The Man Who Won't Divorce
離婚しない男―サレ夫と悪嫁の騙し愛―
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A cuckolded husband refuses to divorce and plots instead — the サレ夫 genre in full bloom.
Wataru Okatani, a star reporter at a big newspaper, sees his wife, Ayaka, walk into a love hotel with another man. He resolves to divorce her and keep their seven-year-old daughter, Kokone, but the lawyer he consults, Tokiko Takarada, tells him that under the principle that favours mothers a father wins custody about one time in ten. So he stays. He gives up his career to work from home and takes over the childcare to build a record as a parent, and with a private detective, Yu Misago, he quietly gathers evidence while pretending to notice nothing.
Ayaka, a former idol who has poured herself into making Kokone a child star, is sleeping with Masato Shiba, a senior manager at the talent agency where Kokone trains. Masato goads Wataru, lays traps to drag him into a scandal, and turns out to be someone from his past: a high-school classmate with a new face, bent on taking everything Wataru has. Tokiko has her own wound, an ex-husband who baited her into an affair and took her child. Ayaka becomes pregnant by Masato.
In the final episode Masato and Yu, who appears to have turned on Wataru, kidnap Kokone and booby-trap the room where she is held so that it will kill her parents when they open the door. Waiting, Wataru and Ayaka speak honestly to each other for the first time. But Yu has been a double agent: the trap fails, Kokone is safe, and Masato is tied up. Before the police arrive, Chisato, the subordinate he has slept with and treated as rubbish, attacks him. Yu, it emerges, is the son Tokiko lost.
Wataru finds Masato dying and asks, at last, why he hated him. In high school, Masato says, he followed his mother to a meeting with her lover, who was Wataru's father; he sent her a message wishing her dead, and she took her own life. Wataru weeps and says he wishes he had known in time to help. Masato asks whether they were ever friends. Wataru says he always thought so, and Masato dies. When Masato's father refuses his ashes, Wataru builds him a grave. Kokone has said she wants to live with both her parents, and Wataru tears up the divorce papers. The Okatanis stay together, with the baby Ayaka was carrying, a boy called Osamu.
Starring
Atsushi Itoas Wataru Okatani
A newspaper reporter who discovers his wife's affair and refuses to divorce until he can win custody of their daughter.
Wataru Okatani’s story
Wataru sees his wife walk into a love hotel and resolves to divorce her and keep their daughter, until a lawyer tells him fathers win custody about one time in ten. So he stays: he gives up his career to work from home, takes on the cooking and school runs to build a record as a parent, and quietly gathers evidence with the detective, Yu. When Masato and Yu kidnap Kokone, he and Ayaka, waiting, speak honestly to each other for the first time. He finds Masato dying, asks at last why he hated him, weeps that he could have helped had he known, and says he always thought they were friends. He builds Masato a grave. When Kokone says she wants both her parents, he tears up the divorce papers and stays beside Ayaka as she raises the baby.
Mariko Shinodaas Ayaka Okatani
Wataru's wife, a former idol driven by envy of her old idol peers to make their daughter a star, who is having an affair.
Ayaka Okatani’s story
Ayaka is sleeping with Masato, a manager at the agency where seven-year-old Kokone trains, and sneers at the housework her husband has taken on. Pregnant by Masato, she celebrates with him until the agency's president discovers the affair. After Masato and Yu kidnap Kokone, she and Wataru wait together and, for the first time, say what they really feel. Later she apologises to Wataru and Kokone for the affair, hands him the divorce papers she has signed, and breaks down holding her daughter. When Kokone says she wants both her parents, Wataru tears the papers up. A year later the family lives quietly, with her baby son, Osamu.
Teppei Koikeas Masato Shiba
A talent-agency manager and Ayaka's lover, secretly Wataru's old classmate, who has built his life around revenge.
Masato Shiba’s story
Behind a new face, Masato is the clever, friendless boy Wataru knew at high school. When his parents drifted apart, he followed his mother to a meeting with her lover, who turned out to be Wataru's father; he sent her a message wishing her dead, and the next day she took her own life. When Wataru married a former idol, Masato set out to take everything he had. He goads Wataru, fathers Ayaka's child and treats the women around him, above all his subordinate Chisato, as tools. With Yu he kidnaps Kokone and rigs the door so that opening it will kill her parents, but Yu has been working against him. Attacked by Chisato, he tells a weeping Wataru the truth, asks whether they were ever friends, hears that they were, and dies.
Taiki Satoas Yu Misago
The private detective who partners Wataru in gathering evidence, and who is bound to Tokiko by more than work.
Miki Mizunoas Tokiko Takarada
A formidable divorce lawyer who takes Wataru's case and once lost her own child in a custody fight.
Ameri Isomuraas Kokone Okatani
Wataru and Ayaka's seven-year-old daughter, who says she wants to live with both her mother and her father.
Why it matters
The Man Who Won't Divorce is a black comedy about custody built on a hard line its lawyer delivers in the first episode: a father wins custody about one time in ten. That turns the familiar revenge of the betrayed husband into a long campaign of cooking, school runs and patience, and puts a father through the daily work his wife had done. It was Osamu Suzuki's last serial for broadcast television before he retired as a writer, and it is gleefully excessive: honey traps, slapstick, a kidnapping. Beneath the farce runs a chain of betrayals handed from parents to children, a mother's affair and suicide that curdled a boy's life into revenge. The ending chooses a family patched together over a case won, and leaves open whether that is mercy or surrender.