Hinatazaka46: "Koeharu!" drama, episode nine 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. She quit voice acting training in the sixth show but returned with a vengeance in the eighth episode.

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 had continued on to this school. Had because she changed her ways after the fourth show and is best buddies now with the other girls.

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. After graduation she'll continue her training at the Akaichi Pro Agency.

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.

Konoka Matsuda as Mari Koshino.... Didn't see much of her in the first five shows but is a very talented and popular voice actress.

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. He sadly died at the beginning of episode seven.

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 .... Episode four 

 Episode five .... Episode six .... Episode seven .... Episode eight

 May help to read those other recaps as the first trio were posted on May 23rd, the second pair on June 14th, the next two a week later and the eighth show on June 26th. So that's a bit of a gap between them and as I won't be discussing too much of what's taken place may help to read some of them and none are that long. But where we stand is the auditions for the role of Tya for the "Namidairo Senki" manga are going on, after a delay of a year it's finally going to be made into an anime.

 Our heroine Meiko had dreamed of playing Tya but dropped out of voice acting college when the anime was put on hiatus. Now that it's back on she's vying for that major role of Tya but so aren't many others. Perhaps thousands originally were at the first audition which took place in the last recap. In this show we're into the second round where 25 applicants have survived and for the final round it'll be whittled down to three. The final episode was just subbed, am not going to view it until this is written up and you'd think Meiko would get the part but with this ending who knows?

 All four of the applicants from the Doremi dorm passed the first audition, they're Meiko, Amasaki, Mana and Chizue. There's three others who were in the dorm until graduation, Mana is now the new dorm mother but has no students living there. Those three who we won't see much of in this episode are Airi who has become a semi successful model and still auditions for roles. Then there's Tae who is part of an up and coming J-Pop group named Chocola Chocola, she also has a role in a popular anime. Final dorm girl who also didn't audition is Yukina but she will be involved with the "Namidairo Senki" anime as she'll be it's official ambassador. So it's on to the second round and making an appearance was the manga's author Enjo, though forty years older Meiko has quite a crush on him.

 Enjo is quite a daffy man when he's with others but deep down he's quite serious. Him and the director Kakizawa will be making the decision together on who will make the final round of three vying for the major role of Tya. The odds on favorite for the role would be the above girl Mari who is a popular voice actress and she is quite talented. Didn't see much of her in the first five shows but her role has been getting bigger. As mentioned Enjo s a bit daffy but so wasn't the girl's headmaster Genmai when they attended voice acting school. He gave them some oddball lessons and tests which at first didn't make much sense but they have paid off for the girls.

 First off in this second audition was to create a figure out clay, Enjo probably wanted to se how ingenious the applicants were in such a short amount of time. In that first batch of pics Mari created such a perfect figure, thinking it's Beethoven? As I said Mari is just so good at everything but she does have a bit of an attitude problem though it's not as bad as it was earlier on. Meanwhile Mana did something clever which was to make a face mask out of the clay but her best friend Meiko flubbed this part of the audition making such a simple animal. But Enjo was still impressed with Meiko, especially her eagerness so her odds of making it to the second round have increased. One more test for the group and that was to say a few lines from the anime script, all seemed to do quite well at it.

 Suspenseful audition though not many tests, Enjo and the director Kakizawa have decided on the three finalists. But before that Enjo wanted to say a few words which were to Chizue who is right above. He's said that while she did well most eclipsed her and she couldn't understand then why she was singled out? There was a good reason for that as right on the spot Enjo offered Chizue the role of Rui's mother in the anime movie, he's the hero of it. Chizue was overcome with joy for though she's been going to auditions for years had never been offered such a huge role. She gave a nice little speech which brought some tears to all of the other applicants, I was a bit misty eyed too. Now it's time for the final three to be announced and the first name was expected.

 That was the name of Mari and in all honesty though not the drama's heroine she is the most talented of everyone so she's deserving of the role. Second name announced was of Mana who I've always felt was the best of the seven girls at the Doremi dorm when it came to voice acting. In a slight surprise to the others the final name for the third round of auditions was Meiko and she has that aura about her which is hard to explain but impresses Enjo That final audition won't be held for a week so in that period it was non stop practicing for Mana and Meiko, the overly talented Mari probably didn't need to practice much! Amasaki. who is above, said she has four auditions coming up could have made it to the final round too, she's actually a better voice actress than Meiko but Enjo must know what he's doing.

 We're down to the last two minutes of this episode and it's the day of the audition, Mana and Meiko seem well prepared. Though 'rivals' they are rooting for each other and though neither may get the major role of Tya sure there's other parts they could voice. This will be continued in the next recap as we're now down to ten seconds in this episode. No need to explain what happened and the man talking on the phone is the movie's director Kakizawa. He was conversing with a person from his company and what he said of course put such a damper on the two girl's spirit, that's the first screenshot below.

 So as you can see it's been decided(or has it?) that Mari will be getting the role, Maririn is her stage name. Needless to say both Meiko and Mana are quite dejected but of course neither will go down without a fight. Now it's on to viewing the final show and can't wait but on the other hand hate when such an enjoyable series hit's it's end, the recap for that is the next post.