Air Dates: April 8th to June 10, 2018 on TV-Asahi for ten episodes, aired at 2:30 am Saturdays
The main cast....
Haruka Fukuhara as Makoto Kikuchi.... Parents run a green grocery where she was scouted by Oshima and has struggled greatly at the beginning to be a voice actress(Seiyu).
Yurika Nakamura as Asami Kuriyama.... The best of the five females who are trying to become voice actresses, disliked Makoto at first for her lack of dedication.
Mariya Nagao as Ren Ineba.... Massive Otaku fan, especially for the 'Precure' series. Was written out of the series as she quit being a voice actress in episode seven.
Jun Amaki as Konatsu Morimoto.... From Kansai and too often speaks in that dialect.
Aoi Yoshikura as Ryoko Ochiai.... Former child actress making a comeback as a voice actress.
The others, it's a very small cast so far and will add to the list if needed.
Haruka Tomatsu as herself.... Ex-voice actress who now hosts a popular radio show.
Shingo Tsurumi as Yuichiro Oshima... Head of Ihara Productions where the girls work.
Masaki Nakao as Katsutoshi Shoda.... Oshima's assistant.
On to the second batch of five recaps, would help reading the first but it's not essential that you do. For the most part all of the episodes are stand alone ones so there's no cliffhangers that ends a show and begins the next one until the ninth episode. Have viewed up to that ninth episode, will do the recaps for shows six through nine before I watch the final episode and like the first batch there will be five recaps in a row so let's get to the fourth of five.
Lot takes place in these final two shows, it's been a semi-serious drama up until now but the level really increases and at times becomes a bit sad. The Ihara agency is still on the verge of shutting it's voice acting department, the four girls remaining do get enough work but to date none of them has landed a huge and well paying voice role. But there is an opening that could save the department as there's a huge anime production coming out titled "You and To Take One's Place". The main role in the anime will be the character of Hikaru, many hundreds sent in an audition tape but only twenty were selected for a live audition.
Two of those were naturally Asami who is the most talented Seiyu at Ihara and Makoto who this dram revolves around. Both attended that first audition which didn't include any testing but the twenty were given a packet of what to practice for in the first testing which will take place in two weeks. After the meeting Asami and Makoto, escorted by their two managers, ran into Ogasawara in the hallway. You may remember her from the last recap as she tried to steal Asami away from Ihara and bring her to the Very Fine agency. Ogasawara has her own talent with her who is Yuu and she appears to be the odds on favorite for getting this very exclusive role which could make that person a major star.
However Asami and Makoto weren't fazed by meeting the talented Yuu, what they were a bit fazed at was what they needed to practice. The pair weren't worried about their voice skills but even though it's an anime the Seiyu needs to be an excellent dancer which neither were. The management of the anime have plans that go beyond voice acting such as the winner will have a CD released under their name plus will be appearing at many concerts. The character in the anime, Hikaru, is an up and coming Idol who failed so many times but eventually becomes a star.
Their manager Oshima had arranged for the very popular voice actress Haruka Tomatsu to work with the pair and lead their training. We've seen much of Haruka throughout this series but not in the last episode. Asami wasn't aware that Makoto knew Haruka so well and was a bit peeved she hadn't introduced her to Haruka. The training is intense and there's only two weeks to become good dancers or at least show the potential to become a good one.
The pair are always practicing and though only one of them will get the part both are working hard as a team. A major reason for that is if one of them can get the role of Hikaru then the income from that will be able to save the voice actress department at their Ihara agency. So it's been nonstop work for the pair who even practice at night but there could be a problem with Asami. In that above screenshot she's caressing her ankle, Asami wasn't used to all of that dancing so had sprained it but is keeping it a secret from everyone in hopes that it'll heal for the audition.
Unfortunately for Asami with all of the practicing it didn't leave any time for her ankle to heal as you can see above. That was on the day of the major audition and while she did well enough considering her injury she wasn't called back for more testing. In a bit of surprise only two of the twenty girls testing for the major role of Hikaru were called back, one of course was Yuu who is the favorite to win the part.
There was no doubt the other person selected would be Makoto which is what happened. She was a bit shocked but not overly so, during the auditions she did extremely well and all of that dance practicing paid off. She briefly met Yuu after the audition who said she couldn't believe a girl like Makoto has made it this far but it's as far as she'll go for there's no way Yuu will lose to her.
But that final testing won't be for two weeks, the pair had been given a few scripts to study and everyone at Makoto's house were overjoyed with her and would help her out in any way. But it seems the anime fans on the internet weren't too pleased with Makoto being one of the two finalists as they were really blasting an unknown such as she was for beating out some of their fave voice actresses. That berating must have gotten to Makoto badly as the following morning at breakfast she tried to say a few words to her friends. However nothing would come out of her mouth, was it a case of being too scared or did Makoto suddenly come down with a case of laryngitis? That's where this episode ended off and where the next one begins with what's happened to Makoto?
Been finding out with my last few dramas they're so much more enjoyable when you watch the entire series somewhat quickly. In the past too often I'll watch two episodes in a week then don't watch any until the following week so will continue this pattern in the future. Oki doki, we're down to one show to go which is a bit of a tearjerker and is the post after this.
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