EPISODE 1
Before I started the proper watch, I tried a few minutes of Episode 1 and was intrigued. That was a couple of weeks ago. Then I tried a few minutes of Episode 2 yesterday. Not a show for light viewing, this one. It’s full of emotion, both understated and overt. Show gets under one’s skin fairly quickly, but at the same time gets me feeling that I have to watch very slowly and carefully.

The Mise en scène is thoughtful. The first scene and our introduction to the leads. I refer to Minako and Grace. The aerial view of the interior of the garage in three-quarter darkness, tells us that the main players are the ones in red. Grace is the red two-seater convertible, sports car and Minako is its owner, also in red top. But they remain in the dark of the garage because of the secrets they keep. When MInako opens up the garage door for the car, we see her reflection on Grace’s windscreen. We are only shown a silhouette her in the semi-darkness, and the details will come later.

I’m struck by the fact that Grace has a left-hand drive with manual transmission, in a land where the majority are automatic cars with right-hand drive. Minako’s car is a rare import and a status symbol.

I find Minako’s farewell with her husband somewhat awkward. They are affectionate but undemonstrative, seemingly uncomfortable in their final goodbyes. Her relationship with Grace seems warmer, filled with pride. They tower over the little car, standing awkwardly beside it.

Minako is disconcerted that Kikuo found her e-Ticket and looked at it. But he does not seem to notice anything amiss. Kikuo who is so much taller than Grace, looks tiny in the rear view mirror as he waves goodbye: another image captured and diminished by Grace. Perhaps the size of Kikuo in the mirror reflects his importance to Minako.

At the last minute, Minako decides to turn around in the driver’s seat to say something to Kikuo, but Grace’s loud engine covers her words. Kikuo can’t hear Minako but she drives off without repeating what she said. (I wonder if this is a sign that we will have a tug-of-war between Kikuo and Grace, and the destinations (persons) saved in Grace’s navigation system).

Despite the need to bring viewers all on board with the past through narration, the exposition did not drag the episode down. Enough scenes of the back story with Minako filled in the explanation of what she went through and her decisions. As to why she chose to hide such important information such as the state of her health, her fertility treatments and the need to hold off having a child from her husband, we are given to believe that it was her pride.

I wonder if there are other reasons. Perhaps her good friend who is a doctor will throw some light on the dark corners of Minako’s life.

I feel for Kikuo whose belief in his happy marriage of 7 years gets torn apart by the Lawyer and then by Grace. So many important things had been hidden from him, right up to the time Minako left for her ‘holiday’.

During the identification of Minako’s body, I felt that Kikuo should have let the tour guide translate what the doctor said about the scan. Perhaps there was more that Minako had hidden and that had made her decide to quit her job. When the tour guide broke down in tears in order to translate the scan, I thought perhaps the French medical examiner had said she was also pregnant. But Kikuo stopped wanting to hear the results of the examination, hence we do not know for sure. (It is later that we also hear that Minako had said she would quit work when she got pregnant. Therefore I save this thought for later).

Episode 1 was a good set up so that we now accompany Kikuo on his quest of find out what his wife had been doing for years in secret, and in the process I trust he gets beyond anger, chagrin, resentment … to get to know her better posthumously.

Another thing I loved in this Drama is how differently those same scenes speaks to us as our understanding deepens.

Oops. Let’s try that again:

Watched episode one
Should have let doctor finish
What did THE scan show?

@FGB, yes, after watching Episode 2, I feel that I need to watch on ahead to see how to interpret stuff. What I’m hearing (so much exposition!) I need to double check with what happens in future episodes.

So if as you say we will get a deeper understanding of the same scenes later, then I feel I have to wait a while before I comment.

Maybe I shall just leave behind haikus of enlightenment or frustration along the way LOL.

I don’t know how you all are watching this show. Through Google, I only see it listed on a site called myasiantv, but when I click on it, my phone starts sending me warnings and junk links pop up. Are you using a VPN to see it on another site?

@Good Twin the emojis reflect my state of mind or attitude LOL.

Haiku as Summary of Episode 2
Wife’s secret with friend
Obsession is number one
Still remains untold

Haiku as Summary of Episode 3
Family not found
Number two on bucket list
Grace is overworked

Haiku as Conjecture from Episode 3
Making him happy
Keeping him safe like a child
That she could not have

Yes dear @GB, it is a series that invites to a detailed watch yet since we don’t have clues (they come along the way) we can’t make our minds properly… yet 😀 . As the story continues it will reward your patience 😉 .

Dear @BethB, I watch the series in:
https://watchasian.mx/

That said I am taking a risk.

@GoodTwin, hope my selection of this Drama suits your taste 😀

Thanks for your honest review, dear @GoodTwin.

MAYBE SPOILERS… BUT MORE THAN THAT AN OVERALL COMMENTARY ON THE SERIES AS A WHOLE.

I loved the female lead because even if she had a failing health she loved and cared for her husband deeply. Grace almost seems like a toy car compared to the truck following her husband in Episode 2 (almost the size of a modern superbike), a metaphor of the fragility of her failing body but also of the indomitable will wielding it. Her Soul is tough as nails.

