At first glance, the new Japanese series Fishbowl Lives shows women taking charge of their crumbling marriages by “crossing the line into infidelity,” as the show’s description says. But a look at the first episode shows something very different. Read on for more.
The Gist: Takuya Hiraga (Masanobu Ando) is having sex in his apartment in a luxury Tokyo high rise, but the woman isn’t his wife Sakura (Ryoko Shinohara), who is approaching the building as we see this passionate shower scene.
It turns out Sakura doesn’t discover the illicit affair, because she’s busy making sure everything is right for her birthday party elsewhere in the building. The word is she only invited people who lived above the 30th floor, and there’s the usual rumormongering going on amongst the “friends” she’s invited.
At the party, a fortune teller tells Sakura and her friends that people need to find one’s “twin ray,” or the other half of their soul, but Sakura says she’s already found him. She also suggests that women who want to have kids get a goldfish to prove to themselves and their spouses that they can care for something.
Sakura’s confidence that she’s found her soulmate is only a façade: Takuya and Sakura use the party to announce a new venture in their chain of salons, and his interest in his wife doesn’t seem to extend beyond the idea that they look like the “perfect couple” to the outside world.