My Neighbors the Yamadas

My Neighbors the Yamadas is based on the long-running comic strip of the same name by Japan’s best-known comic strip writer and artist Ishii Hisaichi. It is told in a series of episodic vignettes that center around a middle-aged Japanese businessman, Takashi Yamada, and his family members. Besides Takashi, the “head” of his household, there is Matsuko, his wife, who is good-natured and has absolutely no interest in or talent for housework; Noboru, his teenage son, who hates studying, the main feature of his schoolboy life; Nonoko, his eight-year-old daughter whose large mouth and loud voice are unusual for someone so small; Shige, Matsuko’s seventy-year-old sharp-tongue mother who lives with them, and the family dog...