"Shoujiki Fudousan" drama, episode five recap

 

 Air Dates: April 5th until June 7, 2022  Tuesdays at 10:00 pm on NHK

Subs are being done by Miamaw-subs, also goes by the title of Honest Real Estate

Main Cast: First real estate drama I can recall viewing and most of the action takes place at the Tosaka Real Estate Office. Their main seller had been Nagase or at least until an 'accident' in the first episode. At a lot where a new building was to be constructed there were a few older monuments which unknown to Nagase were religious and he was irate they hadn't been removed. So he took matters into his own hands and attempted to destroy them which infuriated their 'Gods'!!!! Since that moment Nagase went from being a chronic liar to a man who cannot tell a lie, whenever he's about to an unseen breeze comes out of nowhere transforming him for a few moments to the most honest man in the world!

Tomohisa Yamashita as Saichi Nagase.... You can see what's happened with Nagase above, before then he would tell any lie in the world to make a sale! He had been successful as he was the #1 agent at Tosaka realty but after becoming a semi honest man his ranking has dropped to fifth. What's also dropped is his lifestyle as he's gone from living in a ritzy penthouse to a small and rundown one room apartment. As time goes on think Nagase will learn how to use this 'honesty' to his benefit but can he become the company's #1 seller again?

Haruka Fukuhara as Sakura Tsukishita.... Rookie at Tosaka RE and quite a naive young woman. Nagase has been assigned to be her mentor and with his sudden personality change Sakura doesn't know what to think of him. Through two shows she made zero sales as Sakura seems to care too much about the tenants and needs to change her ways. Which she has slightly as she's made some sales but is still the lowest ranking agent at Tosaka.

Hayato Ichihara as Takahisa Kiriyama.... Nagase's rival at the real estate office and had actually passed him for sales by the end of the first show, he's a man not to be trusted.

Shinobu Hasegawa as Masumi Okawa.... Office manager at the company, at times Okawa seems to be a tough man but is kind of a push over.

Masao Kusakari as Toshiro Tosaka.... Owner of Tosaka Real Estate who doesn't do much as far as the day to day activities go, not much screen time in these shows.

Rika Izumi as Minami Enomoto.... Don't see enough of her in these shows but think this role will become a bit more important. Minami is a new employee at the Mitsutoma bank as a financial agent and has her sights set on Nagase becoming her next boyfriend!

Kana Kurashima as Ryoko Hanazawa....  Main agent at a new real estate company named Minerva and we only saw a little bit of her in the first two shows. Minerva has quickly become Tosaka's biggest rival and her aim is/was to steal Nagase away from them.

Asahi Ito as Masaki Nishioka.... Ryoko's younger assistant or at least is always with her, as devious as she is Nishioka may be worse and we first met him in the fourth show.

Guest stars: 

Masaya Kato as Masaya(!) Tsukishita .... Sakura's father who she hadn't seen since her parent's divorce ten years ago. He disappeared without a trace until this episode, Masaya had been living in Osaka but is being transferred to Tokyo. He visited the Tosaka agency and will their reunion be a happy one?

Katsunori Takahashi as Masato Ikaruga.... President of Minerva and we first saw him in this episode so don't know if we'll be seeing much more of him, what a ruthless man he is.

Yasuhi Nakamura as Takashi Machimura.... Apartment inspector which means he checks out a place for a potential client to make sure everything is working A-OK.

 Recaps for the previous shows:

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

 Ratings for this series and am wondering why are they so low? None have been released yet for any episodes after the fourth.

Episode one, 4.8% .... Episode two, 5.9% .... Episode three, 5.3% .... Episode four, 4.3%

 

 Don't like breaking up the recaps to talk about real estate terms as I'm not too up on them and especially the terms from Japan so have screenshots at the top that should explain them to you. Not too many new terms in recent shows and the bottom pic has nothing to do with them! Often talk about Nagase's 'Honesty Curse' which is when he can only tell the truth. Before the curse hits a gust of wind appears out of nowhere only hitting him, never had posted one of those screenshots until now.

