"Takane no Hana-san" drama: Episode twelve(final) recap

 

 Air Dates: April 10th until June 27, 2021 on TV-Tokyo, Thursdays at midnight

Based on a manga by Koji Murota, subs were done by LuW

Main Cast: Most of the action takes place at the Mitsubachi Confectionary company in Tokyo. Small cast as there's only four major characters.

Rika Izumi as Hana Takamane.... 32 year old planning department manager at the company. Though a bit older Hana has never been in a relationship and deep down has the maturity of a young teen when it comes to males. For some odd reason she has a secret crush on her young worker Yowaki who is kind of inept and unknown to Hana he also has a crush on her.

Yuki Ogoe as Tsuyoshi Yowaki.... About seven years Hana's junior but could pass for a seventeen year old. He is gung-ho about his work but Yowaki comes up with the oddest promo ideas which leads to Hana constantly putting him down.

Kenta Izuka as Genki Sarada.... Has the nickname of Charada. He's Yowaki's best friend at the company and thinks most woman in the world would die to date him which is far from the truth. Compared to Yowaki he is an excellent worker.

Kanon as Ichigo.... At ~21 in age is the youngest in the office, she's like Sarada as Ichigo thinks men would die to go out with her. She is insanely jealous of Hana's looks and really wants to bring her down which she's attempted a few times and all have ended in failures. 

 Previous recaps

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

Episode four .... Episode five .... Episode six

Episode seven .... Episode eight .... Episode nine

 

 We've finally hit the end of this series and seems like I'm setting a record this year with drama recaps. As mentioned a few times before the main reason for viewing this series was Rika who plays the main role of Hana. I've been impressed with her comedy acting in this show as she's always played serious characters up until now, she'll be a police officer in her next series. So while a very enjoyable drama overall have to admit it's far from a must watch and would give it a final rating of 7.7/10. Episodes are only 23 minutes in length so you're not giving up too much time for this series. The middle shows were a bit sluggish but the first and final four I might give a rating of 8.3/10.

 I was impressed with Ichigo character more than anyone else and she was one of the highlights of this drama. Ichigo changed so much during this series, at first her goal was to bring Hana down by pretending to be in love with her crush Yowaki. But over time Ichigo too developed a crush on the inept Yowaki but was rejected by him after she confessed her love. That led Ichigo to really increase her consumption of Sake and mentioned how she was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic. But she pulled herself together and after a transfer to the Planning department which Hana directs Ichigo showed what an intelligent young woman she was and things worked out well for her in the end. Not so for the office 'Romeo' Charada and will discuss that in the recap. While Ichigo went from being a huge devil to such a likable gal the opposite took place for Charada.

 Previous episode ended off with Hana outside of Yowaki's apartment after being invited over to spend a Saturday with him, kind of a dream for Hana. She was so nervous and couldn't even ring the bell, she eventually did and unknown to Hana she had been trailed to the apartment by her underling Charada. Yowaki is 25 in age, Hana is 32 yet these two have the romance experiences of twelve year olds. Yowaki is a massive manga fan and wanted to introduce Hana to some of his faves. One one of them was titled "The Queen of Roses" which sent Hana's blood to a boil as it dealt with an office affair, could this have been a subtle hint for her? No it wasn't and this get together proved to be a short one as the nitwit Yowaki proved why he's always been dateless. Thinking the bottle of cola was orange juice(!) Yowaki couldn't stop shaking it up, of course you can imagine what happened as after he opened the bottle Hana was sprayed with soda!

 But after their confessions of love Hana is finding it much harder to get irate with Yowaki and the pair headed to a laundromat to clean her clothes. That kind of sent Hana into seventh heaven as she had to wear some of Yowaki's old clothes and her silent fantasies about being with him are now nonstop. But this semi fun day was about to be crushed and it was all thanks to Charada. He tailed the lovebirds to the laundromat, when Yowaki left to get some refreshments Charada was there waiting for his ex friend. Charada has become so obsessed with Hana these past few shows, he's the office 'Romeo' but has sworn off all other women as he'll do anything to be with Hana. You can see above what Charada told Yowaki and Charada has become a bit of a cruel man. Those words burst Yowaki's bubble and when he returned to Hana he announced their relationship wouldn't work and slithered away. 

 Needless to say Hana was a bit stunned at what Yowaki had said, he dashed off before she could blurt out anything. Hana wasn't too dejected or at least didn't show it, if anything she was very miffed at being 'dumped' a second time by Yowaki. The following day and the ones after at work Hana gave him the cold shoulder treatment, she wouldn't utter word to her crush and Yowaki was the one who was down in the dumps. Of course the situation was noticed by Charada who thought there was now nothing between him and Hana's heart! Think again Charada as his advances were shot right down. He gave a presentation for a new snack to help the growth of your bones, Charada went way overboard with his 'acting' but he was a smash in front of the other Mitsubachi Confectionary workers. 

 All save for Hana who Charada came on to after the presentation in the company's outside lunch area. He wrapped his arms around Hana and told her what a perfect couple they made as Charada's obsession had hit a dangerous level. Hana immediately put Charada in his place and said if he didn't watch it she would charge him sexual harassment, that was the last time Charada made any kind of move on her. The Charada character went way downhill these last few show, for so long he was the top worker in Hana's Planning department. But his obsession for her became out of control and even his life outside the office was suffering. In kind of a 'justice wins' scene at the end of the show a director told Charada the company was looking into him stealing the idea for that 'growth bone sweet' and are his days at the company numbered? On the bright side the same director rewarded Ichigo for her hard work and the company has approved her idea for a new sweet, she deserved something good happening to her. Ichigo also gave some sound advice on how to win back his crush but it was Hana who made the first move.

 Down to the final minutes of this series and of course things couldn't remain the way they were with Hana and Yowaki. He saw that incident with Charada but couldn't hear anything said, at first Yowaki thought the two would become a couple but luckily that never happened. Though she didn't show it Hana was becoming so distraught without Yowaki by her side and had ideas about quitting her position until some sense was talked into Hana by her mother. So she broke the ice and called Yowaki to meet him the following day, after twelve episodes the reunion scene only lasted two minutes. Hana told her crush that he's fine just the way he is and doesn't need to change, that put Yowaki's heart at ease and it appears the two are now an 'official couple'. Couldn't tell that by the way Hana still blows her top at Yowaki's proposals, the drama ended as it began with her berating him at the office.

 So that wraps up this drama and with that ending it sets itself up for a second season. That would be fine by me as though this was from from an essential watch it was fun and enjoyable. Plus we never did learn the outcome of the COP project which was so key to the story. My next series will be similar to this but a tad more serious. Just started it and have watched the first two episodes, that's the 2017 show "Love or Not" from 2017 and will have the first recaps over the weekend.