Juice=Juice: "Budokan" drama episode two recap

 Air Dates: February 6 to March 26, 2016 for eight episodes on Fuji-TV 

 Air Time: Saturdays at 11:40 pm, average rating was 2.73%

 In this drama Next You is a struggling Idol group which has had so-so success to date. They have a single which I presume is "Next Is You" and that song hit #15 on the charts though their managers are a bit disappointed with that showing. The group's goal is to one day headline a show at Budokan, they have a long way to go before that goal can be attained. There are five members in the group, in this drama none of them use their real names and here are the starlets, that second screenshot gives a little info about the character.

 Will use that above paragraph for all of the posts along with these pics for all of the main characters, for this second episode we didn't meet any new ones.

Akari Uemura as Aoi Dogakiuchi

 Yuka Miyazaki as Rurika Tsurui

Sayuki Takagi as Mayu Adachi

Tomoko Kanazawa as Hana Sakamoto

 Karin Miyamoto as Aiko Hidaka

 These are the other main characters who have appeared in both episodes.

Seiji Rokkaku as 'Professor' Hakase, a fan of the group who often posts about them on the internet and attends all of their shows.

Keisuke Koide as Jun Natsume, the group's producer and songwriter.

Houka Kinoshita as Yoichi Nomura

Yuta Takahata as Haruki Maeda.... both of them are the group's managers though Nomura is the senior and seems to know everything about the Idol industry.

Ryo Yoshizawa as Daichi Mizushima, Aiko's best friend who lives upstairs from her.

 Not much difference in this show compared to the first one as we watch the group continue to struggle to become popular. Towards the end they are starting to get noticed a bit more as they'll be performing at a bigger venue in Shibuya. But the popularity increase also has a drawback as the members have had to do a pair of swimsuit photo shoots for two magazine spreads. It's kind of a given that an Idol group has to do those kinds of spreads but most of the group is unhappy doing them.
 Especially Mayu who thinks she's so chubby compared to the other members. At the photo shoot they all wore bikinis while she wore a one piece bathing suit, that really got her down. Mayu has been on a diet and even her managers agree she's not chubby but as they said so many Idols are thinner than she is. Thee group's producer Natsune had a talk with her and convinced Mayu was perfectly fine the way she was, for now at least all seems well with her.

 Few really looked beyond superb during that scene and actually most members do have a photobook or two out now. Aiko also had problems with the swimsuit spread as she didn't want her best friend Daichi to know she did those kinds of spreads. He told Aiko he never looked at those mags but a member of the kendo club showed him the pics. He has an issue at home but told Aiko nothing about it, unsure whether he really liked seeing her that way or was embarrassed for her.
 Their manager was the one who had convinced them to do that second spread, the first mag they appeared became a very popular set of pics. He told them all Idols have to do things like that and if they want to become successful then they would do anything, the group grudgingly admit he's right.
 That was the main focus of this show, we also Aiko leading a normal life as a high school student for half the day, the other half she's an Idol but most of the other students don't seem to know about her Idol career. We also watch the group practicing singing, dancing and all other things an Idol must practice all of the time, as I said in the first recap it's not always a glamorous life. At the end of the show is when they learned they'd be performing at a bigger venue in Shibuya so think that'll be the main focus in the next show.
 Besides the episodes being only 19 minutes long there's also only eight shows, should be able to zip right through this series. So far so good, this isn't the kind of drama you rate but just kick back and view it for it's enjoyment. This is the fourth Hello Project drama I've viewed, would recommend all of them including this one even though it's only been two shows so far.