Bungaku Shojo drama: Episode seven recap

 Air Dates: September 9th to October 28, 2018 on MBS and TBS Sunday nights at 12:50 am

Director: Smith....  Episodes from J-Raw.... subber: miamaw

 Main Cast:

Aoi Morikawa as Kanako Tsukishiro.... 26 year old who is the new editor for Kagaya

Yuu Shirota as Saku Kagaya.... popular writer whose book sales have been rapidly decreasing

Masaki Nakao as Chihiro Mochizuki.... editor in Kanako's office, he has a huge crush on her

Rika Izumi as Mitsuki Ariake.... rival editor from Sekibun Publishing

Masahiko Kawahara as Ko Mishima.... editor in chief of Ryokusen where Kanako works

Yako Koga as Akari Mishima.... Ko's teen daughter and inspiring writer

Taikou Katoona as Maki Nanase.... office worker at Ryokusen

Keito Tsuna as Ryunosuke Kawabata.... office worker at Ryokusen
Momoko Tanabe as Chiyoka Amamura.... Saku's old girlfriend, guest spot for this show

 You wouldn't know it as these four final posts are in a row but have been struggling writing them up. Not that they're hard to do but kept on finding excuses not to do them for some reason which actually could be a good one as it seems there's been so many other things about my faves lately to post about. No more excuses I said and am writing these last 2 1/2 recaps in one sitting. On to the seventh episode and won't be talking about what happened in the previous two shows as you can read those recaps above but there really was no carry over to this show.
 Bit of a different episode as close to the first eight or so minutes was a long flashback on Saku's past. Guess it was needed as we knew so little about him and he is such a key part of this drama. Saku was raised in a one parent household by his mother, Saku never knew his father but his mother was the man's mistress. The father was married with children so he wanted nothing to do with his illegitimate son though he did give the family money to live on.
 The man's name was Suruga Tsubaru who was a very famous writer and the present day Kanako loves his novels so much. At the age of fifteen Saku's mother became severely ill and eventually passed away. Tsubara still wanted nothing to do with his son but gave him plenty of money to live on for many years. What Saku did was to pay off the mortgage to his mother's house, fifteen years later he still lives in the residence. Saku never attended high school as he also worked to raise funds for college and studied at home. The strategy paid off as he was able to pass the entrance exams to a college, there he became the tutor for a high school student named Chiyoka to keep the funds coming in. Just added her name in at the top for the cast.

 Saku began tutoring Chiyoka when he was twenty and she was a senior in high school. Upon her graduation she moved in with Saku who about a year later began his career as a writer after his college graduation. It's a profession he didn't want to pursue because of his father who he despised so much. However Saku in his young twenties just loved writing so much and the ideas just flowed to his head endlessly. He was encouraged so much by Chiyoka who thought he was such an incredible writer, his first story that was published was "The Moment of the Spring Chill".
 It was a romantic story and the only one Saku has written to date, it's by far Kanako's fave work of his. That story did win an award and was published on a very esteemed magazine but with the glory came some troubles for Saku. With his success he's thrown himself more than ever into his work and must spend over ten hours a day writing as his juices are really flowing. However all of Saku's concentration was on his work and he failed to notice the condition Chiyoka had fallen into. Around Saku she managed to look well but she was in such pain and eventually one day passed out on the couple's kitchen floor.
 Sadly it took Saku too long to notice what happened to her, if he was a bit earlier he could have whisked her away to a hospital to be saved but instead the love of his life died in his arms. Saku revealed that to Kanako in the next episode, Chiyoka passing away was why he can no longer write romantic novels. That was quite a long flashback, probably longer than the eight minutes I said above. Now the episode shifts to present day as we finally saw our heroine Kanako who as described in the previous recap is no longer Saku's editor.

 Though no longer his editor Kanako was approached by a reporter from a magazine who wanted her to set up a 'pub interview' with Saku. Kanako felt there was no way he would agree to one but when she called him Saku gave the go ahead for the interview. Thanks to so many hints from Kanako he knows he has to start coming out of his shell which he started to do in the fourth show with an autograph session. But first he needs to travel to Kyoto for some research for his latest novel, he told Kanako to schedule the interview upon his return though he let it slip he was traveling to the city with Mitsuki. Kanako is still very jealous of her and as is the norm for her she begins thinking of all the wild sex the pair must be having in a hotel room which wasn't the case.
 Kanako is also the new editor for Akari, a high school senior who is vying for a prestigious newcomer award. She's also the daughter of Kanako's boss Mishima, at one time her editor was Mochizuki though with Kanako no longer being Saku's editor their roles were reversed, Mochizuki still has such a massive crush on Kanako though we didn't see much of him this episode. Kanako and Akari did have a humorous scene at her office but won't go into too much detail about it as I'd like to wrap this post up. But the pair did discuss men for the second time, with the whole office listening Akari told Kanako once again what she needed to do to grab the love of Saku. During her rambling she let it blurt out that she also had a crush on someone and that was Mochizuki, Akari's father had quite a chuckle at that.
 On to the final scene and the 'pub interview' is naturally held at one. There the reporter was anything but a nice person as she delved too deeply into Saku's background, she had really done her homework. The reporter knew that Saku's father was the esteemed author Tsubaru, why weren't the two closer? Saku wouldn't answer the question and up until then Kanako had never known that one of her fave writers was Saku's father.
 The reporter kept up her intense probing onto Saku's background and soon he couldn't take it anymore as he left the pub in a huff and the interview was never completed. After berating the reporter severely Kanako was able to catch up with Saku who was quite angry though he did admit what the reporter knew about his past was true. Kanako then asked if there was still any chance of them being together in the future, at first he said Mochizuki would be a better fit for Kanako. Then to drive her away Saku said why don't the two of them spend the night together if ending her virginity is so important to Kanako. As she stood there fuming with Saku walking away this episode ended but the scene does pick up in the next recap.

 This had to be the longest recap I've ever written for a 23 minute episode and it easily could have been another paragraph or two. That's where the many screenshots come into good use as though all the major details were described they help you follow the story much better. The past two episodes have been quite intense and this show was actually a bit depressing for the major characters though it was one of the best episodes to date. Three down on this mini marathon with the next post being the recap for this drama's final episode.