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Saturday, March 16, 2024

"Living no Matsunaga-san".... Episode eight of ten recap

 


 Air Dates: January 9th until March 12, 2024. Tuesdays at 11:00 pm on Fuji-TV
There's ten episodes which average ~23 minutes a show, subs were done by Blitz Subs

Main Cast: If there's anyone who has read many of the dramas I've recapped you know this is an odd one for me. Usually the genre(s) are for police/mystery/suspense/horror shows but every now and again need something a bit mellow or at least not as intense. Which is what this series will be like, viewed the first two episodes which were decent so thought why not recap this drama? Plus I did want to watch a show that featured Hikaru and she has the main female role in this. In real life she will be turning 23 later on this year but in this show plays an 18 year old high school senior named Miko. There will be no love theme in this show as the main male character Jun is 29 in age, I kind of liken his relationship with Miko as being her much older brother. Wrote the character details after the first two shows but know for the third episode there will be a new character added in. To date every scene has featured either Miko or Jun so not all that much is known yet about the others major characters but sure that will change and will edit this section, right below is the 365 Share House.



Hikaru Takahashi as Miko Sonoda.... 18 year old HS senior who lives in Tokyo. However in the first episode her parents were planning on moving to Wakayama as her grandmother was sick and they needed to run her Hot Springs resort. Of course Miko wanted to remain in Tokyo for her final year but she needed a guardian to watch over her. Which at first was her uncle Masahiko and Miko moved into his 365 Share House so all seemed acceptable to her parents. However Masahiko's company was sending him overseas for a few months, would Miko have to move to Wakayama? NO for the second oldest person at the 365 Share House Jun said he would be Miko's guardian which sounded odd at first to the mother who did eventually agree and what kind of adventures will Miko have at the house?


 Kento Nakajima as Jun Matsunaga.... The title of the drama is named after him and can't tell you exactly why. Jun is a 29 year old freelance designer, mainly for book and magazine covers. Now that Miko's uncle has left for a while Jun seems to be the head of the Share House, he can be overly strict and at first did try to give Miko house rules as he's her unofficial guardian. But think deep down Jun is a bit soft hearted and he does care about everyone living at the house. Below is the uncle Masahiko, won't add him into this section as we may not see him again. Jun also has the annoying habit of adding in an extra I to Miko's name meaning he calls her Miiko. His parents died when Jun was young and has lived at the Share House for three years. Before that Jun had worked at an ad agency, why he left is a mystery.


Koji Mukai as Kentaro Suzuki.... The other male(for a while) at the 365 Share House, Kentaro is known to be a bit of a playboy and works as a bartender.


Tomoka Kurokawa as Asako Onuki... This is an actress I like a lot and have seen her in a few other dramas. Asako is the oldest of the 365 Share House residents and owns a nail salon shop in Shibuya.


 Sakurako Okubo as Akane Hattori.... 23 year old who works PT at a curry restaurant, Akane is a bit daffy but seems to be so likable.


Taiyu Fujiwara as Ryo Hojo.... We saw him briefly in the first episode as he was going to move into the house. However Ryo thought it was a regular apartment not a room so he ended up not moving in. But he did at the beginning of the third show as there was an empty room due to Masahiko moving out, Ryo never quite explained why he changed his mind. He's a shy man in his young twenties, works a PT job and is a medical student.


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Previous recaps














 We do learn more about Jun's past in each episode and that happened again in this show. But we also did hear of a few things about the two older woman who live at the 365 Share House in the first third of the show, those are the top two screenshots. In the fifth show the curry restaurant waitress Akane has let slip to Asako that she had been dating a man for two years, no one at the house was aware of that. But in the course of three episodes Akane dumped her long time BF and is now going out with a man from her restaurant, that will be the main story in the ninth episode. The other woman Asako revealed to Miko that she had once been married, that happened at the age of 27 and she's now 31. Asako didn't give any reasons why she got divorced but to date no one at the Share House has had much luck with romance, still don't know much about Kentaro's background. 

