"Uchi no Musume wa Kareshi ga Dekinai" drama: Episode two recap

 

 Air Dates: January 13th until ??, Wednesdays at 10:00 pm on NTV, fifty minutes an episode

 Title roughly translates over to Date My Daughter and subs are being done by Aoinousagi

Ratings: Episode #1, 10.3%.... Episode #2, 8.8%

Main Cast: Will be updating the bios as we go on and may be adding in more characters.

Minami Hamabe as Sora Minase.... Twenty year old college student who lives with her mother in the high class Angel Forest apartment building. But Sora's main feature is that she's such an Otaku meaning  she's really into animes and mangas. Up until now she's never had a boyfriend let alone ever having a date as males tend to shy away from her. She works PT at a restaurant and Sora's vow is to get a boyfriend to help her mother write a romance novel.

Miho Kanno as Aoi Minase.... Sora's mother who is about 44 in age. She's an author but has fallen upon some tough times as her books aren't selling nearly as well plus she can't write romantic stories like she once did. Aoi attempted to write a serial for a magazine but that's being discontinued, though her income is way down Aoi to her daughter's dismay spends money like it grows on trees. 

Ikki Sawamura as Gon-chan.... Aoi's childhood friend who still lives in the neighborhood and works at his father's restaurant which also employs Sora. He's never been married and though they don't look at each other in a romantic way he seems as though he'd be a perfect fit for Aoi.

Keisuke Higashi as Shuichi Watari.... A 25 year old make who works in a massage/beauty salon. He's a bit of a daffy man but a handsome one who Aoi had eyes for though he's almost twenty years younger. To her amazement Shuichi has his own eyes set on Sora and will he be her first date?

Yoohei Kawakami as Soseki Tachibana.... Aoi's new editor/liaison for Saneisha publishing. He's a rookie at the job who truly wants to help Aoi but will she really listen to him? He may have some feelings for her but then again he's living with someone.

Haruka Fukuhara as Saori Ito.... That someone is Saori who Tachibana calls Sally on occasion. She's the overly jealous type and just began working PT at his publishing company to keep tabs on him.

Teppei Arita as Konishi.... Main editor at Saneisha and is putting pressure on Aoi to write a hit.

Masatoshi Nakamura as Shunichiro Oda.... Gon's father and owner of the Odaya restaurant.

Kenshi Okada as Hikaru Irino.... Male student in Sora's class and a very popular guy on campus. However he's got a dark secret which he has only told her, that's of Hikaru being a closet Otaku. He wants to write a manga with Sora who to date has refused his offers, he too has a crush on her but does she realize it?

 First regular length drama I've attempted to recap in over two months, wish me luck! That's mainly because of my laptop keyboard being on it's final legs, think before this series is wrapped up will need to get a brand new laptop. Haruka is in two dramas at the same time, she's also going to be in a Spring series so that's why she's had zero posts for a while. Not much screen time for her in the first show but she had quite a bit in the final ten or so minutes. Recapping her "Yuru Camp" drama helped me out as I was able to stick with a format all eight posts. That's of having three segments to describe everything, though these episodes are twice as long should be able to keep that format as I've finally learned that not every little detail needs to be explained or mentioned.

  Won't be discussing too much of what took place in the first show as that's the above recap. But it ended off with both Sora and her mother vowing to find a boyfriend, unknown to each other then they both had their eyes set on the same man! His name is Shuichi Watari, he's in the second screenshot above and while a nice guy can't believe two women fell for him so quickly. In the mother's case Aoi has gone so long without a boyfriend and it's affected her writing as she was once a popular romance novelist. It's been difficult writing about that these days and Aoi has tried her hand at other stories such as mysteries with no success. Her new editor Tachibana is urging her to go back to romance stories and she has a new plot for one. It sounded odd to Tachibana as Aoi wants to write about a forty something year old woman who fell in love with a 25 year old osteopath or Seitai therapist. In other words about her being with Shuichi!

 That relationship will be going nowhere or at least it appears that way as Aoi had thought Shuichi had some romantic feelings for her which was way off base. He had helped cure her ailing shoulders from stress and had thought Aoi was in her fifties(!) which kind of shocked/annoyed her. After the first few minutes not much was mentioned about Aoi pursuing Shuichi but it's still early in the series. And of Sora's attempt to land him as a boyfriend is on hold for a while but will get to it soon enough. Her problem is that she's met Shuichi just once for about two minutes in the previous recap, it was love at first sight for Sora but what does an Otaku like her know about romance?

 None according to her mother who has made a 'Aoi Romance List' which contained 63 sure fire ways for a man to fall for a woman. Then again what would Aoi know after going so many years without a date? On the list was such things as pretending to cry or be sad, certain lines to say and other ways to grab a man's attention. Before the episode is over we'll see try one on her editor Tachibana with mixed results. But as I brought up in the first recap Aoi seems to have the perfect husband-to-be in her childhood friend Gon who operates the family taiyaki restaurant. He is a decent fellow who has never been married, he often jokes to Aoi about them getting hitched but she never takes him seriously.

