"Imadoki no Wakai Mon wa" drama, episode four recap

 

 Air Dates: April 9th to May 28, 2022 on WOWOW, Saturdays at 10:30 pm

Subs were done by Deedlitmurata at DA, episodes are 25+ minutes in length

Also can be known by the title Young People Nowadays....

Main Cast: Wrote much of this up after only viewing the first show, some characters we didn't get to meet or know too well so will be updating this as time goes on.

Takashi Sorimachi as Hajime Ishizawa.... Chief of the Sales Department A at Mitsuhashi Shouji Trading company. He's a man close to fifty who is a bit quiet at the office yet the employees there dread Ishizawa and go out of their way to avoid him..... save for the rookie worker Ayumi! Ishizawa doesn't understand the younger generation so well which is a reason he's too quiet even though he's the chief of sales. Ishizawa has been with the company for almost 25 years and he also started out as a regular office worker. Ishizawa is also divorced and the rumor was it happened because he had an affair with a temp worker.

Haruka Fukuhara  as Ayumi Mugita.... Has only been at the company for a month and wonder why she's there? Ayumi went to college for Humanities and said she's very bad at numbers which she's proved over and over which in the beginning infuriated her senpai Funaki. But Ayumi never stops trying and the chief Ishizawa for some reason has grown a bit fond of her.

Kaito Nakamura as Shun Funaki.... Works a bit closely with Ayumi at the office and at first was always upset with her performance until Ishizawa set him straight. Funaki's problem is that he's a perfectionist and expects others to be too, will his ways come back to haunt him?

Takashi Fujii as Ryoji Ebisu.... Chief of Sales Department B who had been trained by Ishizawa twenty years ago. He's a very strict man to work for and most employees dislike him though Ebisu does try to help everyone hut has a hard time communicating.

Masato Hagiwara as Hiroshi Kazama.... Is still at the company but unsure what his current position is, he was Ishizawa's best friend for many years.

Ayame Misaki as Sanako Inukai.... Female worker at the office.

Atsushi Shinohara as Hideki Kora..... Older male worker at the trading company who refuses to ever work overtime.

Ami Tomite as Hitomi Mugita.... Ayumi's older sister who also lives in Tokyo but the pair seem to have grown up far from the city.

Karen Otomo as The Mysterious Woman.... That's what she's called as she may never have a name? This woman is in her early twenties and Ayumi was wondering is she having an affair with her boss? The answer to that is no as we learned in the fourth episode her name is Mii-chan and is the daughter of Ishizawa.

On the right is Funaki but the more important person is Ishizawa on the left, that saying "Jeez, young people these days...." is one he utters quite often in an episode.

 Don't know if it's true but a few days ago a rumor came out that there would be a second season. I'm usually not a fan of them but in this case wouldn't mind seeing that happen. So if you've been reading these you know it's the fourth recap today for this series which has eight episodes. Zipped through these first four shows quickly and hope that happens with the others for if it does will have the final four recaps within the week. Haruka has been busy appearing in dramas this year but we haven't seen her do too much else. After four singles she has her first regular album coming out on June 8th so was hoping she'd do a lot of promoting for it but up until now there's been nothing.

 Another fine episode or at least 2/3's of it was, bit of a slow ending as neither Ayumi nor Ishizawa was in the scene. Up until now we've seen Ayumi read a certain manga but didn't know much about it save for the story being a young Idol aiming to be a center for her group's new single. Name of that manga is "Aim to become Center" with the main character a young Idol named Kisaragi. Whenever Ayumi is down this manga picks her back up and she just may be the biggest fan of this series. There's going to be a live action film made of the manga, there was an event coming up for the production which involved a quiz. No one in Japan knew this story better than Ayumi and to her delight she aced that quiz and won a ticket to the event. One problem though was that it was being held that week on Thursday at 4:00 pm, Ayumi works until 6:00 pm and will she have to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity?!