 It's approaching final exam times for Miko who seems like a smart young woman but has no clue about Math. She asked Jun to help her out and he would have if the subject was Art, he too is inept at Math so the med student Ryo will be tutoring Miko for a while. Ryo would make for an excellent instructor as Miko has come a long way in just a few days but there is a more important subject for Miko than Math. Which of course is her crush on Jun and Ryo has known about that for a long time for he has had a crush on Miko and has been sort of rebuffed! Ryo said stop stalling and tell Jun how she feels about him, an almost impossible thing for Miko to do. Later on Jun was checking her Math progress and to Miko got just a bit too close, her heart couldn't take it but luckily Jun's phone rang to save her day... for now. On the phone was his ex-girlfriend Konatsu, talked much about her in the previous recap. After being apart for three years Konatsu has found that she still has feelings for Jun, can they meet somewhere private instead of at the house?










 The date of the call was February 27th, Jun did agree to meet with Konstau privately but not for three days. He's working on a project for a Music Festival, the project is due in two days and then the following day Jun will give a presentation, Konatsu said she would be willing to wait. In that last episode Konatsu did tell Miko that while she still liked Jun these days it was just as a friend. But at school the next day Konatsu confessed to Miko her romantic feelings for Jun have returned and needless to say that crushed the heart of Miko, that was the last we heard of that story in this show. That evening back at the 365 Share House Miko received a call from her mother who along with her father is running the grandmother's resort in Wakayama. The grandmother will be having urgent surgery in a few days but told Miko not to worry, if so why did the mother call up?! To Miko the surgery had to be serious for her uncle Masahiko is leaving his overseas work to rush back to Wakayama, what can Miko do stuck in Tokyo?

 Jun knew something was amiss with Miko who wouldn't reveal anything. However Jun does have this aura over Miko and she can't hide secrets too well from him, she confessed to Jun about her grandmother's upcoming surgery and is quite worried. If Miko is worried then so isn't Jun(!), he immediately rented a car and the pair will zoom off that night for Wakayama as it's a ten hour drive. The surgery is important but it was nothing life threatening, the grandmother said it was for Hemorrhoids and was this trip to Wakayama a wasted one? Not really as it was good for Miko to get out of Tokyo plus she did learn more about Jun's past. Miko often drinks something with the Prime label on it for she thought Jun had designed it when he worked at an ad agency. Which was true but her uncle Masahiko told Miko that Jun's superior had stolen his design and passed it off as his own! There was nothing Jun could do about so he ended up quitting the agency and is why he despises the world of advertising, no wonder Jun hates to look at the Prime label for it reminds him of his past.










 So that story was a shock to Miko and she never knew every time she bought a drink for Jun how badly it had affected him. After that ten hour drive to Wakayama and resting up it is getting late in the day, not positive but think the pair will be spending the night at the grandmother's resort. Miko had caught Jun on the phone in an intense phone conversation but he was in his car and she couldn't hear a word. He suggested taking a walk around the mountainy area and you could tell how much Miko enjoyed Wakayama over Tokyo. During this stroll the pair stopped to enjoy the scenery when Jun dropped a huge bombshell to Miko.

 She had said Kentaro told her Jun was back working for an ad agency which was true as he was designing the posters for a Music Festival. But no longer as that call Jun had made was to resign from the project, you could tell he was a bit disappointed in doing that. Miko quickly caught on to why Jun had resigned, it was because he had to drive her to Wakayama and wouldn't be in Tokyo to turn in the project and give a presentation! Which was all true as it was due the next day but Jun said not to worry about it for Miko was more important than any project!!!! That threw Miko for a loop nd also got her confidence level way up there for the bottom screenshot above is how the episode ended. With Miko telling Jun that she liked him and it took until the end of the eighth show for her to confess her feelings, what will the outcome be???? That we may find out in the next episode as this recap has come to it's conclusion, there's two more shows to go so will be back in three, maybe two, days with the final pair of recaps and this has turned out to be a decent drama.












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