"Imadoki no Wakai Mon wa" drama, episode one 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: Writing 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 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.

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?

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

Atsushi Shinohara as Hideki Kora..... Male worker at the trading company.

Ami Tomite as Hitomi Mugita.... Ayumi's older sister.

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?

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.

 Wanted to wait until this series finished it's run before viewing it and will be zipping through these episodes. For today have four recaps, not sure when the other four will be done but it won't be too far into the future. Sorimachi has always been one of my top actors, have seen him in about a dozen dramas but none since 2015. He's best known for "GTO" which aired way back in 1998 though I thought it was a bit overrated but still was a decent show. To me Sorimachi's top drama was "Wonderful Life" which aired in 2004 and if you're a Baseball fan then would recommend it. He also starred in "Dream Again" which was another Baseball series.

 Of course the main reason for viewing this series is Haruka and this is her third drama already for 2022! In the last 3 1/2 years I've seen her in eleven dramas and two films which is more than any other actress not named Marie. She'll be in another series but that won't begin until the Autumn and hope she doesn't wear herself out. Sorimachi is the main star but it appears Haruka may have more screen time and her character of Ayumi is so similar to the one she's playing in the "Shoujiki Fudousan" drama.

 Not much is known about Ayumi's background yet save that she graduated college with a degree in Humanities and is bad with numbers and such. So wondering then how she ever ended up at the Mitsuhashi Shouji Trading company, that's her office in the second screenshot which is a bit small but the company is quite large. Sure we'll be learning more about Ayumi as time goes on but episodes are only 25+ minutes in length so much may be left out. Ayumi has been at the company a month but still hasn't got into the swing of things and that could be because she's not so good with numbers and also seems isn't adept at computer programs but she has a 'Never Quit' attitude.

 One person you'll be seeing a lot of is in the third screenshot who is Ayumi's senpai(senior) at the office, Funaki. Don't know how long he's been with the company but is a youngish man and seems to know more about Mitsuhashi than his boss! Funaki has been assigned to oversee Ayumi and for her there is no pleasing this man who is such a perfectionist. Everything Ayumi does is wrong and Funaki won't hold back at berating an employee, it's a Monday morning and every task Ayumi had done up until lunch was a failure in Funaki's eyes. At lunch the other ten(?) employees had gone out and seems they never invite Ayumi which is fine by her as she'd rather read mangas to give her inspiration. This was the first time her boss Ishizawa had remained in the office for lunch and Ayumi was petrified, though it's her boss she had never said one word to him yet! Ishizawa had been noticing Ayumi during that morning and thought Funaki had gone overboard with his berating. Ishizawa was the one who broke the ice with Ayumi and it was to ask her how to edit a picture on his new Line blog.

 Not sure why the office is so frightened of Ishizawa but they avoid him at all costs! To his credit he looks out for his employees and rarely says a bad word to them, did something happen in his past that's carried on to this day? So naturally Ayumi was petrified at the thought of being face to face for the first time with her boss but she found out he's a decent man and confessed to her he's baffled by modern technology, don't know why as he's not that old. Ishizawa's favorite line is 'Jeez, young people these days...' which he's been saying for many years now, Ishizawa has been at Mitsuhashi for almost 25 years. So wonder if Ishizawa looks at Ayumi as kind of a daughter as he would be old enough and after that initial meeting did give some tips to her which he kept hidden from the office.

 Funaki has his faults, especially when trying to work with others, but he's always thinking of the company first. Ishizawa knows this and he can't bawl out one of his employees so he had a short heart to heart talk with Funaki on the building's roof which seems to be the main meeting room! We heard zero of their chat but after Funaki really changed the way he dealt with others and mainly Ayumi. Instead of just criticizing her work he took the time to explain things and in the end run that can only help out the company. In this first show we only saw the three characters of Ayumi, Funaki and Ishizawa but the cast is bigger, just viewed the second show and we meet a few of them. So as you can see above things are looking a bit more rosier at the office for Ayumi, she's only been there a month. She was on her way home and had gotten a call to go out with her old classmates but refused as she really didn't enjoy their company. So just as Ayumi was about to enter a restaurant by herself  she saw something across the street that made her lose her appetite!

 In that top screenshot what Ayumi witnessed was her boss Ishizawa riding up on a motorcycle with a young woman! That's the 'mysterious woman' mentioned in the cast list and who could she be? Ayumi thought either his very younger wife or perhaps even a prostitute(!), to me she could be Ishizawa's daughter but think this woman will remain a mystery for a while. Ayumi had ducked away so her chief had no clue that she witnessed him with this woman and those thoughts of who that woman could be will come back to haunt Ayumi. Back at the Mistuhashi office her and Funaki have finished their first joint project and Ayumi really studied up on it which was selling coal for a company. A meeting was scheduled but the president moved it up which conflicted with Funaki's agenda, could Ayumi handle this alone? Naturally she was alarmed at having to meet someone important alone but she worked hard on the project so she did enter it with some confidence.

 Her proposal was solid but when the president asked her a few points about things Ayumi's mind went blank. She was a bit nervous but the main problem was she still had her mind on seeing Ishizawa the previous night, who was that woman?! The president didn't take her silence too kindly and was furious that someone like her would be assigned to sell his product. So that contract was a flop but back at the office Funaki wasn't too mad or at least didn't show it. Also keeping calm was her chief Ishizawa who knows what it's like to flub a deal, what made it worse for Ayumi was how much she had studied up about the coal industry. As the episode ended Ishizawa told his rookie employee that president deserves an apology and he'll go with Ayumi to do that. That ends this first recap, three more after this one and plenty of screenshots to help you follow the action a bit better.