ghost at the Asuda family's orders. Although he eventually uncovered the hoax, he was very touched by Mita's account. Towards the end of the show, he becomes a doting grandfather towards the Asuda children.

Mita Household

Yuu Kamio as Naoya Mita (三田 直也)

Mita's deceased husband. Naoya was a successful doctor, and was 37 years old when he died. He had died in a fire that Mita's half-brother had started due to a dispute.

Kanata Fujimoto as Jun Mita (三田 純)

Mita's deceased son. Jun had died in the fire that had also claimed the life of his father. Mita is constantly haunted by his pleas for help he had made before he got burned to death.

Miyoko Akaza as Mita's mother-in-law

She constantly blames Mita for Naoya's death, saying that her smile brought bad luck to her loved ones. She also ordered Mita to not smile again to show that she was truly remorseful for Naoya's death.

Kei Sunaga as Mita's father-in-law

He also blames Mita for the death of his son.

Minakawa Household

Hitomi Satō as Mariko Minagawa (皆川 真利子, 39 years old)

The neighbor of the Asuda household. She disapproves of the Asuda household because they have no mother. She is extremely protective of her son Tsubasa, and is also concerned about his studies. However, when she discovered that her own husband was having an affair behind her back she ordered Mita (who was at that time their housekeeper) to kill the whole family. She was chased out of the house after her plan was uncovered.

Ryuga Nakanishi as Tsubasa Minakawa (皆川 翼, 6 years old)

The son of Mariko and Kii's classmate. He was the one that revealed that his father was having an affair.

Masanori Ikeda as Isao Minakawa (皆川 功)

Mariko's husband. He revealed that he regretted marrying Mariko, and had a secret affair behind her back.

Others

Maho Nonami as Mie Kazama, Keiichi's coworker

Syuusuke Saito as Takuya Ozawa, Yui's senior in school. He was also once Yui's boyfriend.

Production

Kaseifu no Mita was first announced on 12 August 2011. It was announced that Nanako Matsushima will be the lead actress in the series. This is her first role in a television drama series after a two-year hiatus. Nanako said that she was familiar with the scriptwriter Kaseifu no Mita, since they had collaborated on drama series like Great Teacher Onizuka and Majo no Jōken (which are Nanako's signature works), though this was the first time they had collaborated on a family drama. She added that she was "happy to challenge a new genre."

Broadcast

Kaseifu no Mita was aired in the Nippon Television's Tears Wednesday drama time slot, which is aired every Wednesday, 10 to 10:54pm. Due to the popularity of this series, episodes 9, 10 and 11 all had an extended broadcast. Before the final episode of the series was shown, an hour-long special program featuring special behind-the-scenes footage of Kaseifu no Mita was broadcast.

Scriptwriter Kazuhiko Yukawa announced that there will be no more sequels to this series, despite its popularity. He said that he wanted "to leave [the remainder] to the viewers' imaginations".

Reception

Kaseifu no Mita was extremely well received by the Japanese television viewers. It garnered an average viewership rating of 25.17%, the highest of any 2011 Japanese television dramas. In addition, the "Mita" effect is attributed as one of the main factors that allowed broadcaster Nippon Television to become the top broadcaster in Japan in 2011, beating the previous record-holder Fuji Television.

In particular, its last episode achieved the highest viewership rating of 40.0%. At one point in the broadcast, the viewership ratings hit 42.8% in the Kantō region. This makes this episode the second-most watched Japanese television program of 2011, after NHK's 62nd Kouhaku Uta Gassen program. The episode also ranks as the third-most viewed in the history of Japanese television dramas, excluding NHK's "Asadora" and "Taiga" dramas. Oricon noted that previously, viewership ratings of 30% were considered as the norm, but in modern days, viewership ratings of 40% can be considered "divine". Additionally, this episode achieved viewership ratings of 36.4% and 34.6% in the Kansai region and Nagoya respectively.

Theme song

The theme song for the television drama Kaseifu no Mita is Yasashiku Naritai by Kazuyoshi Saito. This was revealed in an announcement made on September 29, 2011. Yasashiku Naritai is the first song Kazuyoshi has provided for a Japanese television drama since the 2009 NHK drama Keiji no Genba 2. Main leads from Kaseifu no Mita were also featured in the song's music video.

The song later became Kazuyoshi's 39th single, and this single album was released in Japan by Victor Entertainment on November 2, 2011. The single debuted at the 6th position on the Oricon TOP10 weekly charts, with its sales boosted by the good reception of Kaseifu no Mita. It sold 70 thousand copies as of December 27, 2011. Yasashiku Naritai is also the winner of the "Best Theme Song" category at the 71st Television Drama Academy Awards.

Remake

A South Korean remake titled The Suspicious Housekeeper starring Choi Ji-woo and Lee Sung-jae was produced in 2013.