"Uchi no Musume wa Kareshi ga Dekinai" drama: Episode one 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

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.

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. If there is one kind of drama I've avoided the last few years are romance ones and especially light hearted shows. But this one appeared to be a bit different and through two episodes it has been. Try to view every Minami drama and she doesn't take run of the mill roles so you know this series will be a bit quirky, fun and different which so far has been the case. Hopefully will recap all ten episodes and think that's how many there will be, have two for today.

 Minami is the main reason I chose to view this drama, perhaps the only reason. So will be discussing her character more but let me start off with her mother Aoi who is such an important piece of the stories, there's a few going on at once. So far we haven't learned that much about Aoi's past such as why has she been a single mother for so many years? Along with her childhood friend Gon-chan she grew up in the Minato section of Tokyo but when they were youths it wasn't as high class. That changed in the 1980's and her family sold their small photo studio for such a high price, they then relocated to a farm but Aoi returned to Tokyo to attend college and has never left. For close to twenty years Aoi has been a very popular author and mainly for writing romance novels. 

 But as the years went on Aoi just couldn't find the inspiration to write those kinds of stories, mainly because she hasn't been in a relationship for so long but really hadn't been looking to be in one. Aoi's new project was writing a serial for a magazine, her story was called "Umbilical Chord" and with a title like that no wonder it's been a flop. She was scheduled to write forty installments but her editor at Saneisha publishing has told her to wrap it up at 22, twenty have already been written. The editor's name is Konishi who has worked with Aoi almost since day one, he wants to see her do well but he's wondering has her time passed? He's assigned her a new personal editor who is about a 25 year old man named Tachibana, it's his first major assignment for the firm.

 He's been an Aoi fan for a while and he too wants to see her rebound but how can he get Aoi back to writing romance novels? She had planned on writing a mystery but that was quickly shot down, Aoi began thinking should she try to finally look for a boyfriend to get a romantic inspiration? It would also to be to help her daughter Sora who as mentioned in the intro is such an Otaku and has never been on a date. Could that be because of the way Aoi has been leading her life as she hasn't had a man for quite a long time, like mother like daughter? Besides the problems with writing Aoi also has one with her spending, the pair live in an exclusive apartment building and according to Sora they should think about moving. Aoi just loves to spend money and will eat out a few times a day along with buying overfly priced clothes and such, can she change her ways for her daughter?

 Changing her ways won't happen overnight but Aoi has always had Sora's best interests at heart though things haven't always worked out so well. For instance a main reason for their apartment location was that it had a prefect view of the Zojirushi company. But more specifically their elephant logo which Sora has been enamored with for years and for some reason it's been kid of a security blanket to her. Let's move on with Sora who you can see right above. As mentioned in the bios she's a twenty year old girl attending college, a private one as she couldn't pass the intense entrance exams for a national university.  To date Sora hasn't had a boyfriend but that doesn't seem to bother her in the least.

 Nor has she ever been on a date, while not an introverted person she has very few friends and isn't the outgoing type. But she does have some passions which has kind of upset her mother. To Sora why care about people when there's animes to watch and mangas to read?! Those two activities consume Sora's life and at her rate she'll be living with her mother for the rest of her life! It hasn't been mentioned but think Sora's field of study is economics and she's constantly harping on her mother about the way she spends money like there's no tomorrow. Sora in this first show was forced to attend a get together for her Keynes economics class but that was another social disaster for her and she really could care less. At the function was a classmate named Hikaru who we didn't see too often this episode but we will soon and he's one of the most popular guys on campus.

 Hikaru secretly has some feelings towards Sora but has to keep them hidden to maintain his cool image. At the outing her did make some comments towards Sora which she took the wrong way and stormed home, not really Hikaru's fault but Sora knows zero when it comes to how regular people interact. That bottom screenshot above took place in a park where Sora had tripped and was soon helped up by a good looking chap or to her he was. That man's named was Shuichi and right off the bat you could see some hidden vibe between the pair. Shuichi helped repair Sora's glasses and would have stuck around longer but he had to dash to work, he's another man we'll be seeing much of in the next show. So while Sora may have gone twenty years without even one date in the span of less than one day she may have two guys interested in her or is that her odd way of thinking?

 Right above is Aoi's lifetime friend Gon-chan but will be skipping the chan part for now on. He runs the family Odaya taiyaki restaurant and though the Minato district is very wealthy these days the small establishment is still there. That's where Sora works part time and Gon has been kind of a father figure to her over the years. Have mentioned it once and will do so in future recaps, my prediction is that he and Aoi will finally end up being a couple and why not as they're so compatible. After that brief encounter in the park with Shuichi Sora headed home where she had a brief yet violent argument with her mother, finances were once again the main point. In a rare fury Sora stormed out of the apartment and headed to the Odaya restaurant, like her mother Sora drowns her sorrows in food.

 During her repast Gon did talk some sense into Sora's mind and was telling her all of the things her mother had done for her over the years which have gone unnoticed. Gon is a decent chap and don't know why he's remained single well into his forties. Sora did calm down quite a bit and she's at the age where it can be confusing, especially for a person who has been an Otaku since day one. So the following day she sat and cleared the air with her mother but before that Aoi also had a brief encounter with a man, of all people it was with Shuichi too! He's 25 in age and works as a Seitai therapist, that's a healing process for muscles and such.

 Aoi visited his salon or the one he works at, Shuichi was assigned to 'cure' Aoi of her stress and she hadn't felt so good in years. Think it was mainly in Aoi's brain but she was thinking Shuichi was looking at her in a romantic way, it's been so long since she has been on a date Aoi has taken the his niceness the wrong way. She's vowed to herself to pursue this matter even though Shuichi is almost twenty years younger, will it be a battle for the man's affections between mother and daughter? At home that evening when the pair cleared the air about their argument Aoi announced she was finally going to begin on a romance novel, secretly Shuichi is her inspiration. To help her mother Sora vowed that she too would find a boyfriend for the first time, unknown to each other they are vying for the same man!

 Haruka is also in this drama though she just had one brief scene in this show, you'll see much more of her in the second episode. While this was a solid first show thought the second one was so much better as we saw more of the other characters, perhaps their roles aren't as large but they play such key pieces in the story. Minami is just so adorable again in a drama and in all honesty looks just as good earing specs, recap for the second episode is the next post.