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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....Miyuki Watanabe.... 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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Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Nogizaka Cinemas: 'Story of 46', episode two recap starring Manatsu Akimoto


 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  7.1/10 
 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..... "Perfect I"

 The year is 2040 and technology has changed quite a bit in twenty years. Cell/smart phones are out and have been replaced by mini ones you wear on your wrist. One person though has stubbornly held on to the past who still uses a smartphone, that's a young university student named Natsumi (Manatsu). She's a rather unassuming woman who somehow is best friends with a gal named Yuka who is the life of the party. Yuka attends the the same university as Natsumi and invited her friend out for a night of clubbing, Natsumi reluctantly agreed.
 Clubs haven't changed much in the future though as the patrons are raving all over the joint while consuming some odd drinks. Yuka's male friend Takuya was rather impressed with the olden ways of Natsumi and the pair hit if off immediately though she was still her very quiet self. As you can see above Takuya is asking about her about a new game that is the rage in 2040, name of the game is 'Perfect I'. It's a bit of a virtual reality game but played with no consoles, special glasses or the like. What a player needs to do is to take a few pills and with them they will enter a different world.






 Natsumi was of course hesitant at first but did admit she hated herself and the mundane life she led. So with Takuya she took the pills to enter the 'Perfect I' game and before Natsumi knew it she was in a different world with a different body who was being chased by a group of terrorists shooting at her. Natsumi wasn't alone as Takuya had also entered the same world, you can see the pair right above and what was odd is that they spoke only English.
 In this new world Natsumi is the complete opposite of what she's like in real life. She can handle a gun like a master and while Takuya's male character in the game was somewhat useless Natsumi was able to take out most of the group trying to kill them. No clue how long you remain in the game but the next thing we knew it was the following day and Natsumi was meeting Takuya again. She enjoyed the first trip to the virtual world so much and she wanted to return to it very badly. Once again the pair consumed the pills and ended up right where they had left off. More men from the terrorist group had arrived on the scene but once again the female Natsumi was able to thwart their attack. Those spells in the virtual world have been changing Natsumi in real life as she's become much more confident plus had stopped wearing glasses.





 The pair made a third voyage to the virtual world and a surprise awaited us viewers. Naturally up until now we presumed that Natsumi was the woman in the game but lo and behold the woman was actually the character of Takuya! That of course meant Natsumi was the rugged, huge man in the game though for his size he was such a wimp. Natsumi's male character only could fight like a girl and just once did she fire her gun while Takuya's female character was a Rambo type who took out almost the entire terrorist group trying to kill them.
 After that third trip we were close to the ending which became a bit confusing. The setting is back at the club the pair met at but Natsumi was still the male character from the game. At the club her 'real self' pummels her 'Perfect I' game character until (s)he pulled a pistol on Natsumi though he couldn't fire it, the real Natsumi quickly grabbed it out of his hand. After that the scene shifted to Natsumi talking once again with Takuya, that's right above. He asked her about the incident and whether she had recovered from it, she gave a wry smile as an answer as this 23 minute show cane to it's end.

 About the same as the first episode though thought this show would be a bit better. In most ways it was but the final four minutes or so really threw us for a loop when we learned Natsumi had been playing a male character. Sure there's some hidden message in that but I couldn't figure out what, did Natsumi finally come out of her timid shell? All in all though an enjoyable watch and of course if you're a Nogi fan you'll want to view it, the subbed shows are available at Beam Subs. Plenty of screenshots to help you follow the story better but at 23 minutes these shows can only have so much action. May do the next recap on Thursday with episode three which stars Sayuri, didn't mention it but Manatsu did an excellent job in this show and have always enjoyed her acting ability.























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