"Nanji no Na" drama, episode one of eight recap

 

 Air Dates: April 6th until May 25, 2022 on TV-Tokyo, Wednesday nights at 12:30 am

Subs were done by GEO9875 at DA, also has the title of Your Name.

Main Cast: Writing this up after viewing two episodes and know there will be many edits to the character's bios, what a confusing drama it was at first.

Hirona Yamazaki as Toko Aso.... Her real name is Riyako Mikami and is using the identity of another character in this show which will be explained in the recaps. She works as the president of the ETS agency which is a front as it's not a dispatching company but one that destroys people's lives! Riyako is such a stuck up person and we'll be learning what her background was before the name change as I'm very curious about it.

Kii Kitano as Hisae Aso.... The real sister of Toko though her last name isn't Aso but Mikami too. Hisae is a bit of a shut-in and has been that way for three years since breaking up with her boyfriend. At the time Hisae was working at a pharmaceutical company and seems to know every kind of medicine created. She takes care of the household for 'Toko' but her sister has a love/hate relationship with her and constantly berates her.

Mijika Nagai as The Mysterious Woman.... But she does have a name and she's the real Toko Aso! Years before she had fallen heavily into debt and 'thanks' to Kawashima's company they were all paid off. But the price was that Riyako would be allowed to assume her identity for five years and these days the real Toko is a drug addict and very down on her luck.

Hidekazu Mashima as Koji Kawashima....Owns the ETS agency which says it's a dispatching company but that's a front. Their main objective is to bring down an individual such as someone who owes money, is gong through a divorce and such, will explain it better as time goes on.

Waku Kyoten as Kyohei Ito... Only saw him in the first show and he's a whiz at computers who just won a prestigious web designer award. He seems to love Toko but the those feelings will never be returned.

Naoto Kataoka as Ryosuke Iki.... Is a manager at the esteemed Crown Hotel who has had his eye on Toko for a while, we didn't meet him until the end of the second episode.

 I'm probably in a very small group but Kii has been such a huge fave of mine for over a decade, had she not made a few unwise career decisions a few years back she'd be in the running for my all time number one woman! So with her being in this drama it became a must watch for me. This is only the fifth drama I've ever seen Kii in with her best being the 2011 series "School". But have viewed eleven(!) of her movies and while none could be considered classics everyone is recommended, especially "Halfway" from 2008. Hirona though has the lead role and I'm not too familiar with her but she does look so darn attractive so will need to do more checking up on her.

 The last drama I recapped did four posts in a row and was going to do that again which is very rare for me. But then thought it must take a while to read through so many recaps so what I'll be doing is a pair of these every five days which mean it'll take two weeks to finish off the series. My pattern in doing recaps is to view an episode, write up the recap, watch show #2, write that up and repeat until the series is complete. For this drama had to watch the second episode before starting on this as I was so confused at the end of the first show, then again I usually am! Some things got cleared up or explained and sure that will continue but if you viewed this and spotted any errors leave a comment, still not 100% sure of what that ETS company does.

 Episodes are 23 minutes in length so these shouldn't be long recaps, the next one may be as we learned so much more about the major characters and story. Our main character and protagonist is Toko who is in most of the above screenshots, that's not her real name but will be calling her that as she's assumed the identity of someone named Toko Aso. That will be cleared up in the next recap and in the second screenshot above Toko was spending the night with her boss Kawashima. The pair aren't having an affair or at least not yet as it was the first time they had spent a night together but think Toko does her boss certain 'favors' for his clients. Kawashima owns the ETS agency and three years ago he installed Toko as the president, she has a scheming business mind as the profits are soaring. It's advertised as a dispatching company but in reality that's a front as it's as slimy organization which wreaks havoc on others lives but violence is never used.

 At first was confused by many things but after viewing the second show most were cleared up. Save for how exactly how this company actually operates? What happens is that a client wants to disgrace the name of a person and that's where ETS comes involved. In these first two shows their object was a man named Iba whose bitter wife wants a divorce. So Toko has had a woman named Ishihara who has gotten close to this man Iba a few times and another associate has taken a photo which makes it appear the two are on a date though Iba never knew the woman was there!!!! With evidence like that Iba's wife has the advantage during their divorce case and those are the kinds of low down things ETS does, sounds a bit confusing and maybe it'll be explained better in the next post. Above in one screenshot is a young man named Ito who met Toko the morning after her tryst with Kawashima. Ito is a brilliant web designer who just won a major award and he really has the hots for Toko. Those feelings aren't returned as it seems she can't stand the man and Toko used the excuse of her sister being home for why he couldn't come into her rather grand house.

 That's Kii as Hisae in the top two screenshots, just a so-so amount of screen time for her in this first show but it increases in the second episode and her character will be an extremely important one. In that top pic was a brief flashback to three years ago when she was dumped by her boyfriend Nishijima. Both had worked at the same pharmaceutical company but he began to have an affair with another woman there, soon after Hisae resigned. Since then she's practically been a shut in and spends her day surfing the internet about medicine and such, she seemingly knows everything there is to know about the pharmaceutical industry. Shortly after resigning from her position is when Hisae became a shut in who only leaves the house to do certain errands. A bit after leaving that job is when the sisters moved into this very extravagant house and Hisae takes care of everything from cooking to cleaning. The sisters are semi close but deep down think Toko really can't stand the sight of her!

 There's a few screenshots above too of Toko at work. As you can see her target for bringing havoc into a life is Iba and as mentioned the woman Ishihara had some scam photos taken with Iba without his knowledge. Toko has hired another person to make Iba a fake job offer in the hopes he'll quit his present position, the wife that's divorcing him doesn't need the money. Most of Toko's secret meetings/events such as spying on Iba take place at the exclusive Crown Hotel and the manager there has been wondering about her. His name is Iki who we won't meet until the end of the second episode and the problem with 23 minute shows is that many may not get a lot of screen time.

 That Iba case will continue on into the next show, operating a company such as ETS whose purpose is to disgrace people must be lucrative as Toko's life style is quite high. Later on that day she returned home where as usual her obedient sister Hisae had dinner waiting. Toko has such a love/hate relationship with her, one minute she's so loving and the next she's a vicious devil. Such as the scene at dinner when Toko asked about her suit which Hisae was supposed to pick up from the cleaners. Though Hisae said it was done she never did pick up that suit and Toko was beyond furious. In that middle screenshot above you can see her pouring wine on the her sister's sobbing head(!), what a cruel person this Toko can be and not just to her sister.

 Shortly after that incident Hisae fled the house and unknown to Toko she has her own small apartment where she needs to hide out at on occasion to escape Toko's fury. Hisae doesn't have any income so has to be skimming money from the household expenses(?) which Toko has never noticed. In the final minute Toko went outside to see if Hisae was there which she wasn't, as you can see Toko says she always bails but as mentioned was unaware of her secret apartment. But there was another woman right outside the house which spooked Toko to no end, that's the woman right above. Who she is will be explained in the next recap as we much about this mysterious person's past and this didn't end up as confusing as I thought it would be.... or did it?