Ants without Umbrella Season 1

### About Series "Ants without Umbrella (2016)"

Ants without Umbrella is about Jun Hashimoto (Ren Kiriyama), a writer who writes science fiction novels, but he is not famous at all. He lives on his savings. One day, his editor, Tateyama (Masanobu Sakata), gives him a job. He will be writing a short story for a youth-oriented web magazine. The theme of the short story is "love." Jun Hashimoto initially refused, as he had never written a love story before, but Tateyama pushed him to write short stories. The deadline is imminent. Jun's childhood friend Keisuke Murata (Shigeaki Kato) then appears in front of him. Jun complains to Keisuke that he can't write a love story. While talking with Keisuke, Jun comes up with an idea and begins to write his love story.

Native Title: 傘をもたない蟻たちは

Ants without Umbrella Also Known As: Kasa wo Motanai Aritachi wa

Director: Kono Keita

Screenwriter: Ogawa Makoto

Drama: Ants without Umbrella

Country: Japan

Episodes: 4

Aired: Jan 9, 2016 - Jan 30, 2016

Main Actors:

Kiriyama Renn as Hashimoto Jun

Kato Shigeaki as Murata Keisuke

Minamisawa Nao as Akatsu Mai

Ryu Raita as Nezujii

Sakata Masanobu as Tateyama

Adachi Rika as Nakamura Ami

Takeda Rena as Akatsu Mai [Young]

Ichikawa Riku as Murata Keisuke [Young]

Niitsu Chise as Rina

Director Actors:

Kono Keita

Watch free on: Xemovie.com.

**#Review: **

First of all, this is what you need to know straight away: this drama is very short, it's about a writer trying to write a story (and mostly failing at it), his emotional connection to a friend that will aid him in more ways than he thinks and it's based on a book, which is a compilation of short stories, what results in various genres and outcomes in the same drama.

Now, let's move on to the specifics. As far as I'm concerned, the book this drama is based on groups 6 short stories, which are unrelated to one another. This drama uses, in one way or another, 3 of them (the protagonists of the drama being characters from the last story) and make a small reference to another story, which is not fully covered. The other two are, as far as I can tell, nowhere to be seen. So, if you read the book, don't worry, you don't yet know how this is gonna turn out because the plot twist in this drama has nothing to do with the book.

I find it strange that, being the actual writer of the book involved in the drama (and performing in it), he'd choose to make such big changes as to end with a resulting different story than any of the others, but maybe it was taken as an opportunity for people who had read the book to still be surprised and for people who haven't to still have a chance to read it and find out other perspectives. Still, I find the resulting story of this drama a bit lackluster in comparison to the ones in the book, in the sense that the plot twist of the drama is not the most unpredictable one you'd see, which contrasts with a story that was pretty heartfelt and trying to be very honest.

I enjoyed the performances, especially from Renn, and I think the drama is enjoyable as a whole, yet it may have benefited from either following the self-conclusive aspect of the short-story style the book has, picking one and going with it from start to finish or providing more episodes for this style they chose to really take flight. As it is, I like the idea of the "stories inside a story" style they pick for the first part, it's a good narrative device when used well, but being the amount of episodes so little, I found the change of perspective a bit forced and it didn't allow the self-discovery and emotional-fulfillment aspect the drama was trying to go for at the end to fully show.

There is a speck of LGBT representation in this drama, not as well handled as in other dramas of 2015 I've seen, but it is there and it's more than just a BL-ish fanservice note, it has to do with character development, so it's worthy of noting. In the book, though, the outcome of that character seems to be better.

All in all, it's an interesting format and it deserves a go. It has a bit of mystery, a bit of fantastic and a lot of emotion. To me, it was interesting in a narrative level, as to see the use of different devices and how that worked (or didn't). I'd like to see what other stories can Shige bring in the future.