Kyoko Saito: "Nukarumi no Shokutaku" drama, episode seven 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. The setting has never been mentioned but the location is a smallish city.

 Kyoko Saito as Mia Neijiki.... Young woman of about 24 in age who works at the smallish Super Suzuran market. Until the third episode that is as Mia quit due to her feelings about her manager Natsuo's family. 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 Super Suzuran 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.... That's Fumiko below on the left, her mental condition has been improving thanks to Mia and in real life Naho really is a very attractive woman. She's been married to Natsuo for twenty years and it's her problems that have prevented him and Mia from continuing their affair!

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'!

Previous recaps: May not often refer back to what's taken place so it may be wise to skim through these recaps which aren't too long.

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three .... Episode four

Episode five .... Episode six

 

 Final trio of recaps and did zip through this drama fairly quickly. Granted the episodes are just 23+ minutes in length but didn't take a break of more than one day between episodes. Usually haven't discussed too much of what's taken place up until now and won't be doing that for today. If you've been reading these posts then you already know where the story stands and will have no problems following the action. If you're new to this series would recommend skimming through those above recaps and as it says none of the recaps are that long. Still don't know what the name of this rural town where the story is set but it could be one of the two in the second screenshot below. On the bus it says the Kokusai Kyogo Bus and those two do sound like names so odds are the setting is one of them. Let's get to the action and there's two more recaps after this which will finish the series.

 If you read that previous recap you know that Haruki's stalker/wanna-be lover Chifuyu has become more devious than ever and really has Haruki tied around her finger! It's so bad the last episode ended with Haruki standing on a bridge deciding whether to jump or not, a life with Chifuyu in it isn't worth living! But a phone call from Mia changed that plan and she asked to see him immediately, don't know where he was but Haruki had to take a bus back to town. The pair did continue their conversation from the fifth episode and Haruki is slowly revealing the cruel acts Chifuyu has been doing to his life but did leave out the fact suicide may be his only option. Mia knew Chifuyu was a troubled teen but not to that extent, thought perhaps Mia may have come up with a plan to help Haruki take revenge but for now there's nothing in the works. Hope there is as Chifuyu is one person who is so easy to hate and we didn't see all that much of her in this show though her name was mentioned often.

 Haruki finally did reveal to Mia he's known about the affair she's been having with his father Natsuo and she didn't deny it but did say Natsuo still loved his family deeply. His wife Fumiko is a person who didn't make an appearance in this show and she had been a key figure in the story for the last four shows. Mia has been acting as her 'counselor' and has been helping Fumiko out tremendously with her mental condition. Besides Haruki others have discovered that Natsuo has been having an affair with Mia. Who were his employees at the Suzuran Mart where Natsuo is the manager and Mia had once worked there for two years. The rumor among the employees was that Natsuo and Mia are an item, he was confronted by his workers above and denied everything. But that worker in the above screenshot said he saw Natsuo and Mia at a store buying condoms which would have been true but they haven't visited a love hotel for a few weeks, how will this rumor affect Natsuo at his job?

 Know what my answer to that above question would be!!!! Who we hadn't seen for the last two episodes was Mia's cruel mother Miyuki, it's true that she is quite a stern mother but we did learn her past wasn't all that happy either. Her husband, who is now dead, has never been named but when she married him Miyuki wasn't well liked by his family and was considered to be an outcast as they would just ignore her. That and other acts from the family carried over to the present day for Miyuki but she did show a softer side in this episode towards Mia and even complimented her on learning out to cook. Had forgotten to add in that after that conversation the previous night Haruki had spent the evening at Mia's house as her mother was working the overnight shift, think she's a nurse. So Mia had prepared a meal which turned out well and she did learn some cooking from Haruki's mother Fumiko, Miyuki had seen the remains that weren't cleaned up.

 We did see Chifuyu very briefly in this show and her cruelty hasn't abated. After class she went up to Haruki who was complaining about his health, Chifuyu said let's go to the infirmary and you knew something was up! That's above as Chifuyu slid into the infirmary bed with Haruki and said wouldn't it be the perfect time to yell 'RAPE!' again! With that Haruki tore out of the room and I'm hoping Chifuyu gets a proper payback for her viciousness. A lot did happen in the show but we're already down to the final scene but it was a bit of a long one. After fleeing from Chifuyu Haruki roamed the town streets in pouring rain and with nowhere to go arrived at Mia's house. Haruki was probably thinking that her mother would be out again all night working but that wasn't to be, Miyuki would be home very shortly and can Mia somehow devise a quick plan to hide Haruki for the night?

 There's only about five minutes remaining in the show, these episodes do go by quickly and there's really been zero filler to date. The mother Miyuki did return home shortly and Mia was able to hide Haruki here and there in the house, by the end of the show Miyuki still had no clue there was a man there! One thing she did notice was while having dinner with Mia was that her ears were pierced but didn't say a word, what is there to say to a daughter about 25 in age? That screenshot where Mia uttered to Haruki 'Let's take a bath together' never quite took place as he did but Mia jumped into the shower, what would have happened if the mother entered????

We're down to the final minute or so of the show and what the mother Miyuki also does often is pop into Mia's bedroom unannounced. So she did take a chance with having Haruki sleep in her room, both were in a futon in case the mother did burst in. However as you can see in the bottom screenshot above if Miyuki did burst in she would find more than a man sleeping with Mia as Haruki rolled on top of her and will there be any hanky panky going on..... with the mother in the next room? That we will find out about in the next episode which is the following post, that show I haven't viewed yet to keep the very slight suspense up.