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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, May 10, 2020

"Mr. Nietzsche in the Convenience Store" drama: Episode four recap



 Air Dates: January 21st to March 23, 2016 on YTV, Thursdays at 1:29 pm
 Each episode is about 23 minutes in length

Main Cast: Name of the convenience store is the Three Seven Temple Street Store.

Shotaro Mamiya as Tomoharu Nii.... new worker at the store who works overnight and by day is studying Buddhism, is a very stoic twenty something man

Kenji Urai as Matsukoma..... after being out of work for two years found a job at the store six months prior, works with Nii on the overnight shift

Rena Matsui as Kaede Shioyama.... is a nurse whose shift gets done after midnight so stops by the store every night, fell in love with Nii at first sight and grew up with Matsukoma

Jiro as Watari.... oldest clerk at the store and has the nickname of 'Lottery Senpai' as he often plays lottery games to get rich quick which has never panned out

Jiro Sato as Manager.... only goes by Manager and is quite the goofball

Rio Uchida as Megumi Tatsuzaki.... clerk at the store, still haven't met her

Ryo Matsuda as Takeshi Shibata..... clerk at the store, first met in episode three

 This is the final of the mini four post marathon, thanks if you've read them all. As I mentioned twice before this is a 'quiet' drama, what I mean is there's a lot of subtleness in this show. Such as their mannerisms, tone when they talk and various other things which are difficult to put into words. To date this has been a fine show and do recommend it, with short episodes you wouldn't be giving up too much of your time. Plus it's nice to see Rena as I hardly think of her these days. At one time she was close to being my #1 Idol, have missed posting about her these last 3-4 years.





 Obviously being a Monk in training means Nii knows very little about smoking and it seems cigarettes are the most popular item at the store. He's constantly getting the wrong brands and knows zilch about flavors and such. So many customers harass Nii about his incompetence but he's been able to weather their tirades even though he never smiled which is rare for him. However he began to revert back to his old demeanor when he sold smokes, his smile returned but of course he was as stoic and monotone as ever. He revealed to Matsukoma that because smoking cuts so much time off your life that means those who purchase cigarettes are that much closer to their death. What Nii further explained was that when he's a Monk he'll be much busier as the he'll be doing the rites or such at their funerals, definitely an eerie way to look at things.
 There was an event that didn't happen and was really hoping it would. It popped into the Manager's small brain that there had been no welcoming party for Nii, he's been at the store for a month. So he, Matsukoma and Watari brainstormed on what to do, hopefully something different. They settled on having the party at Nii's temple and the trio were looking forward to it. But as you can see above Nii nixed that idea, he would be busy with a stomachache every day for the next few weeks. Perhaps it'll take place in a future episode, seemed like it'd be a fun event and so far there's been zero scenes outside the store.
 Kaede is always the highlight of an episode though wish her scene was longer than 3-4 minutes. Her love for Nii hasn't wavered since she first laid eyes on him, wonder if Monks are allowed to marry or have girlfriends after they finish their training? Kaede did a neat trick which may have flown over Nii's head, it's what she wrote on the receipt he gave her. Kaede circled certain Hiragana on the little strip of paper, circled were SU-KI-DE-SU which spelled out she liked him. Once again Kaede's quest for his love failed but she doesn't seem like the woman who will ever give up.






 Watari continues to think of schemes to make money, all have been failures but least this latest one was a bit original. He's trying to devise a machine that can decipher the language of horses, it appeared there's one that can do a bit of that for dogs. Watari will name it 'Horselingual' and with the program he can visit a race track to listen in on the horses racing that day. By listening to their 'conversations' perhaps Watari can determine who is sick, more healthy or various other info that'll give him an edge on betting, A real far fetched idea and of course Nii popped his bubble by listing all of the things that could go wrong.
 Nii even used Matsukoma as an example, he thinks every time at an interview he'll get a job and has failed 100% of the time. Just because a horse may feel he can win doesn't mean it'll happen, naturally Watari and Matsukoma walked away very dejected. Just as that little event was over who should walk in the door but Manager and he didn't look well. His clothes were torn, his face was all muddy and he did have some blood on him. Of course his faithful employees were concerned for him but Manager kept saying he fell into a ditch.
 But Matsukoma was able to pry a few more details out of Manager's mouth. He was actually walking to the store when a woman was attacked, he couldn't just stand there so he decided to jump in and save her, to his clerks he was a hero. Not so fast as the woman in the attack appeared at the store, Manager did nothing to save the woman as she fended off her attacker. She was an eighth degree black belt so she pummeled the guy and dragged him to the police. The woman had stopped by the store to see if Manager was okay as he did tell the truth which was that he truly did fall into a ditch! It did also come out he was a bit too scared to jump into the fracas, when he was thinking of leaving is when he fell into the ditch. And with that little incident this fourth episode came to it's conclusion and it may have been the best show to date.




 Thanks again if you've read these four recaps, not a must watch show but it's enjoyable one and especially if you're into odd and quirky characters. There's six more shows to view, will probably watch four more and have a mini marathon like today, then will do the final two shows a day or so after. May take a mini break from recaps save for some Nogi dramas, my next big venture will be the "Born Again" series which has two or three weeks to go.























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