"Shoujiki Fudousan" drama, episode three 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's made zero sales as Sakura seems to care too much about the tenants and needs to change her ways.

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 the first few shows.

Rika Izumi as Minami Enomoto.... Didn't see enough of her in the first few shows but think this role will become a bit larger. 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.

Guest stars: 

Hiroshi Okochi as Yoshiaki Takada .... Husband of the below woman, he's just retired from the police force and wants to repay his wife for all she's done for him.

Sanae Miyata as Sakie Takada.... The wife of the above man and her dream was to open a Sweets shop, can Sakura fulfill that dream?

Aki Nishihara as Naomi Neo.... Wife of the below man and the pair are somewhat newly married, she seemed to wear the pants in the family.

Kou Maehara as Akira Neo.... The couple need a new apartment and an excellent one was shown to them by Nagase. However Erika really didn't want to buy the place until for the first time in his life Akira put his foot down to her.....

Ryoko Kobayashi as Erika Murota.... A wife going through a current divorce and is trying to sell the apartment the Neos are looking at.

 Recaps for the previous shows:

Episode one .... Episode two

 Ratings for this series and am wondering why are they so low?

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

 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. Weren't too many new ones for this episode, top two are talking about joint ownership.

 Been a few weeks since the last pair of recaps, these days have decided that I don't need to zip through a series so may not finish this for another month. This has been an enjoyable show which I recommend and to date all of the episodes have had stand alone stories. There were three of them for this show so what I'll do is one story at a time and throw whatever else may have happened into them. There was a bit of a theme to this episode which was Marriage ....renting or buying place was a retired couple, one that were about to get divorced and the other couple were sort of newlyweds. Two of the stories intertwined but there was one other story which was the shortest one so will start off with that. It had to do with Tosaka Real Estate's new #1 agent Kiriyama, he's a very stern guy who is so difficult to trust. But for the second show in a row he's done something very nice which he hopes remains a secret.

 By the end of the second episode Sakura hadn't managed to rent or sell one place, somehow she's had two since then but is still at the bottom of the ladder at Tosaka. She should be cut a bit of slack as Sakura hasn't been on the job for too long but long enough according to the owner Tosaka and the office manager Okawa. They've secretly set up Sakura to fail at renting out a shop, if she does it appears she'll be axed from the company. Tosaka has two shops that need to be rented out ASAP, Sakura can have either one and she chose the cheaper shop whose rent is 220,000 yen a month. Kiriyama then had the other shop to rent and that place was going for 280,000 yen a month or about $2,200. Kiriyama was assigned to be Sakura's 'mentor' as she had to watch his methods at renting out this shop. As mentioned Kiriyama may have a hidden nice streak but will do anything to get a contract signed. This place used to be a tea shop but went under, why would that be as it's so close to a train station?

 But being close doesn't mean high sales as most riders lived in the opposite direction. This new potential renter wants to open a waffle shop and Sakura was ecstatic at such a grand idea! Kiriyama always thinks ahead and had another potential renter visit the shop, he told this man Tatsumi it could be rented out by the end of the day. There were a few other lies thrown in by Kiriyama such as the previous owner was a gambler which is why he lost the shop. Kiriyama is such a smooth speaker and soon he had the shop rented out to Tatsumi but how long will he stay in business? Perhaps not for long as in the bottom screenshot above is Kiriyama on the right talking to the office manger Okawa. Shops at that location constantly go belly up which is a good thing for a real estate agent as when they rents it out again he'll get another commission! Sakura hadn't thought of that and when her true 'mentor' Nagase explained how Kiriyama operated she was absolutely furious with him. But Sakura needs to worry about herself more as she also has a shop she needs to rent out in the area, with Nagase along to advise her she went to meet the pair of potential renters.

 The couple interested in this shop Sakura is trying to rent are in the above top screenshot who are the Takadas. The husband just retired from the police force and he really wanted to do something nice for his wife. For 35 years she had taken care of the household, raised three children and did so much for her husband. Takada felt his wife Erika now deserved to be rewarded and her dream was to open a Sweets shop. For the first time in this episode Nagase's 'honesty curse' came into play as he jumped up and told the couple there's no way that kind of shop could make a profit in that area, surprised the husband didn't also jump up to pound Nagase! But he sat there quietly and replied that money wasn't the issue, he just wants to see his wife happy. Sakura soon sent Nagase on his way and continued to talk with this very nice couple, the rent was too high they admitted and Sakura's next goal was to get the rent lowered. Back at the office Sakura told Nagase of her plan but there's something very sinister which she didn't know about so once again Nagase had to go along however for the first time he wasn't really needed or at least as much.

