Mariko recommended that I watch Papa to Musume no Nanokakan パパとムスメの７日間 (Papa and Daughter’s Seven Days), saying it was really funny. My friend Jeremy also mentioned that it was pretty good, so I started watching last night. This dorama is a short one, with only seven episodes, and I watched the first four, staying up until about 1am. Mariko and Jeremy were right. It’s a great show!

The story is basically a “Freaky Friday” story. Basically the father and daughter are involved in a freak accident and somehow trade bodies. Before the accident, they were kind of a typical family of father, mother and daughter. The father is a salaryman, mother is a housewife, and the daughter goes to High School. The relationship between father and daughter is not so great, with the teenager resenting her father, and the father wondering why they have grown apart. I think it is just the normal teenage years.

But after the accident, things start to get really hilarious. The acting is really good, with the girl (Aragaki Yui 新垣結衣) taking over the mannerisms of an oyaji, and vice versa. And you hear some oyaji-language coming out of the mouth of the cute girl, which is great. Plus, she stands and sits like a man, and talks to her peers in a brusque and straightforward manner. It’s really funny.

Then on the other side, the father (Tachi Hiroshi 舘ひろし) starts acting like a High Schooler, and he does it so well, with funny dancing, texting super-fast, crying when she realizes that she might be stuck in her father’s body and miss out on her youth. There are some really hilarious situations, like when the father goes out on a date, and the daughter follows them around, making sure the father doesn’t do anything crazy.

I can go on and on about the funny scenes, but I will just say that if you have access to this show, watch it! Oh, and the scene where the daughter realizes that the father has to take a bath and will see her naked body (and the solution to that predicament) is so funny. Plus of course the girl is super cute!