Mayu Matsuoka: "Suizokukan Garu" drama episode one recap and screenshots

 Start Date: June 17, 2016 on NHK, airs Friday nights at 10:00 pm until July 31st

Main Cast:

Mayu Matsuoka as Yuka Shima

Kenta Kiritani as Ryohei Kaji

Asahi Uchida as Riku Isokawa

Houka Kinoshita as Yoji Morishita

Motoki Nishimura as Takuya Yagami

Naomi Nishda as Ichiko Yoshizaki

Shiro Ito as Ryotaro Utsumi

 Been a while since I've recapped a regular length, every one for the last few months have been ones that are only about 25 minutes long so hope I remember how to do these. What I really hope is that those shorter reviews will carry over to these. Glad to see an under the radar drama like this is being subbed, first episode turned out to be a solid watch and it does promise to be an okay series.
 Mayu plays Yuka Shima who works for the Yottsu Boshi company. However after a few mishaps such as losing four pages of an important document along with being seen entering a love hotel with a few men she is on the verge of getting canned. She easily could have been but instead was transferred to an aquarium the company owns.

 You can go no lower on the company's totem pole than getting sent to work at the Hamakaze Aquarium, it looks like a good place but it's been suffering as attendance has really dropped. At the end of the show the director was told that if the attendance doesn't pick up and the profits start to rise then the company will sell the land for a new apartment complex.
 Back to Yuka though, the incidents which sent her to working at the aquarium weren't her fault as her boss at the main headquarters had set her up for a fall. He was the one who 'lost' the four pages of the document plus had set up Yuka to look like she was entering a love hotel with a few men to take a picture of her, he's mad at a minor event with her that happened two years prior.
 At the aquarium Yuka is what you would think a newcomer would be which is mainly useless. All of the other employees have had many years of training though at least they seem to like her. That is except for her chief Kaji, he wants nothing to do with her and wants her to fail so she'll be sent back to headquarters. Yuka can't be sent back there as this is her last chance with the company and for most of the first episode it appears as though her days are numbered.
 Yuka is assigned to the Dolphin Division where they watch over four of them and get they prepared to do shows for the crowds. One dolphin is a bit of a hard case and he's named C1, Kaji tells her that if he won't eat the fish she's supposed to feed him within a week then she's out. Personally don't know much about dolphins but it appears even if they're hungry they won't eat the food they've been given if they don't trust that person and C1 doesn't trust her at all.

 This is one of those 'underdog dramas', Yuka knew nothing at first but within a week seems to have picked up quite a bit and is getting some respect from many of the other workers. The main director of the aquarium seems to believe in her and tells her not to get down about things, that belief in her comes through at the end.
 And at the end her ex-boss from the company along with her ex-boyfriend who also works there pay a visit to the aquarium, that's when they tell the director of their plans to turn it into new apartments. The pair really put the place down, especially the dolphins. Yuka couldn't bear to hear any more of their sassy talk and really lays into them. The C1 dolphin notices her sticking up for him and the other dolphins which leads him to be able to trust her. With only one fish left to get C1 to eat Yuka throws the fish high into the air with C1 jumping high into the air to grab it, on his fall back into the pool he really splashes her ex-boss/boyfriend which pleased all of the workers and probably the viewers too as they were such a pair of jerks. That jump C1 did was one he hadn't done in six years, since his old trainer had left he refused to do that incredible jump out of the water, now wonder with him doing it for Yuka she'll now be his personal trainer.

 Think the length of this recap worked out quite well, not too long where you would fall asleep and enough info to perhaps get you interested in this series. Really reminds me of another recent drama whose title I can't recall at this moment but perhaps watching the next show(s) will jog my memory. This series is only seven episodes so am planning on recapping two at once so the next ones should be in two weeks and hopefully sooner.
 First episode was 48 minutes, usually most first shows are over an hour long but this one had the perfect length as longer usually doesn't mean better. Promising start to this drama, been a bad stretch for prime time shows recently but have a feeling this one is going to turn out to be an enjoyable view. For you Mayu fans, hopefully her fan base is growing here, have plenty more screenshots of her in the next post.