Air Dates: April 14 to June 30, 2017 on TV Tokyo, Fridays at 1:00 am
Main Cast:
Yojiro Noda as Shin Michima
Rena Matsui as Hitomi Tsukamoto
Rena Takeda as Midori Suzumura
Rila Fukushima as Minami Shirakawa
Yuko Araki as Nanaka Seki
Miwako Wagatsuma as Yuki Kobayashi
Lily Franky as Tatsuyuki Michima
Takashi Yamanaka as Seiji Sakurai
Tomoya Nakamura as Yuzu Hanaki
Tetsuhiro Ikeda as Ryuichi Moriguchi
Know there's quite a few Rena T. fans out there and she certainly was the highlight of these two shows, a picture of her is definitely worth more than a thousand words....
Wasn't too enthused about this series after watching the first two shows but the pair here changed my mind about the drama as it appears it could end up being a very solid watch. One of the problems in those first two shows was that so much time was spent on Shin. He is the lead character so it's understandable he gets the most screen time but wish there was more time devoted to the five women who this show was supposed to revolve around.
We're gradually getting to know the five ourselves and it looks like the introductions for them will be continuing for the next few episodes. In the second show we learned a bit about the oldest of the five who is Minami. She definitely has an odd job which is being a pimp for aspiring and sometimes popular Idols. She's rolling in the dough as a night with them can cost a few thousand dollars and sure she takes a big percentage.
Shin is 31 and has been a struggling novelist for some years now. He has had two books published though their sales were quite dismal though he is working on another book for his company. The firm is called Chugakukan and they're celebrating their 50th anniversary. Shin has been invited and surprisingly his five housemates along with his agent also go to the celebration with him.
Shin is one dour individual and doesn't stand out at all in a crowd. At the event there was a new annual award that was being presented for the first time which was called the 'New Literary Award'. It was voted on by the readers of the books the publishing company puts out, Shin hardly sells any of his novels so he had a zero chance for the award.
But there is a very popular writer with the company who is Hanaki and he naturally won the award. He's not exactly a rival of Shin as the two have never met, Shin doesn't enjoy his books but wishes he could sell as many volumes as Hanaki does. The pair do meet briefly but it was just for a few seconds and we never saw Hanaki again in these two episodes. The reason they met was that one of the women with Shin was Nanaka who we barely saw in the first two episodes.
Shin had no clue who Nanaka was but everyone else at the anniversary party did. Nanaka is a very popular actress who about a year ago suddenly stopped making films and disappeared, she's just twenty in the show. Shin is someone who doesn't watch dramas or films so we know why he had no clue who Nanaka is but the mystery to him and us is why did she end up living at his apartment?
Shin also wonders why the five women received invitations to live with him at the high price of a million yen a month or $9,280. So far we don't know what he's been doing with the money as he lives very frugally and must have a nice stash of cash piled up after six months.
One person who we haven't seen enough of yet nor do we know her background is Rena M. Sure we'll be seeing much more of her and bet in the fifth or sixth episode is when we'll be learning about her. Her character's name is Hitomi and she is looking better than Oki-Doki(SKE single) so far.
That bottom pic is of the other Rena and as you notice we really did see much more of her. Actually she had the biggest role besides Shin in these two shows and her character's name is Midori. She's a seventeen year old high school student who is about to turn 18, for some unknown reason she has loads of cash and we'll soon find out why.
One of the rules about living with Shin is that he's not allowed to enter the women's rooms. However Midori asked him to come in and above is how she appeared when he entered. She did tempt him with much sex talk, Shin did say he was aroused but wouldn't sleep with her until she turned eighteen. She said fine to that and it seems she has her heart set on having Shin being her first man.
During these first four episodes Midori has been hounded by a boy 2-3 years older than her named Takeshi. She has to keep giving him money and not just a little at a time as he soon wants from her one hundred million yen(!) and don't think he'll stop there. Midori had grown up in an orphanage since she was three which is where she met Takeshi who turned into nothing but a lazy, useless punk.
Midori had been working some part time jobs to get enough money to leave the orphanage. One day though she decided to buy a lottery ticket and it was a winner to the tune of.... One Billion Yen!!!! The problem was that Midori was only seventeen so she asked Takeshi to become her guarantor of the money. He of course said yes but has been using her since then and she's doesn't know how to make him disappear.
Above is the fifth woman who is Yuki who also we're in the dark about. Her story will be revealed soon but we do know she has a relative in the hospital that has less than a year to live, think it may be her mother. Yuki gets along well Midori and treats her like a younger sister as Midori finally reveals her billion yen secret to her. Yuki wants to help and says she needs a 'pro' to get rid of Takeshi.
That 'pro' happens to be Minami, besides being a pimp to popular young Idols she also knows many ruthless musclemen. She agrees to help Midori who sets up an appointment with Takeshi in a dark, secluded place. They travel to see him with one of Minami's henchmen driving the vehicle. As the fourth episode ends it appears that the driver has run over Takeshi but it's not definite as the show ends there with that nice cliffhanger.
That final screenshot is of Shin visiting his father in prison where he's on death row. He had killed three people five years ago, all of his details are in the first recap. Big difference in the episodes, first two I would have given them a rating of 6/10. This pair was excellent and would give it a 9/10, even without Rena looking dazzling they were still solid watches.
Seeing as how I enjoyed this pair so much will be back soon with the next recap for episodes five and six as there's a thrilling cliffhanger that ended episode four as mentioned above. Had forgotten about but will be doing a post soon for Yuko Araki, she's been seemingly everywhere these last few years so guess it's time to check her out more closely.
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