Hitomi Honda: "Hokuo Kojirase Nikki" drama, episode one recap

 

 Air Dates: October 5th until the 26th, 2022 on TV-Tokyo at 12:30 am on Wednesdays

Four episodes at ~22 minutes each, subs done by Masssterchief

Main Cast: Very small cast and Hitomi is on screen 100% of the time, wrote this up after the first episode and besides her don't know much about the rest of the cast.

Hitomi Honda as Shimako Ootori.... 23 year old woman who is so smitten by the country of Finland. She's been that way since she was eight years old and as a college freshman Shimako did visit the country. Her whole apartment is like being in Helsinki(!) from the food she eats and how the place is decorated. In the first show Shimako lost her job at a travel agency as it went bankrupt, at the beginning of the second episode seems she'll be working at a temp company. 

Riku Hagiwara as Hiroto Miyazaki.... Shimako's 25 year old boyfriend who seems like a very serious man and can't understand her fascination with Finland, perhaps no one can!

Hikohiko Sugiyama as Mamoru Fukuda.... Hiring agent/manager at the temp agency Job N. He hired Shimako at the end of the first show and she had no clue why as she seemed to bomb the interview though Fukuda seems to be a bit of a fatherly figure.

Nozomi Hanayagi as Mahiro Saeki.... Shimako's Japanese friend who also is a bit of a Scandinavian fanatic though we didn't see her in the first episode.

 Originally thought this series was going to have ten episodes which seemed to be a bit too long. There's only four which seems too short(!), perhaps 6-8 episodes would have worked better. Will view an episode and then write the recap up, for today have the first two shows and it means won't watch the next show until this is done. As you can tell this is a unique drama as the heroine Shimako is so obsessed with the country of Finland and you'll be learning much about the place but have a feeling it'll mainly be about the foods they eat which was the case in this first show. Hitomi did eat quite a bit, hope she keeps it up as she could use a few extra pounds!

 With AKB Hitomi usually has blonde locks but in this show she goes back to her original color, she looks good either way. She plays the lead role of Shimako who is a 23 year old woman living in Tokyo, her fascination in life is the country of Finland and as we go on you'll discover why and how her life revolves around the place. As the series began we saw Shimako at her job at the Waku Waku travel agency, naturally that means she's a travel agent but seems to never recommend visiting Finland. As she was trying to sell a Guam package to a goofy couple her manager asked Shimako to step into his office. 'Forget about selling that package' he told Shimako or any others as the travel agency has gone....  bankrupt! Needless to say that was such a slap in the face to Shimako who didn't see it coming, now what can she possibly do in life as she doesn't seem to have any ambitions about working.

 Shimako has very little savings and she better find a job quickly but for most of this first show she just couldn't get motivated. She even tried calling her mother for money, that was fruitless as she hung up on her daughter! When the going gets tough that can only mean one thing for Shimako.... to bake some Finnish sweets! Even though it was late at night Shimako dashed to her nearby convenience store for bakery supplies, it won't be her last trip to the store in this show! As you can see below Shimako made some cinnamon rolls which are called Korvapuusti in Finland, have to admit it did look yummy and Shimako was in seventh heaven! You can see a few screenshots above of Finland which Shimako did visit when she was a freshman in college, her dream since then is to move there. Don't know at this point if Shimako did graduate from college, if not moving to Finland will never happen.

 Shimako's obsession with Finland began fifteen years ago when she was eight in age. At the time her class was getting ready for Christmas, Shimako asked her teacher where Santa lived and the response was Finland. Plus Shimako's birthday happens to fall on December 25th! As you can see in the bottom screenshot above Shimako is enjoying more Finnish foods, this time it was sausages and they're also known for their sweets. One other thing is that Shimako also loves all Scandinavian countries but Finland is by far her #1 place on the Earth!

 Shimako does spend a lot of time on the internet talking with a trio of friends she's met from Finland, perhaps she spends too much time conversing with them. One of her far flung mates has suggested Shimako take a 'Gap Year' which is common in Finland for those who just graduated from high school and don't know what to do. However that suggestion is a bit too late as Shimako graduated five years ago and she needs get on the ball as far as job hunting goes. Those are the words of her boyfriend Hiroto who you can see below, he seems like a nice guy but what does Shimako see in him?! Hiroto is a bit of a serious man, he works as at an office though don't know his position. He did give some good advice to Shimako, if she wants to continue living in an apartment adorned with Finnish things she better start job hunting and soon, Hiroto did put the pressure on her to get moving which a reluctant Shimako eventually did.

 We only saw Shimako at one interview, to her and our amazement she was hired! That above man is named Fukuda, he's the office manager at Job N which is a staffing company. He could read Shimako like a book and realized she had no clue what to do in the future. Her resume looked fairly solid to Fukuda plus Shimako seemed like a nice enough person, though she thought the interview was a bomb Shimako has a job! Fukuda seems to be a 'fatherly figure' and is old enough to he Shimako's. He told her that what she needs to do is expand her world, it's okay to have passions but to work harder at them and because of that your field for other interests will grow too.

 That hit home for Shimako who will start working for Job N in the next show. When she got home that night she took Fukuda's advice and began to work on other things to expand her passion for Finland! Shimako made a list which you can see above, number one on it was to begin a Blog and doing something like that will expand your world. So as this first episode ended that's what Shimako had begun to work on though she was still muttering how badly she wanted to live in Finland. So that ends this recap and I thought this was really an enjoyable show, the recap for the second episode is the next post. This did get me a bit curious about Finland so did read up on the country a bit and will be doing more of that, according to it's residents it's the happiest place in the world to live!