Yuki Yoda: "Saiai no Hito: The Other Side of Nihon Chinbotsu" drama, episodes seven and eight recap

 

 Air Dates: October 10th until December 12, 2021 on the Paravi cable channel

 Episodes are fifteen to 21 minutes in length, subs were done by Irozuku Subs and they pick up the under the radar dramas which are much more interesting than prime time shows.

Main Cast: The episodes aren't too long in length which means there's also not a large cast. Just two main characters who are the top two and then there's a pair of secondary characters, there may be one person introduced later on. Yuki fans should be happy as she's in 90% of the scenes and the restaurant she works at has remained unnamed through the series. So why don't we call it Yoda's Place and who doesn't have an appetite for her!!!!

Yuki Yoda as Ai Yamada.... Besides being a waitress at Yoda's Place Ai also attends a vocational school as her dream is to be an artist. At the restaurant many of her drawings and paintings are on the wall. The location for this drama is Tokyo but Ai grew up in Hokkaido, she's 21 in age and thirteen years ago her parents died in a car crash and she blames herself for that tragedy.

 Mizuki Itagaki as Kiseki Makita.... His first name means Miracle but Kiseki thinks his life has been anything but one up until now. He seems to be about the same age as Ai, perhaps a year or so older. In the third episode we learned his father owns the Makita General Hospital and Kiseki will be next in line to be the director. He's currently an intern and at the beginning of the fourth show his family fled to Switzerland, so didn't Kiseki though he returned.

 Shodai Fukuyama as Makoto Yamada.... Ai's older brother by about five years, he still lives in Hokkaido and is so protective of his younger sister.

Kohei Fukuyama as Junta Yuki.... Don't think these bottom two characters are related in real life. Junta also grew up in Hokkaido but has moved to Tokyo, he always has a guitar on his back but his musical career has been a failure. He hasn't admitted it but Junta has such a crush on Ai and he sends Makoto daily reports to let him know that she's is safe and sound! However at the end of the fifth episode he did confess to Ai that he had such a crush on her but sadly for him she still had only eyes for Kiseki.

 This is a spinoff from the "Nihon Chinbotsu: Kiobo no Hito" drama which aired at the same time but that show was a prime time drama. I didn't view it  and the the main story had to deal with scientists planning to bury pollutants off the coast of Japan. They were warned not to as it could cause the major area of Kanto to sink into the sea! This show begins off from where that series ended and as far as I know nothing in the area had sank.... yet! But if you read the first recap there was a sinking which was a small island off the coast of Izu that's south of Tokyo.

 We've hit the end of this min series which was an enjoyable watch but could been much better. At the end of the previous episode the government had told the citizens the entire nation of Japan would be sinking(!), wouldn't you think most people would be in a state of panic? That wasn't the case as life seemed to go on normally, didn't see hordes of people fleeing by boats or planes plus there was no looting of the stores, as a matter of fact we seldom saw any others besides the four in the cast. All in all it was a decent enough show and will have to say Yuki has never looked better, will give a final rating at the end.

 At the beginning of this drama it was mainly the Tokyo area that had been sinking into the ocean, some of the city did but the disaster was short lived. However now the entire nation of Japan is now on the verge of sinking, not just the main island but all of the other smaller islands which makes you shake your head thinking why? No time table was announced but the government is telling the residents they'll need to flee somewhat quickly, there will be a lottery to determine which country you'll be going to! You can either apply as an individual, a group of five or an entire family, later on groups of up to a hundred were permitted for smaller villages.

 Three of the four main characters all had different ideas on what to do, as you can see above Junta has decided to part ways with his friends and be sent to whatever country. He's had such a crush on Ai for so long and was kind of heartbroken when she fell head over heals for Kiseki. Junta wrote a farewell song for her which he sung in front of the others that brought a tear to their eyes, about two days later he struck out on his own with his trusty guitar. That song moved Ai's older brother Makoto who has decided to do things his own own way for a change. His original plan was to head back to Hokkaido to convince the older residents to leave the soon to be sinking island as he knew they were to stubborn to leave their lives behind. But Makoto changed his mind on that and for once said he said his own life should come first but luckily the wise words of his younger sister Ai changed his mind.

 As you can see in the middle screenshot the sinking of Japan did take place but in a change not all of the areas were affected. The island of Kyushu will be spared along with Hokkaido where Ai, her brother Makoto and her soon to be husband Kiseki had gone to trying to convince the older residents to leave. Soon to be husband for Kiseki for if he put his name on the Yamada family register he would be allowed to depart Japan with Ai but it never came to that. Most residents did leave the country but were allowed to return though all in all not that many did which makes sense as those islands couldn't accommodate over a hundred million people. 

 We're now in the final episode and it's three years later, few changes did happen in the lives of our main characters. Junta was a struggling musician in Japan who could never score a record deal. But he ended up in LA where he's had a couple of top ten singles and there's no way he would return to Japan now, appears he may be getting married to an agent from Japan who had laughed at his music in the second episode! More odd was the fact that Makoto had also left Japan and that kind if surprised me, figured he would have wanted to stay with his sister Ai. But he's now in some unnamed country and no other info was said about what Makoto was doing with his life.

 There's a few screenshots below for the major characters of the main drama this show was spun off from, the three had some short cameos. So as mentioned it's three years later, Ai and Kiseki have married and remained on the island of Hokkaido. Seems Kiseki finished his medical training and don't know how with all that happened but he's now a very respected doctor on the island. The pair are also members of a 'welcoming committee' for returning citizens, many have returned to Japan but really not a huge amount. So that leaves us with the main heroine Ai whose has continued with her painting as you can see above and hopes her art can inspire future generations of this now very small country. Ai's marriage is going well but the pair are still so funnily innocent however there's no man in the world Ai would rather be with which concludes this mini drama.

 Perhaps a series like this wasn't meant to have a lot of action or intense scenes as in a way it was more of a romantic drama. However a bit more intensity or scenes of Japan sinking would have definitely helped but then again when a show averages only nineteen minutes an episode guess there's not enough time for everything. So will give this a final rating of 7.9/10, it was a tad higher going into these final two shows. It's certainly not a must watch though of course if you're one of Yuki's huge fanbase then you naturally need to view this show as she was in over 90% of the scenes. You can get this series at Irozuku Subs and I like how they pick up the under the radar shows.