Also known as 'Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles'
Air Dates: June 27 to July 18, 2015 on Fuji-TV, aired Saturdays at 11:40 pm, rating was 5.43%
Main Cast:
Akari Hayami as Koizumi
Karen Miyama as Yu Osawa
Seika Furuhata as Misa Nakamura
The three male customers:
Yutaka Ono, Toshifumi Muramatsu, Hideki Tanaka
For you newer viewers when this blog was started it was mainly to post about Erika along with reviewing J-dramas. Did fall off for a stretch in doing drama posts but that was mainly because of the (lack of) quality of them. However there's been many under the radar shows I've found that have aired in the last few years which have been very enjoyable. Just brought that up as many may be wondering why there have been so many drama posts as of late. I truly do enjoy watching and recapping them along with posting about the actresses in them (slightly)more than Idols.
Wonder how many ramen shops there are in Tokyo, would imagine thousands of them. If there was a second season perhaps trying to visit every one would make for an interesting theme but there would have to be many more than four episodes. The third show started off at the Papapapapain ramen shop where there specialty, as you can see above, was pineapple ramen. Koizumi is the ramen expert and she was quite impressed with it's taste, if she says so then it must be worth trying.
Misa has slowly warmed toward Koizumi and is now a third member of the 'ramen team' along with her best friend Yu. The next adventure for the trio is visiting the Tsuta Soba shop which has won a few awards the last few years. An adventure because of the long wait it takes just to enter the shop. It's opening time is 11:00 am but eaters start lining up hours before that.
Koizumi and Yu arrived an hour before the eatery opened but it would still be two hours before they could enter the shop as the line was so long. Misa had noticed the length of the line and instead of joining them went to an ice cream shop, she figured she could just join them as they were about to enter. That's taboo to Koizumi and all fans of ramen, when Misa showed up Koizumi said they would have to go to the end of the line even though she and Yu were next to enter.
Of course that made Misa angry but Koizumi won the respect of all of the other ramen lovers in line with her decision. At the back of the line were three older gentlemen who we see every show as they're always at every ramen shop where Koizumi and Yu have eaten. Those three are true experts, Koizumi is a bit jealous of them as they've eaten at so many defunct places she's only heard about. One of them even tries to relate to Misa the foundation of life which is ramen because she didn't want to wait two hours to eat. They said if she quits waiting for some of the best ramen on the planet then she'll quit at everything. Misa leaves but of all people it's Koizumi who runs after her to stop her from leaving. They have their first serious talk and Misa relents into waiting in line for two hours, it was worth it as the trio were able to eat the award winning Tsuta Soba ramen.
On to the fourth and final episode, Koizumi and Misa had overheard Yu on the phone saying she was going to transfer at the end of the semester and move to Sapporo. At one time Misa disliked Koizumi but the two become a team and get along so well as they secretly prepare a special going away present for Yu.
What they decided on was to create a unique ramen that Yu will love, it's not that easy thinking of something original. The pair end up taking a ramen cooking class, Koizumi is an expert eater and history buff on ramen but can't make it to save her life. The cooking class helped them make ramen but the problem they had was creating something new, Koizumi thought it'd be wrong using the recipe they learned in class.
After so many experiments the duo still couldn't come up with the perfect new ramen dish for Yu but Kloizumi had one secret recipe up her sleeve. Yu's favorite food is red bean jam pork but that's not something that would or should go well with ramen. Koizumi and Misa head back to the ramen shop where they took their cooking class, Koizumi explained to the expert ramen teacher what they wanted to create. He had never heard of such a combination but was willing to help the girls out, it was a success as with his help they created a red bean jam pork ramen.
May 17th was Yu's last day at school, at lunch she was invited to the science lab for her secret ramen present. Didn't mention it before but Koizumi ate her lunch in the lab most days as she prepared packaged ramen and added in her own odd ingredients. Yu looked bewildered at what the pair at done, she had no idea why and thought their unique creation wouldn't be too tasty.
To Yu's surprise the ramen was like seventh heaven, she had never tasted ate anything so delicious. Koizumi and Misa told her why they prepared this special lunch as it was a going away present as she was moving to Sapporo. Yu told them they were mistaken, she's was just going to visit some relatives there and wouldn't be moving. Yu had also been a bit cold to the other two recently but she explained to them it was because she was on a diet from eating so much ramen.
Yu told them that the diet is now over and she had done it as she wanted to spend her Summer holiday with them eating ramen all over Tokyo. That brought tears to the eyes of Misa and even Koizumi who never shows any emotions except when devouring a bowl of ramen. With that the episode and series comes to it's conclusion, left it open for a possible second season.
This does seem like the kind of cult drama that could have more than one season though haven't heard any news of it yet. There was a special that aired in January, will be watching and posting about it soon. The series averaged a rating of 5.43% which is a really good figure for a late Saturday night show, the special had a rating of 4.2%.
Won't give it a grade as it was a bit too short of a series, really enjoyed it and wished there were a few more episodes. Another person from this cast who I want to check out is Karen Miyama who played Yu, she's one cute gal who will be turning twenty in a month. She's been in many dramas and films even though she's a bit young and it seems like she's going to be around for a long time. Many more screenshots for you to view, would recommend this short series as the total length was only 80 minutes so you're not giving up too much time to watch it. Searched again but for some reason there were no Fuji-TV promos or interviews for the show.
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