Fishbowl Wives: The Main Characters, Ranked By Intelligence
Adapted from the Ryo Kurosawa manga of the same name, Netflix's J-drama Fishbowl Wives is a sappy and steamy melodrama that traces the romantic infidelity of six Japanese women living in the same luxury high-rise in Tokyo. While cheating on one's spouse hardly aligns with intelligence, the characters on the show have varying motives that somewhat justify their actions.
Moreover, how the main characters navigate their profession while dealing with their tumultuous marriage at home, not to mention how far they are willing to sacrifice everything they built, certainly comes from their emotional intelligence if nothing else.
Without question, the least intelligent main character on the popular live-action Japanese Netflix TV show is Takuya Hiraga (Masanobu Ando), the flagrant philanderer. He not only cheats on his lovely wife Sakura multiple times but also physically beats her in their apartment. Twice. His actions lead to Sakura leaving him and eventually filing for divorce.
Despite running his own business, Takuya's crude negligence and blindness to see what a special, beautiful, and devoted wife he has only proved what a fool he truly is. He's too dim to realize what a good thing he had, failed to realize his physical abuse was being recorded on surveillance video, and gave the promotion he promised to Sakura to Nene after she agreed to sleep with him. Sheer brilliance.
Dubbed "The Headache Wife" due to her incessant migraines resulting from past trauma, Hisako's confused state of mind is more than forgivable. Alas, it doesn't change the fact that she unknowingly has an affair with her own baby daddy, Baba.
Indeed, Hisako's tragic memory loss results in her striking up an unlikely affair with her old flame without recognizing him. Out of a strange sense of compassion, Baba goes along with the charade until their son finds out and spoils the mystery. Hisako is probably much smarter than the arc she is given, but through no fault of her own, comes off a bit too clueless.
After expressing her desire to have a baby, Yuka (Shizuka Nakamura) is sexually rejected by her husband time and again on the streamable Netflix Japanese show. Yuka is smart to openly communicate and avoid bottling her true feelings, a wise decision that fosters great change in her life.
When Yuka happens to run into her ex-boyfriend Jun, they strike up a torrid affair. Whereas many of the women spark romances with random strangers, at least Yuka was smart enough to do with someone she knew intimately and could trust. Two years later, despite finally becoming pregnant and fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother, she didn't know who the father was.
A supremely skilled home chef with extensive culinary knowledge, Noriko (Saori Seto) is a bit of a submissive who agrees to engage in her husband's odd fetish of having an affair with his co-worker...while he watches. Aside from her vocational expertise, Noriko is smart enough to recognize that her husband's coworker is actually more compassionate than the man she's married to.
Noriko also derives far more pleasure from watching people eat her food than she does from sexual gratification, which aligns with the wise old adage that it's better to give than to receive.
Yuriha is slightly more intelligent than the other woman adulterers on the show for the simple fact that she does not actively search for an affair but rather lets one organically develop. When her neglectful husband shows far more attention to his mother than he does to her, Yuriha is wise enough to follow her heart. Moreover, she's figured out a way to hide the debilitating scar on her face through makeup application.
As such, she meets a man who is also dealing with marital strife, desperate to rid his giant back tattoo that is damaging his marriage. Yuriha shares her shrewd makeup technique with the man before sharing a genuinely intimate moment.
As Haruto's concerned younger sister who tries desperately to end his affair with Sakura on the guilty-pleasure Netflix romance, Ran (Sanyee Yuan) is arguably the moral compass of the show. Her ethical intelligence and right-headed decorum are quite precocious for a teenager still in high school, which makes her even more impressive.
Based on her school uniform, Ran attends a glitzy private school in Tokyo that surely contributes to her intellectual superiority. She seems to know what's best for both Haru and Sakura when they're too close to recognize it themselves, often steering her big brother in the right direction.
As Sakura's high-powered lawyer handling her divorce case, Masak0 (Jennifer Sun Bell) has an extremely shrewd legal mind that she uses to help win the case. One of the few women on the show not subject to marital infidelity, Masako has more moral intelligence than just about every other character.
The brilliant way in which Masako plays Takuya like a fiddle during the deposition, waiting until the most opportune time to reveal the security footage of the husband's domestic violence, proves how far ahead of her competition she remains at all times.
Beyond his vast expertise regarding fish as the sole proprietor of Toyoda Goldfish, Haruto (Takanori Iwata) is the smartest male character in Fishbowl Wives. He has been admiring Sakura since she saved his sister Ran years prior, hoping for the perfect chance to reunite. When they do so, Haru is wise enough to make the most of his opportunity.
Haruto's emotional intelligence is depicted time and again by showing tremendous patience, compassion, and empathy of Sakura, never pressuring her to do anything she feels uncomfortable with. Moreover, Haruto's decision not to follow in his father's footsteps by managing the family business proves he is smart enough to forge his own career path.
As the series lead whose infidelity is driven by heartfelt romance rather than fleeting lust, Sakura (Ryoko Shinohara) is the smartest of the six maritally challenged women on the under-the-radar Netflix romance. She is smart enough to leave her wildly abusive husband and start life anew, forging a tender bond with the young goldfish salesman Haruto. Yet, she takes things slowly and logically, never letting her temptations overrun her feelings.
In addition to having the wherewithal to rescue Haru's sister Ran from falling glass, which temporarily claims her vocation as a hairstylist, Sakura proves her intelligence by going through with her divorce from Takuya. Sakura also had the emotional intelligence to know that she and Haruo wouldn't work out in the long run due to their age difference, yet is sure to get one last randy roll-around with Haru before it's over.
As the sagacious den mother of sorts who is equipped with fortune-telling skills, Mei (Ren Hanami) is has a mystical sixth sense that makes her the most omniscient character on the show. Her high-powered perception and ability to see the future allows Mei to provide spiritual guidance to each of the six unfaithful women, giving them council when they most need it.
Moreover, Mei is the one who encourages each woman to obtain a goldfish, a major theme of the show, which represents the new relationship that they must embrace, nurture, feed, and grow.