Kyoko Saito: "Nukarumi no Shokutaku" drama, episode two of nine recap

 

 Air Dates: October 21st until December 16, 2023 on TV Asahi, Saturdays at 11:30 pm

Episodes are 24 minutes in length, subs were done by ArPsanSubs

Main Cast: Not too large of a cast as it appears there will only be six major characters. Of course the main one is Kyoko who is my reason for viewing this drama. Wrote most of the below up after watching the first two episodes, will keep updating this section as we go along. This is a nine episode series so will have three batches of three recaps.

 Kyoko Saito as Mia Neijiki.... Young woman of about 24 in age who works at the small market Super Suzuran. Mia lives with her mother who constantly puts her down but she puts up with it, Mia has zero confidence in herself. The father died eight yeas ago and he too was so strict with his daughter, she's seen no happiness in her life. Until recently as Mia has started an affair with her store manager who is twenty years older, she thinks the world of him and why? His name is Natsuo who is married but his wife is suffering from a mental condition so eventually wanted to break it off with Mia. Who would hear nothing of it and has plans to 'cure' the wife thinking it'll reunite her with Natsuo!? There is another in this ordeal who is the manager's son Haruki who has fallen head over heels for her.... Mia too has feelings for this high school senior.

 Hisashi Yoshizawa as Natsuo Nasukawa.... Did give a lot of info about him above. He's the manager of the Ohisa Mart store and is twenty yeas older than Mia. When Natsuo's wife became sick he began an affair with Mia but when the series began it hadn't been going on for too long. When his wife Fumiko's condition became worse Natsuo wanted to end things with Mia as he had to do all of the chores at home which he actually hadn't been doing as it was a pig sty at his apartment! The next character is his eighteen year old son Haruki who is a senior in high school.

Kaito Sakurai as Haruki Nasukawa.... Son of the above man and while skipping school one day had met Mia at the back of his father's store. Haruki has become so smitten with her and the feeling may be mutual but he does have someone who worships him in an eerie way. Her name is Chifuyu and is Natsuo's classmate at school, she's had a crush on him for many years. However Chifuyu has spread rumors around school about the condition of Haruki's mother and how the two once had sex after he pushed himself onto Chifuyu! Which was an out and out lie but she hasn't taken it back and now Haruki has become an outcast at school and is often truant, he is an excellent runner and is on the track team.

Naho Toda as Fumiko Nasugawa.... Through two episodes we haven't met her yet so need to wait until adding in a screenshot, talked about her in Natsuo's bio and will update this part soon.

Nanoka Hara as Chifuyu Ozaki.... We met her in the second episode and she wants to be with Haruki so desperately, the pair are classmates. The pair have been friends for a while but he wants to end that, Chifuyu comes off as such a sweet young woman but is anything but that! She's spread rumors about the condition of Haruki's mother and has even hinted that he raped her which was such a massive lie.

Mariko Tsutsui as Miyuki Neijiki.... The second screenshot is of Mia's father who died eight years ago, on occasion we will be seeing him in a flashback scene. Miyuki is Mia's mother and she constantly berates her only daughter, this is not a likable mother! The pair do live together and Miyuki often throws in snide remarks such as 'why would any man want you as a wife'!

 

 Thanks for reading the above post, isn't it nice to have a much shorter recap? Know it is for me and after writing up so many long posts for the "Abunai Deka" and "Taxi Driver" dramas it's nice to have a somewhat 'breather'. I really enjoy these last night dramas which are usually 25-30 minutes in length, they're so much better than prime time shows these days. However since May there haven't been nearly as many as there were the previous few years and don't know why. Let's get to this episode's action and quite a but did take place in this show, seems much more than episode one.

 That previous recap ended off with Mia semi stalking her heartthrob Natsuo's apartment building. Wasn't quite sure on why Mia was doing that as she would stay hidden and came to realize she was just missing him immensely after Natsuo had to put a hold to their affair. He's been working different shifts at the Super Suzuran market which he manages to avoid Mia plus has to remain at home much more to care for his ailing wife Fumiko who we still haven't seen yet. That second screenshot above shows Mia with her very stern mother Miyuki at the gravesite of her father who passed away in an accident eight years ago, it was the anniversary of his death. We did see a brief flashback featuring the unnamed father where he was coming down so hard on Mia and in that family she's never known what happiness is. 