 Right above is a woman only referred to as Madam, she owns most of the shops in the area where Takada wants to rent that Sweets shop. Sakura has come up with an excellent business plan that she submitted to Madam along with a request to lower the rent, this woman laughed at both! She's a very uppity woman who appears to live in an exclusive mansion but according to Nagase she could use the money. For the second time that 'honesty curse' of Nagase's came into play as he did something no one else has done and told Madam the truth! Her shops are not renting and she must be losing so much money, shouldn't she give Sakura a break and look at her proposal and lower the rent? Sakura had done her homework and in her proposal said there was kindergarten nearby along with a toy store plus within three years a new apartment building would open so that shop could become a goldmine! To make a long story short to the amazement of everyone at the Tosaka office, especially the owner, Madam approved everything that Sakura had proposed and now the couple are about to open their dream Sweets Shop so that was a happy ending.

 The best thing about renting out that shop was that Sakura still has a job, had the contract fallen through she may have been out job hunting within a few days. We only saw Rika as Minami briefly in this episode, mainly when she met Nagase at his fave eating/drinking neighborhood establishment. As mentioned this episode had a 'marriage theme' and he was consumed with why people get hitched. Minami took his questions about getting married the wrong way and she's carried that semi hatred into the next show. The two couples Nagase dealt with in this show were both married but were completely different. Thee years ago he had sold the newlywed couple Erika and Akira Murota an apartment, at the time Nagase had said a joint ownership would be the best way to buy it which was true. But only if a couple is going to remain married, that wasn't the case for the Murotas who are in the process of getting divorced but the husband Akira wants to remain in the apartment while Erika wants to sell. Akira will soon be in agreement with selling as if he wants to stay a joint ownership means he now has 100% of the remaining debt which is.... 92 million yen! So it's sell as quick as possible which is easier said than done and Akira kept calling Nagase seemingly every ten minutes over the next few days.

 The other couple were in the same position Erika and Akira were in three years ago. This pair aren't newlyweds but haven't been married that long either, they're Naomi and Akira Neo and the husband does have the same first name as the other guy. Nagase began thinking they might be the people who could take the Murota apartment off his hands as both have full time shops and can get a loan quite easy for 92 million yen. But a different strategy may have to be used by Nagase as usually the husband is the main breadwinner. In this case it was Naomi who has a high position at an IT company so he'll need to concentrate more on Akira for this sale. Which Nagase did and his spiel seemed to win the husband over, them being recently married also meant Nagase highly suggested having a joint ownership lease which does have it's advantages. But for the third key time in this show his 'honesty curse' hit Nagase who told the pair they better beware of that kind of lease as they look like a couple who would get divorced within three years!!!! Naomi had never heard anything so rude and hurtful in her life as she grabbed Akira and stormed out of the Tosaka office. 

 In the end run things did seem to work out well for all of the parties, including Nagase. He contacted Akira Neo and told him why he said those things about getting divorced as this place had been owned by a couple going through a divorce. With Sakura in tow Nagase set up a meeting for the Neos to meet the previous woman owner Erika to talk about the apartment and other life things. Erika really did a nice selling job on the apartment which was a very grand one and Akira really wants to move in, Erika did warn them of the disadvantage to having joint ownership. Naomi was a bit hesitant about the place but for the first time ever Akira aired his honest feelings and he's insisting they move in. This apartment tour also could have been a marriage saver for Naomi and Akira as they didn't seem to communicate well and wonder if this was all a scheme by Nagase? If so it worked and while the contract wasn't signed by the end of the show have a feeling the sale did happen.

 So that brought us to the end of the show but there is one scene I want to discuss. At about the half hour mark Nagase was asking Sakura why did she want to become a real estate agent as she doesn't seem all that cut out for the job. This conversation took place at the Tosaka office and Sakura told Nagase about her past. Her parents had worked so hard and eventually were able to buy their dream house. But then came a downturn at their finance jobs, it was so severe they fell heavily in debt on the house. Soon Sakura's parents got a divorce and her father disappeared. The real estate agent had put so much 'small print' into the contract which Sakura's mother wasn't aware of and very soon they had lost the house. So for years Sakura and her mother had to live in tiny apartments due to their income being so low. To Sakura that agent may have destroyed her parents marriage and her dream became to be a 'Customer First' real estate agent, screenshots of that scene are the first four below. Overhearing that story was Kiriyama who does have a soft side to him. He appeared out of nowhere one day when Sakura was handing out flyers for the grand opening of the Takada Sweets Shop, Kiriyama grabbed a pile of them and helped her to promote the new shop! So the stories did have a happy ending and it was another sale for Sakura who needed it to save her job, the next post has the recap for the fourth episode.