Koe Girl drama: Episode one recap

 Air Dates: April 8th to June 10, 2018 on TV-Asahi for ten episodes, aired at 2:30 am Saturdays

The main cast....

Haruka Fukuhara as Makoto Kikuchi.... Parents run a green grocery where she was scouted by Oshima and has struggled greatly at the beginning to be a voice actress(Seiyu).

Yurika Nakamura as Asami Kuriyama.... The best of the five females who are trying to become voice actresses, disliked Makoto at first for her lack of dedication.

 Mariya Nagao as Ren Ineba.... Massive Otaku fan, especially for the 'Precure' series.

 Jun Amaki as Konatsu Morimoto.... From Kansai and too often speaks in that dialect.

 Aoi Yoshikura as Ryoko Ochiai.... Former child actress making a comeback as a voice actress.

 The others, it's a very small cast so far and will add to the list if needed.

Haruka Tomatsu as herself.... Ex-voice actress who now hosts a popular radio show.
Shingo Tsurumi as Yuichiro Oshima... Head of Ihara Productions where the girls work.
Masaki Nakao as Katsutoshi Shoda.... Oshima's assistant.

 Originally started this drama when it first came out back in April 2018 and even recapped the first two episodes. The third show was subbed and said I would continue once more were done. However those subs weren't coming or at least at the time they weren't as I think the team doing them dropped the project. Forgot about the drama for a long time but then discovered the whole series was subbed and am really glad about that as it seemed like such a fun show.
 So am doing the first two recaps over as the others were done such a long time ago. For now the plan is to do two batches of five recaps in a row as the series has ten episodes. The shows are only 23 minutes long so these shouldn't be too lengthy which will make reading them much easier. Really had wanted to see another series with Haruka who is the star of the show and has 80% of the screen time, she's one superb actress. Will leave this intro up for this first batch but may tweak things here and there, let's get to these first five shows. Don't know if I'll be referring to the words 'voice actress' a lot but if so will use the Japanese word for the term which is Seiyu.

 Have watched the first four episodes, when I said above that Haruka has about 80% of the screen time may have been a bit low with that estimate as there's very few scenes she's not in. In this series she plays the character of Makoto who is an eighteen year old living with her mother, as of now not sure if there's a father. The family owns a small yet busy green grocery store where Makoto works and it doesn't appear she wanted to attend college as there's never been anything said about it. Above it looked like she was heading to school but that wasn't the case.
 Until she finds a regular job Makoto is working in the store and she's quite the sales lady. She's also quite popular with the neighborhood children as she often plays puppet games for them in front of the store as she can voice so many different characters. One day an older man passed by and was quite impressed with Makoto's voices, the following day he stopped her which is that bottom screenshot. The man's name was Oshima who runs a small talent agency called Ihara Productions, he asked her to stop by the office for an interview. Makoto had no clue about the world of voice acting and was very curious about it as she had no plans for her future.
 Makoto was told to come the next day for a mini test but Oshima already knew she had the talent to be a star. As in most dramas Makoto woke up late the following day and had to rush to the office. On her way she came across another young woman who was heading to the same place though Makoto didn't realize it as the pair were having a race to get to the office first. The other girl won as she knew a short cut and Makoto was amazed to see the other girl in the studio before her.

 The girl who arrived first was Asami but she wasn't the only person at the studio. There were three others who were all there for the same purpose which was to become a Seiyu, will try using that term more often. Of the bunch Makoto is the only rookie, the other three were already with Oshima's agency while Asami appeared to be a veteran. Oshima had already tested the trio so he wanted to see the two newcomers give a shot at voice acting, actually Asami was a bit known so what he really wanted to see was how Makoto performed.
 Of course it being her first time the tryout was a major flop though you can't pin all of the blame on Makoto. Being a Seiyu is not as easy as we think it is, perhaps it's tougher than being a regular actress. The most important thing is the timing as what an Seiyu says has to match up with the character's lips.
 That's where Makoto really blew it but being good at that just requires a lot of practice, Oshima knew that and was still impressed with Makoto's voices and acting. The opposite was true of Asami though who was fuming when Makoto kept wrecking the scene they were doing together. Asami is the best of the five Seiyu gals, she's so good you wondered why she didn't have many other offers rolling in?

 At 23 minutes a show should be able to keep all of these recaps at three or so shortish segments. Asami was still irate when the pair left the Ihara offices, she told Makoto that she's underestimated what Seiyu's do and she had better not blow this opportunity for her. Makoto is such a happy go lucky young woman but the cutting words from Asami really hit home as she became quite down and wondered if she made the right decision on becoming a Seiyu.
 In that bottom screenshot we met Haruka Tomatsu for the first time, that's her name in real life too. She saw Makoto pouting and tried to cheer her up, what Seiyu doesn't mess up badly their first time? In all of these episodes Haruka gives Makoto some invaluable advice about voice acting and most of it pays off. For instance she told Makoto 'Checking Answers' is a very important thing to do which left Makoto a bit confused.

 That is until she was home that night and realized what Haruka had meant was she needed to practice much more but also to do some homework on a role. Such as watching previous animes to see how the characters act plus to pay attention to the timings in the script, Makoto ended up pulling an
all-nighter doing that. Haruka is a popular radio host of the 'Waiting Sound' show, she gives good advice about living as an ending theme on the show. She's one of Makoto's biggest faves yet when they met she didn't realize she was talking to Haruka.
 On to the end and the next day the first two to arrive at the offices were Asami and Makoto. Asami has cooled down a bit but she's very serious about her acting and you rarely see her crack a smile. Eventually the other three appear and being a Seiyu is more than just speaking your lines as the girls needed to begin working out in a gym which happens quite often. We slightly get to know the trio a tad better but not that much as this episode came to a close. A show is about 23:30 in length but the last ninety seconds are credits with the above video playing too so in reality the true running time of an episode is a bit less than 22 minutes.

 Have zipped through the first five episodes and have to say I'm really enjoying it though knew I would coming in. Will admit it's quite fluffy too, more so than most dramas out there but that may actually help it's level of humor. Mentioned Haruka Tomatsu above and she's been a fave of mine for a few years now. Her role is just so-so sized in this series but it is an important one. In real life Haruka is a extremely popular Seiyu and also a J-Pop singer whose songs are quite good. One down in this opening batch and there's four more recaps below this one.