Minako is strong in her will to live and to love, also fiercely independent. She has taken many hard decisions by herself (maybe she should have told her husband – I understand where she comes from, but at the end of the day I don’t know). Yet she is deeply caring and doing her best to give her husband a better outcome when she is gone.

Kikuo is also a deeply caring and compassionate person. But that will have to wait to episode 5 if memory serves well.

Minako is what a strong and independent person should strive for, not only for herself (at the end of the day she DID take her week in France!) but also for the sake of her loved ones. She knew she had to search for the missing pieces of her husband’s Soul while she still could. Strong and independent but with a greater purpose.

That is why I wanted to share Minako with you, @GB and the BoD Community 😉

Hope I don’t reveal much plot,

@FGB, I’ve watched “Grace… ” further along enough to know now what Minako was doing. It both breaks my heart and lifts it up. What an amazing love.

I really like your analogy of the little car being a sickly Minako, holding her own on the freeway of life against the big, impatient trucks. She adamantly makes it through the long journeys to reach her different objectives each time, all in pursuit of one goal. I am already certain and inspired by the conviction that she has succeeded in achieving her one ‘obsession’ even after her death.

Perhaps show’s main little failing is that it depends on a lot of exposition to bring us into the current situation. The prologues may help the new viewer but are repetitions for those of us who have watched from the first. Still, they give us the perspective of the soul of Minako, and hint at the richness of life after death. 🥹😄🥰

@FGB, @Good Twin
Here are Summary Haikus of Episodes 3 and 4, just for the fun of it!!!

Second female lead
Directs movement to future
Possibilities

Bringing together
Past and present princess Grace
With good food and joy

Possible new love
Adding to main objective
Busy car is Grace

(Continued…)
I have come to the conclusion that Minako had carefully planned her trip, in the off chance that she had to leave Grace with Kikuo. All her trips were intentional and in a deliberate order, one trip leading to another, like clues leading Kikuo to the ultimate gift she had for him. He didn’t know that he was on a treasure hunt with Grace.

I believe that Minako deliberately installed the car navigation system in Grace, which looked out of place in that vintage car. She didn’t want to use her mobile phone with GPS which most drivers prefer, but spent the money to have a navigation system with voice instructions installed. This was so that when Kikuo inherited the car, he would see her itinerary of the week, and be able to follow her tracks. He would not have noticed this if she had used a phone GPS.

I feel she also started her road trip with a visit to her ex-boyfriend on purpose. Ex-bf being the first on the list would raise Kikuo’s suspicions further. The trips would begin as if Kikuo was making an investigation on whether she was cheating on him, but after meeting ex-boyfriend, he would have learnt that she had a quest and that she wanted to have a baby with Kikuo. This would ensure that he would continue on retracing Minako’s steps.

By Episode 5, I understood better why Minako hid from Kikuo, her illness and the fact that she was receiving fertility treatment. It was not just her pride, although that was a big reason. She really wanted them to be a family with children of their own, and she didn’t want Kikuo who had lost his mother and brother, to be alone.

After losing his father as well, Minako did not want to grieve Kikuo by telling him that not only was it going to be difficult to have a baby, but that she might die sooner than expected because of her illness.

She had noted that the home of Kikuo and his father had been bare because the less they had, the less loss they would suffer. They were a family in long-term grief, never having come to a peaceful resolution over the separation of the brothers.

Minako wanted to bring them to reconciliation and to ensure that Kikuo had at least his brother as family, instead of being alone.

(To be continued…)

Yes and yes, dear @GB 😀 . I second your thoughts. Minako may be gone yet her presence turned from lovingly and soothing when alive to challenging and world-opening after her death. As Minako said about Kikuo: a passive person is not a bad one, just someone that does not have the energy to look for the things he wants.

She knows her husband and in some ways she used her Navigation System’s memory to rock him out of his lethargy.

That is why I love that character so much.

Will not spoil further 😀 .

Grace no Rireki Summary in Haiku
Hoping for the best
While preparing for the worst
An amazing love

@FGB,
SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Having watched the entire series, I understand now why we see the sad-looking soul of Minako, not quite able to let go and head off into the afterlife.

Although to a large extent her plan to get Kikuo reunited with family and to open up to new experiences, so as to live more fully, was successful, she must have been immersed in the great failure at the highest point in her life: of dying when she was finally pregnant.

Her decision at that stage was still so painful. To continue with the pregnancy or to abort the child. At this stage, I felt she should not be making the decision alone anymore, however the accident took the choice away.

Perhaps she’d been doing too much in the way of planning, pushing for an end that she proposed… in a sense, she was ‘trying to play God’ in Kikuo’s life. So at the crunch, that ability to choose and plan was taken away (by fate?). She was probably doing too much, when including Saori in her plans as well.

I was extremely glad to see that happenstance could still take place, while Minako’s itinerary was being followed. IE fate or God or destiny could still have its say… It just so happened that a traffic jam would cause Kikuo to make a change in the route. It then so happened that finding himself in a race car along long country roads that he should overdo racing it. Then it was really fortuitous that Haruka came along, heard the sound of the engine and pulled Kikuo over to offer help and to offer her grandfather. Of course it was really fortuitous that Grace was a Honda S800 Scarlet Hachi that was recognisable from a distance!!!

