Yuki Yoda: "Ryosangata Riko: Puramo Joshi no Jinsei Kumitate Ki" drama, episode four recap

 

 Air Dates: June 30th until September 2, 2022... Thursday nights at 12:30 am on TV-Tokyo

Episodes are 24 minutes in length, subs are being done by Masssterchief

Main Cast: Most of the action takes place at the very busy Fun Fun Create company which specializes in planning and holding events. Wrote this up after viewing the first episode so a bit of tweaking will be done as we go on. There's three divisions at the company, #'s one and two are so busy they need more than 24 hours in a day! But our 'heroine' Riko works in the third division with four others and they are far from busy as their main tasks are mailing out flyers and such. In the first show a rumor had even started that the third division could be disbanded, will that eventually happen?

Yuki Yoda as Riko Komukai.... Has acquired the nickname of 'Mass Production Girl' as she just likes mainstream and safe things/activities. But one night after work she passed by the Yasan Hobby Shop which she had never noticed before. Deep down Riko does like models and such, she had never made any though until entering this shop and then the rest is history....

Karen Fujii as Kyoko Nakano.... Female employee in the third division, she seems to be talented so how did she end up there? Kyoko gets along with Riko so well but has noticed her friend can be way too boring and needs a jolt to her life. 

Oshiro Maeda as Yuki Asai.... Started at the company with Riko but while she's still stuck at the bottom Asai has moved up to the first division. Seems as though he's doing well but in reality think he's not doing that that good of a job... he's a bit stuck up too.

Ayumu Mochizuki as Ryota Oishi.... Ace of the first division unit.

Ayumu Mochizuki as Shinji Takaji.... We met him in the second episode when he was transferred from the first to the third division. He knows almost everything about the company but his problem is Shinji doesn't like to do any 'real work'. That changed in the third show and of course it was because Shinji build his first model!

Magy as Teru Inuzuka.... Leader of the third division, very laid back man which isn't a positive at the Fun Fun Create company.

Yoshiaki Yoza as Atsushi Saruwatari.... Another third division employee who at one time was in the first division but asked for a transfer, why?

Yoshiyuki Morishita as Hitoshi Kijimura.... Oldest third division employee who like the others is so worried they'll be laid off. In the fourth show there was an offer to retire early and Kijimura did begin to fill out the forms until he had a change of heart.

Yoji Tanaka as Ichi Yajima.... Owner of the Yasan Hobby Shop where Riko visited in the first show and where she became addicted to models. Yajima seems to know all there is about models and took such a liking to Riko who tends to like the older versions.

Erika Ishikawa as Chiemi Ikuta.... Part time employee at Yajima's shop.

 May add in a few more characters as we go along

Link to the show's site: TV-Tokyo site

Previous recaps:

Episode one .... Episode two

 

 It appears all of the cast will have an episode devoted to them, in the first show it was Riko's friend Kyoko who is in the top screenshot. In the second and third shows it was Shinji who is the middle person in the fifth screenshot. Also in that third show Saruwatari had quite a bit of screen time, we may see more of him again as an important event from his past at the Fun Fun Create company was never answered. In that second screenshot he's on the left, in the middle is the third division manager Inuzuka who we haven't seen that much of to date. On the right is the oldest person in the division who is Kijimura and he was the focus of this episode. Like many companies Fun Fun Create wants to do a bit of restructuring or in other words lay off some employees They made an offer to anyone over fifty to take an early retirement and Kijimura is thinking very seriously on that offer, he even began to fill out the forms and why does he want to leave the company?

 Kijimura really doesn't want to leave and he's been with Fun Fun Create since it began thirty years ago and was one of five employees at the time. But everyone else has moved way up including his classmate who is the current president but that doesn't bother Kijimura all that much. What does bother him is that the division doesn't seem to need him these days, there's two new projects but the manager Inuzuka wants the younger blood do do them to gain experience but was that really the case? Don't think so as though Kijimura loves his job he's become set in his ways and his projects are mainly the same year after year. For almost thirty years he's been the man who comes up with the new promotional idea for the Manten Nodoame company which is a very popular ramen soup. With the president thirty years ago Kijimura was able to sign that soup company to a contract and it was the first ever one for Fun Fun Create. But now Inuzaka wants some fresh ideas for this year's promotion and has assigned Riko to work with Kijimura to his silent disappointment. 

 Riko had some new ideas for the project but we never got to hear them. That's because she would never go against the wishes of such a long term employee such as Kijimira who had his own plan though a tired one. Last year the theme for Summer soup was cushions, this year Kijimura only wants to change it slightly to pillows which looked almost the same but what could Riko say? On the day of the presentation to the Manten Nodoame directors Riko overslept on the train and missed the station, could Kijimura do the presentation on his own? That was no problem as he's been doing it for so many years but during it one director wasn't pleased with using pillows as a tie-in for the new product, isn't it the same as last year's? That it was but the president had the final say and told Kijimura his idea will be accepted which at first made Kijimura quite elated. But in the hallway he overheard the president saying the idea wasn't too original but he felt he had to approve the project as Fun Fun Create has been promoting their soup for thirty years and he felt he owed something to Kijimura.

 So upon returning to the office Kijimura's spirits were quite low, they sank even more when he was bypassed for another new project and was it time to finish the early retirement forms? However when Riko was leaving for the day she dropped her bag, out of it fell a picture which intrigued Kijimura. It was a picture of the Space Battleship Yamato 2022 model and was Riko a model fanatic? To that she didn't give a reply and instead brought Kijimura to the Yassan Hobby Shop, to Riko that's where all of lives problems get solved! She had begun on that Yamato model but what a difficult one it is to build. There are just so many parts with quite a few being almost too small to see, Riko began the project but it would be a model that could take days to finish. Kijimura's eyes lit up when he was in the hobby shop as he never knew it was there. During his teens Kijimura loved to build models and he continued that during his adult years but has slowed down as his wife complained he spent too much time on them. Like the shop owner Yajima Kijimura knows so, so much about models and actually Yajima was a bit jealous of his knowledge plus that he wasn't needed to instruct someone on how to build one.

 In that above top screenshot is the Yamato model and Riko had been able to build that much of the ship. But she hit a point which Kijimura referred to as 'The Imagination Wall' which is how do you want it painted plus the adding of other special features such as rust. Kijimura is a good teacher as he showed Riko the process of doing things such as making the ship look older and to make it appear it had been through many battles, watching on was a very jealous Yajima! In the screenshots below many of them show that process on how to make rust, have the ship appear older and other things such as it's history. At first Kijimura too thought it would take more than a night to finish the model but once he got started there was no stopping him and Riko. In the middle two screenshots above you can see the completed Yamato model, it may look small but it's quite impressive.

 In the last show building a complicated model really inspired Shinji to work harder at Fun Fun Create, this Yamato model also did the same for Kijimura! The following day another new project came though their division and all of a sudden they're getting a lot of work. But once again Kijimura was going to be bypassed even though he is officially second in command of this tiny unit. However Riko spoke up and told her manager she wanted to work with Kijimura on this new Floral project as making that Yamato model has relit his fire and the manager Inuzuka agreed to her request. Right after that returning to the office was Kyoko and Shinji who had their own project and guess what, it had to do with some models! The pair were having slight problems though but Kijimura told them what to tell the company about their project and all of a sudden Kijimura is the ace of the unit! So as usual this episode ended on a happy note but not in a sappy way. This may have been the best show to date and it has gotten me interested in models but it's not easy to find the kind they build in this series. Will be back in two weeks for the next pair of recaps and hopefully before then have a regular post for Yuki.