AllMovie

Taking a break from directing Gamera movies, Shusuke Kaneko spins this wacky family comedy based on a girls manga by Yumiko Oshima. The film centers on the Rinkaiji family, who is the picture of an upwardly mobile upper-middle class family living in a Tokyo bedroom community. Mr. Rinkaiji (Shiro Sano) is on the executive track of his highly respected company, Mrs. Rinkaiji (Jun Fubuki) merrily tends to the house and busies herself with her equally upwardly mobile friends, and Sugina (Hisako Saeki) the teenaged daughter, gets top grades at a top-drawer high school. Though both spouses have been previously married -- Sugina is the product of one -- the family appears to have it made. One day, the father and Sugina run into one another in the park when he is supposed to be at work and she at school. Soon Dad reveals that he in fact quit his job weeks ago because he couldn't stand his co-workers, and Sugina admits that she quit school because of constant bullying. As they talk, the father realizes that he barely knows his stepdaughter, and decides to start a company with he as the president and Sugina as the VP. Mom immediately thinks the whole idea ludicrous and worries about what the neighbors will think. Meanwhile, Dad's ex-wife (Hitomi Takabayshi) has designs on her former spouse.