 It's the seventh anniversary of Gon's mother death and Aoi just happened to be at the restaurant for the occasion, she always drowns her sorrows in food. During that time is when Sora burst in to whisk her mother home for some romance advice, that was also the time when Aoi gave her the sure fire list to grab a man. Sora needed advice as she had somehow met Shuichi once again at a cafe, he's such a klutz who knocked over a few items walking over to her but to Sora that added to his charm. What was a bit mysterious was that outside observing the scene was Sora's mother Aoi, was she secretly tailing Shuichi? Don't know for sure but that's the impression I have and was she amazed to see her nerdy daughter talking with her crush! More to her dismay was when Sora later announced she may have a date with him coming up, if so that'll be Sora's first date ever but there's also someone else in her life.

 Above in a few screenshots is Sora's economics classmate Hikaru who we met briefly in the first show but got to know him much better in this episode. He's considered to be one of the top looking guys on campus as the girls do swoon for him but he's got a huge secret which he's revealed to only one person. That happened in this show where Hikaru told Sora that underneath his cool exterior he's actually a closet Otaku and to him she's actually the coolest girl in school. That kind of stunned Sora and have been kind of confused about her attitude towards Hikaru. After his Otaku confession you would have thought she'd want to get to know him better and he's been such a decent fellow to her. But for some reason Sora wants nothing to do with the man who so many girls at school dream of and really can't understand the reasons why.

 Hikaru has had a secret crush on Sora for a while, over a year and it's when he saw her cosplaying at a Comi-Fest. He was there too but disguised as to keep his 'cool image', perhaps his being a closet Otaku is what's turning Sora off towards his advances. But they haven't been romantic advances and instead what Hikaru really wants to do with Sora is to write a manga. She's an excellent artist while Hikaru isn't as his strength lies in writing. He's written a love story where a pair of outcasts want to create a new world where they can share their love, looks like Hikaru has come up with a winning idea. Most of the story is complete so what Hikaru would like Sora to do is write the drawings for it. However she turned him down right off the bat, he pleaded twice with her to join forces but to no avail.

 At first Hikaru did seem like a bit of a jerk but he's actually a decent man and could Sora be making a mistake by not teaming up with him? There has to be some other reasons for her shunning Hikaru, one that she gave him was that she was dating(!) though that hasn't happened with Shuichi yet. Sure something is going to come out of Hikaru's advances and after going twenty years dateless now Sora could be involved in a love triangle. No such triangle is in the works for her mother Aoi who once again seems to have taken a man's niceness the wrong way. That's with her new editor Tachibana who has to be fifteen years younger or perhaps more. Tachibana has been a fan of Aoi's fan for many years and truly wants to see her become a popular romance author again. He's paid a visit to her ritzy Minato apartment to talk about her latest idea of a story revolving around an older woman falling for her therapist.

 But to Tachibana that's a bit of a drop from her old novels, he didn't quite say it but couldn't Aoi come up with a better romantic story? Here's where she tried a pair of her '63 ways to nab a man' theories on him as Aoi began to get tears in her eyes and looked glummer than glum. Tachibana realized he could have handled his criticism a bit better but he really did, he didn't know he was being set up by Aoi who thought Tachibana may have had his eyes set on seducing her. And that came close as he bent down to lock lips with Aoi but at the last minute she pulled away, what would happen if her daughter walked in? Aoi must be psychic as not even ten seconds later that's what happened but Sora has another young woman with her, one that was furious with Tachibana and who is this irate woman?

 It just so happened to be his girlfriend(!) Saori who had been staking the apartment out until she was noticed by Sora who brought her inside. Saori is beyond obsessive as the almost could be considered a stalker but seeing as how she lives(?) with Tachibana guess that's not possible. But she is overly jealous and possessive of her man as she had tailed him to Aoi's apartment to check to see if anything romantic was taking place. It didn't but her suspicions weren't far off. Saori has even gone as far as to obtaining a job as an OL at Saneisha Publishing to keep tabs on him and so far he's put up with her jealousy. 

 She did rant and rave for a while until calmed down by Tachibana who assured his girl nothing had happened. Of course he has to visit Aoi often as he is her editor, though a bit calmed down Saori just couldn't take what had happened(nothing) and eventually passed out. She arose a few hours later sleeping in Aoi's majestic bed and one reason for her fainting was not taking her medicine. She had some sense knocked into her then by Aoi and Sora who truly know next to nothing about men but tried to give Saori advice about them. That was settled for now but sure this will be another minor story throughout the series. In the final few seconds it was finally time for Sora's first date with Shuichi even though she's only known him for about ten minutes. They were going to meet in a nearby park and as that was about to happen this episode came to it's conclusion.

 Slightly longer than the first recap as much more did happen but kind of like the length of these compared to the tome like recaps for Korean dramas. Am just a tad behind as I should have published these a few days ago but nothing too major. The third episode aired three nights ago, will be doing a pair of posts each time so am expecting the next pair to be in about ten days and so far have to say I'm enjoying this series.