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. Was written out of the series as she quit being a voice actress in episode seven, makes a cameo in this show.
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.
We've made it to the end and will say a few tears almost appeared in my eyes during this show which was a bit emotional though it wasn't overly sappy. Been on a nice roll recently as the last five or so dramas I've viewed have all been quite good and in different ways as none of the shows were that similar. Did say two weeks ago would be taking a break from viewing dramas but as you can see that wasn't the case and it was a wise decision as this was a very enjoyable drama, on with the recap.
Where we left off was with Makoto losing her voice, was it a case of laryngitis? To me it wasn't and the reason was because Makoto had been overwhelmed by the negative comments about her being one of the two finalists for the role of Hikaru in the "You and To Take One's Place" anime. Plus it didn't help she was going up against a very talented Seiyu who was Yuu from the rival agency, both those situations made Makoto lose her voice but as it turns out did she really?
The Ihara agency really needs to have Makoto win the role on the anime to save their voice actress department but she may not be around to do that. Shortly after Makoto lost her voice she disappeared from the apartment she was sharing with the three other voice actresses, shouldn't have been hard to find her but no one could. The only place Makoto could go to was her family's green grocery store which is where she went. Makoto had been staying there and helping her mother out with the running of the store, as you can see above one day she was shocked with the return of an old friend.
Knew we would see Mariya again and we did as her character Ren just happened to be passing by the store one day when she noticed Makoto. She still wasn't speaking and even her mother didn't know what the problem was. But even though Ren quit being a voice actress she still cared deeply about her friend and contacted Makoto's housemates who still couldn't locate her. Ren and those three showed up one day at the store, they wouldn't leave unless Makoto had a talk with them or at least listened to their concerns.
So the quintet took a stroll to a nearby park where three of the girls tried to console Makoto. They could understand if the pressure was too much and if the role was hurting her too badly perhaps she should step back. However Asami wasn't there for any of that talk and begin to rip into Makoto but not in a severe way. Of course Makoto had to realize what not getting the role would mean as their Seiyu department would close plus Makoto would lose all of her friends. Plus Asami was a bit sad still about the second audition, if she didn't hurt her ankle before it began she felt she would be one of the two finalists for the role on Hikaru.
Also Asami added in what about all of the hard work Makoto had done for the past year to be a voice actress, does she want to throw away her dream just because she's scared? That final comment is what brought Makoto back to being normal as she screamed to Asami she didn't want to give up her dream nor did she want to lose her dear friends. So guess it was a case of Makoto not wanting to talk for all this time but at first she may not have been able to.
Asami and Makoto had quite the heart to heart talk which is what Makoto needed. She's a bit behind on her training but now there's nothing more than winning the role that Makoto wants. Almost forgot to add in that the assistant manager Shoda was hidden in some nearby bushes listening in to everything. So that's what Makoto did as in two weeks she arrived at the final audition to go against Yuu though we saw very little of the audition. What mainly happened is that we saw Makoto talking about her life and how hard she had worked going from a nobody to a person who is on the verge of being a star. That's also the life story of Hikaru in the anime and the way Makoto was so open during the testing must have impressed the producers immensely.
That's because the next time we saw Makoto she was in the studio recording some scenes for the anime! Yes, she had won the part and perhaps the producers felt that Makoto would be the perfect fit as she's led the same life as the anime character Hikaru. That was evident during the recording session and to be honest it was so emotional the tears almost came bursting out. That recording scene took up most of the final third of the show but it was rather interesting as there were many scenes of what the anime was actually about.
Got me thinking that the anime and what's going to happen next would make for a promising start for a second season. Haven't heard any word about it but you never now as this seemed to be a well liked series. So on to that other event coming up which is going to be a new anime that their manager Oshima wants all four to audition for, the voice acting department has been saved. The anime is a version of the 'PreCure' series which was Ren's all time favorite but the problem is that three episodes ago she quit being a voice actress and is now working in an office.
But was thinking if she heard about the anime Ren would return to the being a Seiyu as no one knows the 'PreCure' anime and mangas better then she does. So with that new proposal by their manager is where this series concludes and remember these recaps are shorter than usual ones as an episode is just 22 minutes long.
Not much to add in about this series as it was another one I enjoyed quite a bit. It was nice to learn some things about the voice actress industry which is quite huge in Japan and are there any other dramas in this vein? For a final grade will give it a rating of 8.8/10, not a must watch but once again it was a show that was much better than I thought it would be. No clue what's up next for my drama viewing, do prefer Korean series but am also a bit tired of watching such long dramas. So up in the air for what my next show will be though you'll soon discover waht it is.
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