Air Dates: July 27th to September 14th on NHK
Shows were on 11:30 pm Saturday nights, 28 minutes an episode and subs by HPriest
Main Cast:
Yuki Sakurai as Mana Endo.... 30 year OL who stumbled into the world of Idol groups
Seminosuke Murasugi as Takafumi Shiiba.... Sunny Side Up group's lawyer
Yoshihiko Hosoda as Hiromu Azusawa.... Group's co-manager(?) and a huge otaku
Yu Sawabe as Minoru Shogoin.... Police detective who interviews Yuki
Hideyuki Kasahara as Masaru Urita.... Group fan but overly obsessed with Hana
Sunny Side Up Idol group
Sei Shiraishi as Hana Kurimoto.... Untalented waana-be Idol who Yuki befriends
Ruka Matsuda as Karin Hara.... Group's leader
Akari Matsukawa as Shiori Mugita
Shuri Tanaka as Rinrei Nasu
Jun Amaki as Noriko Tomaji
Let's get right to things and the previous episode ended off with the detective Shogoin asking Mana about pushing a man named Urita off a roof. We still haven't met that person yet though are about to but meanwhile Mana's life is getting turned upside down as she's becoming such a fan and supporter of the Sunny Side Up group. She's been practicing how to act in the audience and has met most of the group's small yet devoted fan base. The most important of them is Hiromu who is Karin's biggest Oshi, that's her in the bottom screenshot. Not sure what connection he has with the group but seems to be their part time manager and just all around handy man.
Mana doesn't miss any of the group's shows and it's kind of expensive to see underground Idol groups like them as a ticket to their shows are 2500 yen or a little over $23. It's at one of these shows we eventually meet the man who Mana may have eventually pushed off a roof, his name is Urita and he appears to be someone in their mid thirties. His Oshi is Hana and did explain what one is in the previous recap. But Urita is more than a regular oshi as he's more of a fanatic and after shows never leaves Hana alone.
Urita always ends up buying tickets which cost about $10 each, every ticket means you can spend a minute with your fave group member. Urita always buys up all of Hana's tickets and monopolizes her time after every show. Hana is extremely uncomfortable around this man as he's close to being a stalker and besides purchasing so many tickets to be with Hana he often showers her with gifts, in this episode it was a washing machine!
However tickets and having pictures taken is how underground Idols make their money as they don't get paid for their performances. In Hana's case Urita has been a bit of a blessing as members keep half of the back stage tickets that are sold, thanks to Urita buying so many it meant Hana was able to quit her part time job. But then again Urita could be the end of her as he's constantly stalking her and as you can see above had brought Hana out to dinner. Urita has plenty of money though no one knows where he gets it from, he's been spending thousands of dollars each month on Hana.
Urita does not like Mana in the least, besides berating Hana at her first concert Mana has also been getting much closer to Hana and Urita is quite upset at that. Urita threatened Mana for if she didn't stop being around Hana he would try to get her banned from the Basement club which he may be able to do as he's such a big spender. For now that the threat went nowhere and it eventually didn't as soon Urita may be banned from the club.
Mana works as an OL at an insurance company and is one of their best workers. Her performance level remains high but outside of work her entire life is now consumed with helping out the Sunny Side Up group and she's one of their biggest supporters. What's made Mana really angry beginning in this show and continuing on is how little Idols make at shows, as bad as Sunny Side Up have it many groups do much worse. Mana must be spending thousands of dollars too now every month as she doesn't miss one group show plus has purchased every kind of group trinket available. She hates the idea of becoming an Otaku but to those fans around her she's quickly become one.
Enjoy writing these recaps up versus ones for Korean dramas which seem to take forever at times. This is the final segment as an episode just runs for 29 minutes with the final minute being credits. The situation with Urita is getting a bit out of hand for Hana as his 'stalking' is getting much worse. Mana has come up with a possible solution with that being how many tickets you can purchase to be with your favorite member. It's just one at a time and while Hana may not make as much money at least she can have some peace of mind.
But of course Urita was furious with the change as after every show he couldn't buy up all of Hana's tickets. What happened is that he could just talk with her for just one minute and then go to the end of the line, seeing Hana talk with other males sent Urita into a frenzy. So much that he created a huge disturbance and had to be escorted from the club by the group's co-managers Shiiba and Hiromu. Urita hasn't been banned for that one incident but he's been warned, do it again and you won't be allowed back in the club and there's no way he can forego seeing Hana.
Shiiba is also an Idol lawyer and has explained to Mana and us viewers how things work out with Underground groups. It's understandable why they often don't get paid for their shows as there may be only twenty fans in the audience. Most groups need to struggle like Sunny Side Up is and the members realized it before they formed the group, their dream is to become successful Idols and there's no shortcuts to becoming one. With that this recap comes to it's close with Shogoin once again asking Mana what happened on that fateful day.
Sure most Keya fans know the above man who is one of the co-hosts of their 'Keyakitte' show. This has been one of the finer Japanese dramas this year, won't be my number one but after four shows am enjoying it immensely. So far there hasn't been one down moment or any filler, rarely does that happen with shorter episodes. Halfway through today's mini marathon and following this are the recaps for the next two shows.
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