it could have been powerful if its told from the saiki family p.o.v

hmm i actually thought telling this story from the POV of the rich family was much more original. This way we're kinda rooting for the other family (underdogs after all) but we are put in the position of the privileged family.

(not to go broadly philosophical on this, but whilst cinema often tells stories about poor people, it's usually made by and watched by privileged audiences, so in that sense the film is kinda fair and real, I'd say)

The interesting character story is not that of the good, well-adjusted father, but that of the one who is a good person and sympathetic, but had a terrible father and has become a distant and uninvolved (and hence not very good) one himself.

Saiki-san's character is pretty well explored in the screen time he has. I thought the balance of screen time devoted to the two families was just right.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

Could have been powerful??? It was powerful, totally agree with the other comments in this thread. Yet another fantastic Japanese movie that would never be made to same level in Hollywood...

It's interesting the way it was, because I think our natural instinct is to root for the family we're following and our first impression of the other father is that he's kind of a loser/goofball that only cares about the lawsuit money. We learn alongside the main character that he's not necessarily the better man or father just because he has more money.