The 2022 Japanese series Fishbowl Wives on Netflix brought a graphic novel’s intense world to the screen. The story unfolds inside a luxury apartment tower, where six women, each trapped in an unhappy marriage, find their lives changing after they cross the line into infidelity. The showโs success relied heavily on its cast, who delivered subtle, powerful performances to portray emotional isolation, control, and quiet desperation. Letโs look back at the actors who made these complicated characters feel real.
The Central Story: Sakura and the Men in Her Life
The main storyline follows Sakura Hiraga, whose journey introduces us to the show’s core themes.
- Ryoko Shinohara as Sakura Hiraga: Shinohara plays Sakura, a former hairdresser now living as a housewife in a glamorous but abusive marriage. Her performance is defined by control and subtlety. Instead of big emotional displays, she uses hesitation, silence, and guarded expressions to show Sakuraโs inner distress and imprisonment within her daily routine. The character finds a fragile sense of freedom and acceptance through an unexpected connection.
- Masanobu Ando as Takuya Hiraga: Ando portrays Takuya, Sakura’s husband and a successful salon owner. He presents a man who is socially respectable yet exercises calm, deliberate control and abuse at home. His performance avoids theatrical aggression, making the characterโs harmful actions feel routine and deeply unsettling, which highlights the show’s focus on quiet power imbalances.
- Takanori Iwata as Haruto Toyoda: Iwata plays Haruto, the owner of a local goldfish shop who becomes important to Sakuraโs story. His character is not presented as a simple romantic rescuer. Instead, Haruto offers attentiveness and emotional openness, serving as a quiet contrast to Sakuraโs home life without offering an easy solution.
The Ensemble: Stories from the Apartment Tower
The series uses an ensemble structure, weaving together the lives of other residents in the same building. Their parallel stories show different faces of marital dissatisfaction.
- Kyoko Hasegawa as Yuriha Hakozaki: Known as โthe renovation wife,โ Yuriha struggles with a husband who constantly prioritizes his mother over their marriage. Her story is one of neglect and the search for respect within her own home.
- Shizuka Nakamura as Yuka Shimura: Yuka is โthe outsourcing wife.โ After her husband rejects her desire to have a baby, she reconnects with an ex-boyfriend, seeking the emotional and physical intimacy missing from her marriage.
- Saori Seto as Noriko Hokabe: Noriko, โthe lunchbox wife,โ faces humiliation when her husband shares the elaborate bento boxes she makes for him with a subordinate and makes an unsettling offer related to her. Her plot explores objectification within marriage.
- Anna Ishii as Saya Sanada: Ishii plays Saya, โthe chaperone wife.โ Once a running partner to her husband, she now rarely leaves the couch, dealing with her unhappiness through alcohol, which creates a cycle of mutual disappointment in her marriage.
- Wakana Matsumoto as Hisako: Hisakoโs storyline, told across two episodes titled โThe Headache Wife,โ involves a secret relationship with a man named Baba. Her secret life is complicated when her son becomes aware of what is happening.
Supporting Roles and Key Crew
A strong supporting cast adds depth to the world of Fishbowl Wives.
- Haru: Played by an actress credited simply as Haru, this character is one of the women in the building depicting emotional strain from neglect, contributing to the show’s composite picture of quiet despair.
- Ren Hanami as Mei: A fortune teller who appears to several characters.
- Riko Fukumoto as Ran Toyoda: She plays Harutoโs younger sister, who becomes protective of her brother.
- Hidekazu Mashima as Baba: The man involved in Hisakoโs secret relationship.
The series was based on the popular manga by Kurosawa R. It was directed by Michiko Namiki, Hiroaki Matsuyama, and Aya Narakino. The showโs intimate and sensitive scenes were choreographed with the help of an intimacy coordinator, Chiho Asada, who worked on all eight episodes.
Where to Watch and Final Details
Fishbowl Wives is a Netflix original series that premiered globally on the platform on February 14, 2022. The complete series consists of eight episodes, each running between 38 to 52 minutes. All episodes are available for streaming on Netflix.
The series ends with a time jump, showing where the various women are two years later, suggesting different paths of resolution and change.
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