Air Date: May 12, 2018 on Fuji-TV at 9:00 pm, consists of five segments 20-25 minutes
Cast:
Mai Shiraishi as Koharu
Sayaka Tomaru as Saki
Daichi Saiki as Naoya
Chiaki Kawachi as Hako
Ayane Taketatsu as the voice of Mimiko
These specials are always narrated by Tamori and many may know him from Music Station, he's quite the character. The TV movie also goes by the name of 'Tales of the Unusual' with segments running from 20 to 25 minutes, this one ran for 23 and the title for it was.....
Follower
It was a bonus having Sayaka in this show, didn't know she was in it though wish her part was a bit bigger but the whole story really revolved around Mai who played the character of Koharu. Koharu is someone who leads a double life, by day she works as a clerical aide at a small printing factory. She's quite bad at her job as Koharu spends most of her day on her phone checking how many new followers her account(Twitter?) has gotten and what compliments they've given her.
By night she leads an entirely different life, one that's nothing but a huge lie. Koharu is addicted to her Twitter page and her whole life has become consumed with getting as many followers as possible, hence the title of this segment. But to her 'fans' that follow her Koharu is not a lowly worker at a small printing factory but is an OL that works in the prestigious Minato District of Tokyo. She also uses Haru as her name on the internet and the page that she's set up is just a fantasy life that she wants for herself but it's spun drastically out of control.
But you can see above how Koharu really lives which is in virtual poverty and most of her meals just consist of packaged ramen. But she knows every trick in the book to make her followers think she's a big deal who lives a life of luxury. For instance Koharu will 'buy an expensive dress, necklace, shoes or anything that will impress others and to make them think she's a high class woman.
Her secret is after taking pictures of herself wearing the items she'll return them to the store and do the whole process over making Koharu's followers believe she went out and purchased even more luxury items. Think there's many others in the world who are consumed with having others believe that they're not what they really are but Koharu really took it to the extreme. She even will take pictures of other people's shoes or cars to post on her account and claim that they're her own or her boyfriend's even though she doesn't have one.
As bad Koharu has been with her compulsion to trick others to follow her it's about to get worse. As you can see above Koharu noticed one her fans talking about someone new who has outshone Koharu and that person is another OL named Sayu. To Koharu she's now her rival and whatever Sayu does she has to do better, if a new handbag cost her 40,000 yen then Koharu has to buy one for 50,000 yen. But there is a new follower of Koharu's who has given her the inspiration to try even harder in life or should I say try harder to deceive her fans.
That new follower is named Mimiko who quickly becomes Koharu's biggest fan. All day long Mimiko constantly posts on Koharu's page about what great taste she has in clothing, jewelry and her whole lifestyle which Mimiko says that make her so envious of Koharu. Mimiko even set up a special website where she's posted all of the pictures Koharu had uploaded to her account page. With such a loving fan Koharu is in seventh heaven and it never crossed her mind why someone would be so fanatical over her life.
But it's still a struggle keeping up with Sayu, though Koharu now has over 80,000 followers Sayu always manages to stay a few thousand in front of her. But that's nothing compared to the mystery that's about to enter Koharu's life, one that ends up making her even more twisted. One night Koharu splurged and went out for ramen instead of having it at home. While she was enjoying her meal some unknown person had sent her a text message. It said 'hope your enjoying your meal, are you going to go out afterwards with your boyfriend?'.
That message sent Koharu into a state of panic, is one of her followers following her? Koharu raced outside the restaurant but couldn't fond a person who may have sent the message. As she was about to head home on her bike another text came through asking why didn't Koharu's boyfriend give her a ride home in his expensive car? Now Koharu is about to lose it, if any of her fans find out about her secret life she's ruined but who could be doing this to her, her rival Sayu perhaps?