 So being the anniversary of her father's death meant Mia had taken the day off from the market. However later on she did pay a visit there which was mainly to see Natsuo who had been avoiding her but not by choice. The pair did hook up briefly, no love hotel visit but the 'lovebirds' did have a short chat and with each passing day Mia seems to love Natsuo even more... absence makes the heart grow fonder? You could almost say that Natsuo too has those same feelings for Mia and his wife is standing in the way, what can these two do to solve that problem? Natsuo did say he had to stay at home to care for his wife and teenage son which was true. What wasn't true was that Natsuo said his free time was also spent doing all of the household chores which was such a massive lie as that apartment was so dirty it could be condemned! There's a screenshot below of it and the second one is also very important.

 Will get to how that turned out shortly and what it was showing was Mia searching the web for answers on how to help Natsuo's wife who has a mental condition. Exactly what is not known but she has been getting much worse, the son of Natsuo and his wife Fumiko is in the third screenshot. His name is Haruki and did talk about him quite a bit in the first recap. He will become so important to the story and though having only met Mia twice is head over heels for her. But someone has that same feeling towards Haruki who is the above girl and is his classmate at school. Her name is Chifuyu Ozaki and while she may act so sweet and look so cute what a Devil Woman 😈 she is!!!! Cruel is an apt description also and she's been friends with Haruki for many years and what a crush she's had on him though he's never thought the same way towards Chifuyu.

 As a matter of fact these days Haruki despises her and considers Chifuyu to now be an ex-friend! At school Chifuyu had been spreading stories about how bad Haruki's mother's mental stare is plus did something even worse than that. In that second to last screenshot it shows an incident which had taken place some months before. Chifuyu had been in the school infirmary and when Haruki came to visit her she pushed him down on the bed with her. Just at that moment some students entered the room and it kind looked as though Haruki was having his way with Chifuyu which was far from the truth. But Chifuyu never denied the rumors and also she gave the impression to others that Haruki had raped her!!!! So of course Haruki is so furious with his ex-friend and wants nothing to do with her, those rumors have made him an outcast at school which is why he's been truant so often. Haruki is the star of the track team and can't believe his friends wouldn't take his side when he denied the rumors. Don't know where this storyline will be going but it appears it will be an important one too, when Haruki left Chifuyu after that angry conversation Haruki said he's found a new girl and we viewers know he meant Mia!

 Final segment and doing the recaps for this series seems like such a 'holiday' after writing up so many long ones. An episode is just over 23 minutes in length and we're down to five minutes to go. Did mention that Mia's goal is to find out how to help Natsuo's wife Fumiko with her mental condition. If successful Mia thinks she and Natsuo can start their affair up once more, is he willing to throw his life away for her? We viewers already had an inkling but it was finally confirmed in the third screenshot above that Haruki is the son of Natsuo and had been caught by his father skipping school. Which Natsuo said was okay as Haruki was gong through so much, of course neither knows the other has intense feelings for Mia! Who had entered a chat room and posted a question on how to help someone with a mental condition who she didn't know at all. One response said to make an attempt to meet this person and the answer sounded so on the money Mia began to do the suggestion. Had she read the thread further the other responders said what a terrible idea it was and have to agree with them.

 What Mia did was to print up a huge amount of flyers that featured many services on them, to do plumbing, painting, cleaning, etc. On those posters Mia put her phone number and the plan was for her to stuff many of these in Natsuo's mailbox everyday in the hopes that his wife Fumiko would call the number. If so wonder what could Mia possibly say to this woman but at the end of the show it hadn't happened yet. In the final minute once Natsuo had left for work Mia stuffed many of those flyers into his mailbox and would Fumiko be the one to pick up today's mail? No for arriving at the box was Haruki and was so confused with all of those flyers that were jammed into their mailbox. Even more confused was Mia who was watching from behind a corner, why was Haruki there and was he the son of her dream man Natsuo? That ends this recap and of course YES is the answer to that question. The next post has the recap for the third episode which I haven't viewed yet and think the series will soon become much darker and unsettling.