 This is a huge rarity for me as there's just one recap for today, almost always have two or three in a row. But promised to recap at least half this series and this makes my promise come true! Will be doing the final five shows too but it's going to be easier for me to grab all five episodes at once, there's two shows to go. So will take a two week break and then will have those final five recaps though don't know how many will be thrown at you at once! In this episode there was just one main story which had to deal with Sakura who has had more screen time than anyone the last two shows. So her story will take up at least 80% of this recap and will throw a few minor things in along the way. But will start off with one minor story that took place about five minutes into this show and also the final few seconds. This story may have been minor for this show but think it will be very important in that sixth episode.

 The top two screenshots were of a role playing activity put on by the office manager Okawa. Sakura bombed on that training horribly but it really wasn't her fault, to Nagase training such as that is for the birds and he let his manager Okawa know that! But after that was a very key development as Nagase has discovered that the previous night someone had hacked into his Tosaka e-mail account, it could have only been done at the office. So Nagase went to the owner Tosaka with his findings and to Nagase there's a Spy working at the company! For the last two months Minerva Real Estate has been stealing away so many of Tosaka's clients which has resulted in quite a few lost sales. Seems Minerva has somehow been able to learn all about their clients and the only way that could happen is by a mole at Tosaka. After this scene though not mention of it was made until the final minute and will tell you about that at the end.

 As mentioned the major story took up at least 80% of this show and luckily that meant a lot of screen time for Haruka's character Sakura! After Nagase's meeting with the owner a secretary burst into the office and said a strange man had been peeping into the lobby windows for about an hour. To Nagase could this be a Spy from Minerva and he took charge as he dashed outside to confront this man who looked to be in his mid fifties. He said he was no Spy and was wondering if a Sakura Tsukishita worked at this office? Nagase was a bit leery about this man but brought him inside anyways to see if Sakura knew him, if she didn't he was calling the police. However Sakura knew who this man was within one second as it was.... the father she hadn't seen for a decade!!!! His name is Masaya Tsukishita and he had noticed Sakura's name on the Tosaka website. Masaya for the last ten years has been working as a consultant in Osaka but is being promoted to a branch manager in Tokyo. So it was just a coincidence that Masaya came upon her name and his short term goal was to find a new place to live in Tokyo. Nagase sat in on this reunion which was kind of a stiff one, guess that's understandable on Sakura's part as her father had deserted both Sakura and her mother ten years ago leaving them in debt.

 Masaya hung around for a bit longer mainly to discuss the kind of an apartment he was looking for. It has to be a three bedroom with a large kitchen, Nagase had an inkling of why Masaya would want such a huge place but unsure if Sakura did. Eventually the father did leave with Sakura promising to find him the perfect place, both were at a loss on really what to say and after ten years apart that's easy to understand. Sakura kept looking but couldn't find the perfect place though we will see so much of Masaya in the second half of the show. For the third time the arrogant #1 agent Kiriyama made a nice gesture, he's so stern on the outside but maybe deep down he is a nice person? He told Sakura not to waste this chance at reuniting with her father as it may never happen again, Kiriyama let out his own father had died many years ago. Above you can see Sakura at home and until now never knew she lived with her mother. We only saw her for two minutes at the most, these days she no longer works in the finance field and is a caregiver but seems happy enough and why wasn't she mentioned until now?

 As far as that 'Spy' story goes there was a minor scene with Nagase still doing a bit of investigating. He knew that Minerva also did their banking at Mitsutoma and invited his 'friend' Minami out for a few cocktails to discuss Tosaka's rival. At one time Minami did have the hots for Nagase but she's really cooled on him, she actually would rather not even be with him! She was so irate about Nagase asking about another company's finances, to top it off she thought Ryoko was so sweet while Nagase thought she was worse than the devil. To Nagase's shock Minami called and invited Ryoko to join them which she did in what turned out to a less than stellar occasion for Nagase. He accused Minerva of spying on Tosaka which infuriated Ryoko to no end, Nagase may be correct on his assumption but its something Ryoko had no idea about. She secretly taped this conversation, the following day she sent his manager a tape of what Nagase had said to her. The manager Okawa was not too pleased as if it happened again Ryoko would sue Tosaka for harassment but shouldn't Okawa and the owner have been supporting him more?

