Air Dates: March 11th to the 15th on Netflix, March 18th to the 22nd on Hokkaido TB
Also goes by the name of 'Stay Tuned', the series had a total of five 43 minute episodes
Main Cast:
Kyoko Yoshine as Hanako Yukimaru... newbie reporter who constantly messes up
Hiroko Iijima as Hajime Yamane... another new reporter who is seemingly perfect but....
Atsuwo Ohuchi as Heizo Hasegawa... the supervisor of the TV newsroom
Kanako Miyashita as Maki Hanae... new news anchor in training
Takuro Osada as Hayato Kitagami... yet another newbie in the production department
Taisei Shima as Tetsutaro Fukube... new hire in the sales department
Hikaru Takihara as Seiichi Tachibana... new technician
Ayumu Saito as Mamoru Jogasaki... TV station main director
Kimiko Jitsukawa as Reiko Kurenai... veteran newscaster
Hitoshi Fujio as Yosuke Furuya... weatherman
Ken Yasuda as Katori... rival from the HGT station
Yo Oizumi as Kanbara... local farmer
Shinya Kawano as Ogura... director of the newsroom who never stops eating
.... and so many more with minor roles, hugest cast I've ever seen.
More happens in a 43 minute episode than an entire ten show series, bet because of that the recaps will be shorter! Perhaps not but will try to keep them that way so as not to put everyone to sleep though the first recap for any series is always the longest post by far. If you can manage to make it through the whole post think you may have found a drama which will be very appealing to you, have only watched two show but this could be my #1 Japanese drama this year.
This drama tells the story of the happenings in the TV newsroom of station HHTV aka Hoshi TV which is located in Hokkaido. Mainly it revolves around the activities of the six new people who have just started their jobs at the station, all will get their turn in the spotlight but most of the screen time is with Kyoko who plays the bumbling main character of Hanako. Her cuteness and spunkiness are off the charts though so many characters play a huge role. These are the main six characters we see along with the newsroom's supervisor.
HHTC is located in Sapporo, the six are brand new to the job and are going through a rigorous training schedule though often get thrown into real action. What's been interesting about the shows is how they describe what happens behind the scenes and a lot of newsroom lingo. Such as what a Master Cut is or an Infocam plus what the term Hatsunoki means... a newscaster's debut.
As mentioned the main character by far is Hanako, she tries harder than anyone but also screws up more than the rest of the newsroom combined. Her supervisor above Hasegawa is quite understanding at times but she's definitely making his blood pressure rise to a high rate. Some of the new hires can't understand how Hanako ever got hired, especially Hajime who unfortunately for him has the desk right next to Hanako. Hajime has the second biggest role in the drama, he's a very serious and intellectual person which always isn't an asset in a newsroom.
In this first episode there were three flashback scenes which had occurred close to a year ago. They were describing the interview process the newbies went through, that's when Hajime first met Hanako and during that time he thought she'd be the first candidate to fail the interviews. That wasn't the case as some of the HHTC board saw something about Hanako which to them was hard to explain so she somehow passed the first two rounds of interviews and these screenshots are from round two.
The third and final round of interviews took place shortly after that. The candidates were given an assignment which was to find a story to write about, they were given less than a day to start it from scratch and have it done for editing by 5:00 pm. Everyone was able to finish on time, there were fourteen people left for the six positions. The 15th person was Hanako who of course was the only person not to finish her assignment by the deadline, as a matter of fact she wasn't at the station when the 5:00 pm deadline hit.
Every candidate was given three minutes to present their 'scoop' as if it was on live TV, most didn't do well except for Hajime and Maki. After the session concluded Hanako rushed into the station, the reason she was so late was that she had no story in mind, she stumbled across one during the day but wasn't able to complete it until after the deadline. The main HHTV exec Jogasaki sadly told her there were no exceptions to the deadline, if it was a real story for the news then she would have failed at her assignment. But Hanako has a huge ally in the newscast's director Ogura, he's the main person to support her through the two interview rounds and convinced the board to give her story a chance.
Hanako owes Ogura a world of thanks as her story blew the board and interviewers away, it was about the plight of an older farmer who sold hot potatoes through the city of Sapporo via his truck and how he was struggling. Ogura knew Hanako had that special indescribable talent which is so rare for people that work in the news industry, thanks to him Hanako was one six who was hired by the station. The rest of the action for today takes place in present time, these are some pics of that third interview day.
Hanako, like all others, has many kinds of duties. She helps write stories, goes on assignments and works in the subcontrol room which is when a worker inserts graphics and videos during a live newscast. So far it's all been training for Hanako and the other newbies working on the live broadcasts as one must be 100% efficient at their duties before they can be trusted to a live newscast.
One exception to that may be Maki who is one of new six people hired by HHTV and she's in line to be a news announcer. She does very well practicing and one of the present newscasters who is Reika thinks she has what it takes to be a success. So doesn't the director Ogura but he gave Maki some advice, she's kind of unpersonable on the air and needs to show more of a likable personality. Maki began to wonder if should she start acting more like Hanako who is such a free spirit, luckily for her that idea drifted out of her mind.
Maki is played by Kanako Miyashita, just did her first intro post a week or so ago and will try to do many more for this very attractive woman. Back to the station and it's the weekend where so many of the veteran workers have it off. A major story though has just broken about a fire, the police think it's the work of an arsonist who has set so many in recent weeks. Hanako was assigned to write the story and completely failed at it as words were misspelled plus some facts were incorrect.
It was the first time Maki appeared live on the air but she had the presence of a ten year veteran. She didn't have time to read Hanako's script beforehand and with all of the errors a disaster was looming. But Maki was able to glance at the script and make heads and tails on what the story was truly about, under the circumstances she was absolutely perfect. Maki did apologize at the end of the story for a few mistakes which greatly impressed the staff of the station. Won't be long before Maki is a regular newscaster though as far as Hanako writing stories goes....
Lot of other minor events took place during this episode but won't be going into them as this post would then be twice as long. But did take so many more screenshots than usual which definitely help out following the story but all of the main events were explained. One thing that wasn't was of the rival station of HHTV. That's HGT Bear and we only saw a half minute clip of their newsroom in the final minute. That station is number one in the ratings and is led by a man called Katori, this may be a subplot that gets added to the story as time goes on.
Of the six new hires three get most of the screen time but looks like all will be getting their share of the limelight starting with the next episode. Did view it and the show was just as fun and interesting as this one, fun isn't a word I've used enough in recent recaps as the dramas haven't been but this is truly going to be one enjoyable series. Haven't viewed the other three episodes yet but will this week, will have a pair of recaps for the second and third shows hopefully by Thursday. Know there's a long way to go but I sill highly recommend this drama.
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