 Ayumi heard that news on a Sunday afternoon, the following day at the Mitsuhashi office she wondered how could she get out of work for that day? Ayumi sat at her desk thinking of various excuses with none of them being believable in her mind until she thought up an excuse of visiting her very sick mother! Ayumi was so engrossed with writing that e-mail to her chief she never noticed him peering over her shoulder reading that e-mail! That chief is of course Ishizawa who asked why would she need to lie about needing some time off, if it was a personal matter he would approve of it. Of course you can see then Ishizawa said his trademark line of 'Geez, young people these days...'. So the day off was approved and don't know why Ayumi needed the whole day off instead of leaving a few hours early. It was quickly Thursday afternoon at 3:00 pm and Ayumi was walking to the venue when for the second time in this series an odd occurrence happened. Zooming by her on a Harley was her boss Ishizawa, on the bike with him was that very young woman again! The pair are in the bottom above two screenshots and for once was correct with a theory.

 That theory was that the young woman was really Ishizawa's daughter which was correct though Ayumi didn't know that quite yet. The pair went into a restaurant, though the event would start in less than an hour Ayumi's curiosity got the better of her and she followed them in hiding at a nearby table. Ishizawa and this woman were getting along so well and for some reason it was really bothering Ayumi, perhaps because of the rumor of Ishizawa having an affair with a temp worker years ago? This situation was more important than the event so Ayumi marched up to the table and demanded to know what was going on!!!! That's when the whole story came out as it was revealed this young woman's name was Mii-chan who was Ishizawa's daughter. She had plenty of funny tales to tell about her father and though seemingly tough Ishizawa was anything but that way outside of the office. Mii-chan was also a fan of Ayumi's favorite manga, was she going to the event today? By this time it was after 4:00 pm so it was too late to attend but Ayumi wasn't too upset as she got to know her chief that much better.

 At the Mitsuhashi office Ishizawa is known to be such a tough guy and over the years his employees have avoided him as much as possible. But to me he seems like a real decent man and he treats everyone in the office with respect, have never heard him raise his voice once. The following week it was the day before pay day and Ishizawa overheard Ayumi saying she couldn't join the female worker Sanako at lunch because of lack of funds. Ishizawa heard that and you can see his reaction in two screenshots above. He would really love to take out the two woman to thank them for their hard work but would it come off looking as harassment or even worse? Ishizawa finally gathered up his courage and told the two women today's lunch was his treat, this may have been the first time Ishizawa had done that, hopefully it won't be the last time as the lunch went well.

 Unknown to the trio also at the restaurant was another chief from Mitsuhashi who was Ebisu and we saw a lot of him in the last recap. He was so jealous that Ishizawa got along well enough with his workers to invite them out to lunch, Ebisu is a nice enough person but when he communicates with others he comes off as an ogre! At the office the next day he wanted so badly to treat some of his employees to lunch but that was a total bomb. Later on that day we saw Ebisu return home and to my surprise he's married with a teen daughter. We didn't see his wife and his daughter treats him like a piece of dirt, Ebisu's only friend is his small dog. Ebisu's life is not a happy one but he does get pleasure in one thing which is eating sweets which he did two days later on Sunday, of course by himself as he also has no friends!

 At this cafe he heard a man order the same 'ultra special chef's sweet dish' as he was savoring. To Ebisu's surprise he could see via a mirror it was Ishizawa's most trusted worker Funaki. Ebisu so badly wanted to join Funaki but just couldn't get the courage up to do so, he even tried ordering another treat for Funaki but he was leaving at the time and never knew Ebisu was also in this cafe.. That was another saddish moment in Ebisu's life and he must be used to them by now but could Funaki become a future friend?  That'll never happen and during the closing credits he even asked Ishizawa about Funaki working in his department, no way Ishizawa would let his best worker go which ended this episode. It also ends this fourth recap, most shows that I review are good or I wouldn't be doing posts for them but so far this is one of my faves for the year. Plenty of screenshots to help you follow the story a bit better and hopefully will have the final four recaps done within the week.