“Asura,” a seven-episode Japanese drama on Netflix (in Japanese, with subtitles, or dubbed), is the full package: a detailed, human-scale domestic drama with plenty to say, fascinating characters to say it and the stylishness to make it sing. The downside is that other shows feel paltry and thin in comparison. The upside is everything else.
The show begins in 1979 and centers on four sisters. Ooooh, do they call each other on the phone! The story is set in motion when the prim, unmarried librarian sister, Takiko (Yu Aoi), discovers that their father has been having an affair, for years, and has a young son with his girlfriend.
Takiko is horrified, but her sisters are less doctrinaire: Sakiko (Suzu Hirose), the dramatic and immature one, blames Takiko for meddling. The oldest sister, Tsunako (Rie Miyazawa), is a widow with a married boyfriend, and she’s reluctant to throw stones. Makiko (Machiko Ono), married with two teenagers, is the first among equals, and she suspects her own dismissive husband is cheating on her. Maybe the ties that bind are the polite fictions everyone can agree on. Cut one, and you might accidentally cut them all.
Each sister bristles under the control of men, and each finds it much easier to see the shallowness of the others’ excuses than to confront her own suffering. Such is sisterhood. As the years go by, they become both more entrenched in their choices but less committed to them; by the time you realize how stuck you are, you really are stuck.
Scenes from “Asura” feel like scenes from life, with conversations that comfortably include snappy jokes, deep intimacy, physical wrestling, meal-planning and petty but profound complaints about family dynamics, all in the span of a few minutes. Food is a huge element of the show, and the characters are constantly cooking, eating or discussing when they’re going to cook and eat. It’s the easy nutshell for so many other behaviors: You always take the good ones; here, have this, it hurts my fake tooth; you always take the bad ones — treat yourself for once; I can’t believe you ate that with her.
Every episode of “Asura” was written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Shoplifters”), adapted from a novel by Kuniko Mukoda. Visually, the show is sumptuous, evocative in its vintage feel but not contrived or ostentatious.