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Hajimemashite minna san....welcome to my site on my fave Japanese Pop Culture likes such as dramas, movies, magazine scans, promo events etc. Mainly concentrate on my faves...Risa Watanabe... Kyoko Saito... Yui Kobayashi....Nana Owada.... Nene Shida.... if you're a fan at all of any of them then you've come to the right place(!) but many others are featured here besides them. Do mainly quick reviews on things I've watched, try to make the reviews brief, quick to read through with not too many spoilers, just whether they're good or bad and why I thought so plus whether you may find them enjoyable. Many, many screenshots are included from everything I've watched plus any video trailers if they're available. Hope you find something that interests you, don't hesitate to comment, arigato gozaimasu!

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Sunday, February 2, 2020

Nogizaka Cinemas: 'Story of 46', episode one recap starring Asuka Saito


 Fuji-TV/FOD homepage link for the show:  https://www.fujitv.co.jp/nogizakacinemas/

This drama began on January 21st, it will have ten episodes featuring one Nogi member who are in the above pic and here's the list of who will be in each show plus it's rating:

                         Episode one- Asuka     7.5/10
      Episode two- Manatsu
     Episode three- Sayuri
     Episode four- Mizuki
    Episode five- Hinako
  Episode six- Miona
    Episode seven- Yuki
     Episode eight- Erika
     Episode nine- Shiori
Episode ten- Mai

 The series airs on Tuesday nights but already four shows have aired so it must be more than one episode a week. Will have a mini recap for each show which has a running time of close to 25 minutes, subs for the series are being done by Beam Subs. Every show will have a different story which often will be a mysterious one, let's get on with the brief recap.



Episode title: 'Tori, Kizoku' which means Bird, Noble 

 Mentioned in the last Nogi group post that this episode reminded me of the third 'Dead or Alive' film where humans coexisted with humanoids plus how old and new technology were used at the same time such as the above TV set. The setting and year are unknown but it appears to be the future where humans are living a turbulent life with cormorants. Cormorants are 'bird people' who seem to only eat bugs or that's all we saw them consume. Sometimes things are going smoothly between the two races but there is a special police force that keeps the cormorants in line and things seem to be getting worse as they're constantly demonstrating for better living conditions.
 Asuka plays the character of Mitra who is a dress designer. At one time she had been extremely popular and even the royal family respected her but she's fallen onto tough times and can't think of any new designs. Seems in the past some have come from copying the dress designs of dolls which the public hadn't caught on to yet though her boyfriend Keito had a clue what she's been doing.





 Keito works for the state police division which was created to keep the cormorants in line. For a long time Mitra was afraid of the 'bird people' and avoided them but six months prior had paid a visit to a doll shop to purchase a few to get ideas for a new design. The owner of the shop was a cormorant named Mugi who Mitra was afraid of at first but soon became friendly with the man. The do look very much like humans save for their faces which in the show were supposed to be bird like(?).
 They really weren't similar to a bird's face at all, perhaps a beak should have been added? Mitra finally had a slight burst of inspiration and was able to create a new design that was influenced by one of the dolls she bought from the shop. After six months of knowing Mugi Mitra was comfortable around him and asked if he would like to make the new dress with her which Mugi readily agreed to. However tensions between the two races have become much worse and as you can see in the above screenshot humans were forbidden to have contact with cormorants. Keito was called into service and to help quell the uprising and paid a visit to Mugi's shop which was a grave mistake for him.




 Keito tried to use the power of his position to take many of the dolls from Mugi's shop plus knowing he got along well with Mitra made Keito a bit jealous as he began pummeling the cormorant. But before the beating became too severe one of Mugi's cormorant friends entered the shop to save him, in the process that friend ended up beating Keito so badly he killed him. Knowing only death await the pair if they're nabbed they fled the city and were still at large when the show ended.
 Meanwhile Mitra heard the news on the TV and paid a visit to the shop. There she found the dress she had designed, to her pleasant surprise Mugi had completed it in no time and it was perfect. She returned home though in a dazed state as the two men she cared for were both gone and she hugged a mannequin figure in tears. The impression I had though is that the tears weren't for her boyfriend Keito but for her cormorant friend Mugi who she had grown so fond of over the past six months as this episode came to it's conclusion.

 A decent show and think all will be that way but have a feeling this could be the worst of them all. Gave it a rating of 7.5/10 as it the story was good but seems it was just a tad too slow. Asuka is an okay actress but one thing I wish she would do is show more life or pep, she's always too quiet in dramas which I think is the way she is in real life. Have three more episodes ready to be viewed, will space these recaps out as there's only ten episodes in all. So should have the next one this Wednesday and here's plenty of screenshots to follow the story a bit better.





























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