Hinatazaka46: "Koeharu" drama, episode five recap

 

 Air Dates: April 28th until June 30, 2021  Wednesday nights at 1:00 am on NTV

Subs are a joint project of Broken Subs and Team Hinata.... 22 minutes an episode

Main Cast: Top seven are all Hina members, first six are all first year students at the Kirameki Voice Actor's School. Bottom person is another member but we don't see her as she does some narration and often for Meiko's thoughts. All save for Amasaki live at the school's Doremi dorm. 

Mirei Saski as Meiko Hinowa.... Quite a shy nineteen year old who is such a fanatic about the "Namidairo Senki" weekly manga series. She's such a fan of the manga that she enrolled in the school when Meiko heard there would be an anime of it. It'll be a long shot for her to voice the role of Tya as Meiko is a bit inept at most things.

Akari Nibu as Mana Tendou.... Such an energetic student who is so talented at seemingly everything. She's become Meiko's best friend and it was revealed in the second show that Mana was a champion at Kendo until a tragic car accident.

Miho Watanabe as Amasaki Amane.... Went to high school with Meiko but Amasaki can't stand her and has bullied her for so long. Her father is quite wealthy, in high school she was the Queen of Snobs which has continued on to this school.

Miku Kanemura as Yukina Tsukikawa.... Her dream was to be a J-Pop Idol but failing all auditions thought going to a voice actress school would help her Idol career.

Hina Kawata as Tae Honda.... Simply idolizes Yukina. We never knew much about her until episode four and still don't but she was the first of the bunch to land an anime role.

Hinano Kamimura as Airi Kusuma.... In episode three has became a fashion model but will continue with her voice actress studies. She's such a quiet female and because Meiko is like that too Airi really looks up to her.

Ayaka Takamoto as Chizue Harukaze.... Doremi Dorm mother and still in VA training but does get an occasional voice acting job.

Aya Hirano as Iwao.... The student's main teacher and what a peppy woman! In real life Aya is known for being a singer and also a very busy voice actress.

Koichi Yamadera as Odawara Genmai.... Headmaster of Kirameki Voice Actor's School and also the creator of the Genmai training program.

Naoto Takenaka as Kinkakuji Enjo.... Older popular manga artist, writer of the 'Namidairo Senki' series published in the Weekly Hop magazine.

Sarina Ushio as the narrator.

Previous recaps:

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three

 May help to read those other recaps as they were done on May 23rd, bit of a simple drama but won't discuss too much of what's taken place and they're not long posts. In that last recap Tae moved out of the Doremi dorm as she's now a member of the Chocora Chocola Idol group who also are featured in a popular anime. A new girl moved in who was Karen but we saw so little of her and don't even know what Hina member she is. Time is really zipping by, it's a two year program at the voice actress school and the girls have only about three months to graduation. So in this and the next episode which won't be recapped for a week the girls are trying to get their futures in order by either landing a full time role(s) or getting signed by an agency.

 Didn't happen until there were about five minutes left but above Yukina passed an audition and was accepted into the Akachi Pro Agency. They'll still be training her and also trying to set her up for voice acting roles. So of the five original dorm mates three have a plan for after graduation. Yukina of course and her friend Tae who now has a full time anime gig and is part of an Idol group. And then there's Airi who in the third recap was signed by a modeling agency, she's appeared in many magazines and her boss is also helping Airi with her voice acting career. So that leaves our star Meiko currently out in the cold and she may be that way for a while. The school's headmaster sees something in Meiko that others don't but she's still not all that talented at many voice acting things, perhaps zero.

 Then there's Mana who is very talented and like Meiko has been attending many auditions. Bit surprised no agency has taken a chance on Mana yet but to me it's just a matter of time. Not among the troop of dorm girls is Asamaki but she does have an important role in this series and especially in this episode. Amasaki went to high school with Meiko but has always disliked her and has a snobbish aura about her. Amasaki's parents run an elite Inn and though she's very talented at voice acting wonder if the producers and agencies can see through her 'nice girl' act as she too hasn't been signed. The Headmaster led a class in this show that was to teach the girls about last minute changes in a script. Amasaki had practiced hard at the original one and made such excellent notes but doesn't have that talent to change things at the drop of a hat which is so important to a voice actress.

 So Amasaki flopped badly at that 'Crazy Request' theme that the Headmaster taught and unknown to her classmates is having doubts about being a voice actress. Shortly after the class ended Meiko received a call from the local hospital that her grandmother had fallen down. The girl's dorm mother Chizue quickly was able to borrow a car so five gals dashed to the hospital, in a surprise one of the girls was Amasaki. All was well though with the grandmother and to Meiko's shock she's had a boyfriend for the two years! This may have been a time Amasaki was waiting for as she's had no real friends to talk with and should she finally reveal her true feelings to her classmates?

 That's what took place and what Amasaki told the others had to take a lot of courage. For one thing she's never hated Meiko though that's what she and everyone else has thought. Actually Amasaki has been so jealous of Meiko who didn't need to worry about an image and was able to enjoy reading mangas and viewing animes which has been Amasaki's secret passion. Her parents run a very exclusive Inn and were very unhappy with their daughter choosing a career as a voice actress, they want her to quit and help them run the Inn. So with that pressure from her parents, not having any friends and failing all of the auditions to date Amasaki has told her classmates is it time to give up on her dream?

 Naturally Meiko knew exactly what Amasaki was going through as she's been a semi failure too and until entering the school didn't have any close friends either. So she was able to console her new friend Amasaki and though the recap won't be today she has joined Meiko's group of friends in the next episode. That talk about not giving up hit home to Amasaki who will be staying in school but will Meiko also retain her 'never give up' attitude at the end of this episode? Another person who was struggling was the girl's dorm mother Chizue who had graduated from the school eighteen months ago. She's been with an agency and has landed some small jobs but nothing solid. Chizue's agency contract was about to expire and to her surprise they want to extend it. But to Chizue perhaps it would be better to leave the agency and try a different route in becoming a popular voice actress.

 She told the girls that and the following day Chizue will leave her agency. Also she'll be quitting being their dorm mother as that's taken too much time away from auditioning but she'll remain until someone else arrives. That brought us almost to the end of the episode and with less than a minute to go a mega bombshell dropped. Meiko's main reason for entering the Kirameki school was to get skills to audition for a role in the upcoming 'Namadairo Senki' anime. It's Meiko's favorite manga of all time and when she learned it was going to also be an anime she had to try for a role in it. But at the end of this show it was announced that the anime will be cancelled which of course was such a blow to Meiko and can she ever recover? That you'll read about in the next pair of recaps and they should be in about ten days.