That's what Koharu was thinking the next day at her job when her co-worker said to look at a news bulletin. It was of a woman who was killed as she had been pushed in front of a train, when Koharu looked closer she saw that the woman killed was Sayu! She began thinking her problems could be over but shortly after that she discovered they weren't and Koharu had even more of them to worry about. That's because the fax machine in the office soon delivered a message, it was a one line note which said 'With this you will not lose anymore'.
Shortly after that fax another one came through, this had a picture of Sayu just before she was pushed to her death in front of the train! Now Koharu's state of panic has increased tenfold, who is this mystery fan of hers that would do anything to make her number #1? Koharu briefly thought about it could be Mimiko but quickly erased that thought from her mind, the only other person who may know about Koharu's secret identity would be her best friend Saki.
Koharu was about to head to her place but first stopped at her own apartment to change or should I say her old apartment. That's because when Koharu arrived there moving men had emptied her place out and had put all of her meager belongings into a moving van. The head mover showed her the work order, it was to move all of Koharu's belongings to an exclusive pad in the Minato district where she said she worked. Koharu dashed after the van but was unable to catch up with it, she thought to herself what in the world is going on?
Now there was little doubt to Koharu that the person behind these doings was her best friend Saki and she dashed over to her place. It wasn't a peaceful journey as along the way Koharu almost got clobbered by a flower vase that fell from a balcony as she was passing by a random building. It missed her by a foot at most and who knew that Koharu would be taking this route?
Once again Saki came to Koharu's mind and this time she finally was able to get her friend on the phone before she arrived at her apartment. Saki did confess that she and her new boyfriend visited Koharu's fake site quite often and both had such a laugh at all of the lies Koharu was spewing to everyone. But Saki flatly denied having anything to do with making calls to expose Koharu's secret life and of course she had nothing to do with Sayu's death. What she said was 100% true for as Koharu was standing in front of Saki's apartment building who should come falling out of the sky and land a few feet away from Koharu than.... Saki(!) who had been pushed to her death.
Coming close to the end of this recap, you wouldn't think so much could happen in a 23 minute show but it obviously did as this is as long as a normal drama recap. Seeing her friend Saki lying on the ground dead was the final straw for Koharu's mind as it finally snapped and she went on a very quick downhill trek to her doom. Plus there was no doubt to Koharu that her #1 follower Mimiko has been behind everything but there was no way she could stop her.
The final four minutes it seemed like Koharu was on death row and was having her final meal. She did have that meal but was so poor from her activities she couldn't even pay for it and ran deliriously from the restaurant. As she was fleeing Koharu checked her account, at that moment she finally hit 100,000 followers and had wanted to post a pic to thank everyone. But Koharu had spilled some coffee on her dress and couldn't be seen like that so rushed into a store and quickly put on a new outfit without paying while shoving the employees aside.
While running from the store Koharu also thought that she needed some new jewelry to impress everyone with, she was in such a deranged state Koharu attacked a pair of woman stealing a ring and necklace. She immediately put them on and as she was about to snap some pics to show her avid fans when a car out of nowhere came zooming down the street and ran over Koharu sending her flying.
There was a group of people around who instead of helping Koharu took pics of her with their phones, know it had some sort of symbolic meaning but not sure what. But Koharu wasn't quite dead yet as she was able to crawl over to her phone to check on her account, her last sight in the world was watching the amount of her followers quickly dwindle down. In the final few seconds we had a view of Koharu from the car that hit her. The person in the car was a woman though we didn't get a good look at her but there was little doubt it was Mimiko who just may have been a serial killer of woman who set up these outrageous fake sites. When Koharu took her final breath Mimiko hit the 'unfollow' button on her account and with that we've finally hit the end of this recap.
Not sure why this turned out to be so long but it's the way it worked out as I probably didn't leave one detail out. Thought it was an enjoyable watch and all of these mini movies in the series are, would recommend any of them if you've never viewed any. As you can see in the screenshots the subs were done by Depressingsubs, they still have this episode there if you want to grab it. Mai did a solid job and will have to say I've always enjoyed her acting as she is a bit versatile and will try to check out her new drama that began on April 20th.
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