 Rest of this recap will be about Masaya's attempt at finding an apartment, his daughter has been working hard but can't the perfect place for him. A few days after that mini reunion Masaya was just strolling the streets of Tokyo when he passed by the Minerva office. There were apartment listings on a board outside which Masaya was glancing at, noticing the man was Ryoko who rushed outside as she could smell a nice commission with this man. Masaya had no clue Minerva was the corrupt rival of Sakura's agency and agreed to look at more listings. Ryoko had just the place for him, a large apartment with three bedrooms and a spacious kitchen, shall they look at it now? To that Masaya readily agreed as they headed to the place called Trefalco Towers and in tow with Ryoko was her slimy assistant Nishioka. The apartment did appear to be a nice place though perhaps a bit expensive but Masaya can afford it, Ryoko used the old trick of saying he needed to make a decision fast as two other clients were also interested in the apartment.

 Masaya was a bit leery at first about signing a contract but he did need a place somewhat soon and has said yes to living there. At that moment he received a call from Sakura who finally found the perfect place but her father explained the situation and sorry for making her do all that work for nothing. After the call Sakura told Nagase about where her father would be living, to him that place could be a hell hole and don't have him sign the contract! However Masaya had switched off his phone so the pair had to rush to the place via a taxi, would they make it there before the contract was signed? Yes and by about one second they did as Masaya was about to write his final Kanji symbol on the contract. Ryoko was stunned to see Nagase there and he told Masaya not to sign anything as this apartment would be nothing but trouble. Once again Ryoko taped Nagase's words and this time she does plan on suing but no so fast blurted out Sakura. Ryoko didn't know he was her father and she wants to make sure this place has zero problems. Sakura just has one request which is for the apartment to be inspected by a certified inspector which is how its usually done in Japan, Ryoko did agree to that request. 

 The inspection took place the following day, in the top screenshot is the inspector Machimura. Unknown to Nagase and Sakura he was secretly working for Minerva as Nishioka had called him up the previous night. If Machimura found no problems then his agency may have a lot of work lined up for him! But it appeared the bribe might not have been needed, with everyone including Masaya looking on Machimura didn't find any problems and did do his job properly. But there was one more place to check which was a bedroom, Nagase noticed squeaking under some boards which really worried him. At first it appeared Machimura didn't notice anything and left the room, all thought it was to sign the inspection papers saying the apartment was in top shape. But Machimura is a pro and you couldn't bribe him, he returned with a machine that could check under floors and he discovered that the boards were rotting due to a water flood. That's something that could spread throughout the apartment so the entire flooring would need to be replaced and Nagase was correct on there being a severe problem but he may have lucked out.

 So of course after that Masaya wouldn't rent the place and surprisingly Ryoko wasn't upset. She truly believed this apartment had no problems and was shocked like everyone else. The Minerva owner had told her the apartment was in perfect shape which was a lie, Ryoko did confront the owner Ikaruga about it but she just got the brushoff. Ikaruga seems to be such a ruthless man, we didn't see much of him but think we will in future shows. So at the end Masaya finally confessed to Sakura why he needed a three bedroom apartment, it's because he was getting remarried! Bit shocking to Sakura who kept her feelings hidden, she had no clue about her father's remarriage but Masaya had told Nagase all about it. After all that work by Sakura Masaya has decided to use a different agency as he would feel so uncomfortable with his daughter looking for a place for his new family! Masaya then took his leave and will we ever see him again? There's now one minute to go in the show and Nagase was working late at the office, Kiriyama was there but soon left. Nagase still had this spy/mole at Tosaka on his mind so he secretly trailed Kiriyama out of the building. He witnessed his mate getting into a limo and in it was the Minerva owner Ikaruga but was that really Kiriyama as we never saw his face. So that's the first cliffhanger to end off a show but you're going to have to wait two weeks for the outcome as that's when I'll begin posting the final five recaps for this very enjoyable series.