So it can be said that on top of and despite Minako’s great efforts to ensure that Kikuo would not end up alone, it was Grace that finally sealed the deal by bringing Kikuo and the Nishina family together. They would always have a connection because of Grace…. LOL the 4 of them would make a great family since they knew and loved Grace as well.

And yes, Haruka looks like she’ll make a good mother with many children.

Back to the sad soul of Minako… I liked that she was ‘visible’ to Kikuo somehow and that he looked at her but did not cling to her. I liked that he spoke with her to show that he was not alone. She still stood there looking sad. I wanted to see her walk off with a smile, after all that she’d done with such unconditional love. However he also told her that not being able to see her anymore would always be the loneliness for him.

We finally find out what her last words were to him, before she drove off : “I’ll find them. All that you have lost.” But perhaps, she only needed to get him started, and it should have been his quest to find what he needed for himself. The decisions would ultimately have been his.

EPISODE 8
@FGB Yes to what you say about why Kikuo rushed out of the apartment. Perhaps not only because the difference between Minako’s love and Saori’s indifferent regard became obvious, but also to avoid any further misconception that Saori should have a chance with him.

SPOILERS

I forgot to save and accidentally deleted my long comment on the Oracle of Grace.
Saori’s admission that Minako had rescinded her agreement immediately precedes Kikuo’s attempt to start Grace’s engine to drive away, but Grace would not start. In effect she was saying that although Minako had died, any attempt to return to the past where Saori and Kikuo had been together, was a non-starter. LOL.

When Nishino and Saori spoke of Grace Kelly and Minako, noting that both women had been reckless, brave and loving, Nishino had said that Grace Kelly’s motto was “I avoid looking back.” This was the right motto when it came to Saori and Kikuo. They could not go back but should go forwards.

I wondered if Saori’s washing of Grace was her attempt at an apology that she had still tried to get Kikuo back into her life, while knowing it was no longer what Minako wanted.

Proper Grieving and the Fourth Stage of Grief
I was a little bothered that Kikuo was not shown to have mourned sufficiently before he went off on his investigations, on Grace’s tracks. I felt that it was premature. He had jumped into learning how to drive with suspicions aroused, and before he had grieved fully.

I was pleased to see that he finally spoke to the people he should have approached 2 months earlier. He confirms with the tour guide that Minako had been pregnant and with her obstetrician friend that Minako had been undergoing treatment and had to make a most heartbreaking decision over their baby. There were just no easy decisions for Minako to make, but the one over the baby, she should not make unilaterally.

The responsibility and pain of having to choose was taken away from Minako by her death. Man proposes, but God disposes.

I was glad to see that Kikuo is finally shown going through Minako’s personal effects sent to him from France, and able to start a proper grieving process. By the time he arrives again to see Nishina and Haruka, he has entered the stage of acceptance. In his grieving, perhaps he grieved also over the loss of mother and father, and the years of separation with his brother. He returns to Nishina with happy anticipation to visit his brother again, unlike before. When he sees Minako’s spirit, he is able to let her go.

It is now the right time for Kikuo to have his fresh start with the people Minako brought back into his life and with his new friends.

@FGB I applaud you!

Yes, I agree with your take on Saori’s realisation about her ‘love’ and her reason for washing the car so repentantly, but with respect and gratitude towards Minako for opening her eyes.

Again we see that something done out of good intentions, spreads its goodness even to unexpected persons.

LOL a spin off with Saori? Perhaps someone would care to write fan-fic about her.

Everyone’s life became better in the end, even Grace’s life because she can keep getting special care from Nishina!

Would a spin off with Grace, Kikuo and Hakura be too boring? 😂

@FGB, now this is what I call a great spin off tale!! I could actually imagine them with baby in another car!

The family extends also with Kikuo’s brother’s family of course, and his mother. In the end, instead of being alone as Minako feared, her husband will have a big family scattered in different parts of Japan.

As for Grace, dear grandpa Nishina will drive her the way she’s meant to be driven … maybe even joining in some small-scale local races, so she won’t be relegated to just being a weekend car! LOL.

Love to read that this little show has stayed with you.

This is not a show about how people meet but about what they mean to each other. And about what love should be like.

Hopefully a future lurker will find this little gem in the future like a beautiful shell in a pristine beach on a perfect holiday 🙂

Dear @GB, as I commented in “what are we watching in September” I am in a slump. Could you recommend me another show?, “One Day Off” ended being a no-hit-no-run gem 😀

Echo it is then 😉 .

In fact, after watching Episode 1 of “Three Body” I got intrigued. Echo could wait.

Would love to watch “A Time Called You”. Found fantastically funny that the Taiwanese “Someday or One Day (2019)” Original is still unsubbed since 2019.

Loved to know that “Grace No Rireki” became your 4th recommendation 😉

It is always a pleasure to share something good 😀