Erina Mano: "Hanbun Esper" drama episode nine recap and screenshots

 Wasn't going to watch the last two episodes until next week but am watching so many series at once thought it was time to start finishing a few of them up. This drama was ten episodes long and the recap for the finale is in the next post. Sure most are like me and prefer reading shorter reviews, hopefully I can please us all then as this should be a shorter one as there were only two scenes.

 First eight episodes Erina always transported to the S/Mileage radio show about halfway through and stayed in the studio with the gals for about four minutes. This time after a very brief opening segment Erina once again was transported to their radio show but stayed there for about eleven minutes, for a change it was on her 'to do list'.
 Same kind of scene as all the others though this one was much better as it was so longer. The two S/Mileage members answered fan letters on their show with normal responses, as usual Erina turned a few heads with her quirky answers. Realize these scenes are kind of lame and juvenile but they've been my fave scenes for every episode, think you need to view them to appreciate what I'm trying to say. Actually the total length of the scenes was about 44 minutes, could have a whole episode then just devoted to that radio show. Haven't mentioned them before but the two producers in the sound booth also were quite funny and did make these scenes so much better.

 As mentioned only two scenes in this episode, after Erina left the radio studio she stopped at a cafe for a quick drink. The Hello Project member who made a guest appearance on this show was Aika Mitsui, just looked her up as I didn't know anything about her but seems to be a very cute gal.
 Aika, though only 18, owned the cafe Erina stopped at. Aika was definitely a space cadet and said she had been working full time at jobs since she was six years old! There were a few unfunny moments during the cafe scene, some shop owner from next door came to try to sell items on the air and he may have been the worst guest of them all.
 Aika's father showed up to trying to borrow money as he was out of work and owed some loan sharks money, he's the reason Aika had to start working at such a young age. Suddenly a pair of men who claimed to be the loan sharks showed up but they were actually in disguise as they were members of the unnamed secret organization that are after ESPer's, will call the S.O. for now on.
 They captured Erina and a special bracelet they put on her disabled her powers, looks like death is impending. Luckily for Erina her Chief suddenly appeared to save her from the two S.O. members. She was able to flee but the Chief was being overpowered by the two hooligans, was this to be the end of him? That we don't know as upon the screen 'To be continued next episode' appeared.

 That cafe scene was honestly not all that good until those two S.O. thugs showed up. What saved the show was that long scene of Erina visiting the S/Mileage radio show, think those have been my fave scenes in all of the nine episodes. The recap for the tenth and concluding episode is in the next post, hope to keep the recap just as short. Easier to do that with short shows like this which just last for 25 minutes, impossible to have a short recap for dramas like "W" which is an hour long and has about twenty subplots.

Erina Mano: "Hanbun Esper" drama episode ten(finale) recap and screenshots

 This final show was one of the better episodes, would have been the nest one but for the first time Erina didn't make an appearance on the S/Mileage radio show. That would have been a funny drama to watch if they had one for the S/Mileage radio show, may have been tiring after a while but think a five show series would have worked.

 The ninth episode ended with Erina fleeing a cafe where two Secret Organization(S.O.) members had tried to kidnap/kill her. Her Chief appeared out of nowhere to save her but things looked bleak for him though. Erina looked for his assistant Ai, another appearance by Ai Takahashi which may have been her fourth one. Erina finally found Ai and it was up to them to save the Chief.
 Ai had other plans though as two more S.O. members appeared to once again attempt to slay Erina. Looks like Ai has defected to the side of evil, now it really looked like it was curtains for Erina. Once again though her Chief showed up to save her though this time he wasn't too successful. He was shot with an injection needle(?) by Ai, could Erina possibly save him and defeat Ai?
 Erina's powers hadn't been working too well recently as she hadn't been using them too much, ESP powers aren't as effective when you don't use them regularly. However Erina was able to summon up enough of her powers and was even able to use them effectively as she was able to defeat the two S.O. thugs. During the scuffle Ai escaped, the Chief who wasn't hurt too badly told her to go and capture her. If Erina was successful then would be her final test and she would be able to live full time in the regular world.

 Those above paragraphs.... forget they were even written!!!! All of it was a setup by Ai and the Chief to see if Erina finally had her powers under control, she passed that test with flying colors. But to Erina's disappointment there was one more quiz to take, this was a live exam and was named 'Common Sense' to see if Erina had enough to live in the real world.
 What made this scene so effective was that it was live and not scripted, think even Erina wasn't prepared for this final scene. The quiz consisted of twenty questions, Erina needed to get 70% to pass or 14 of the answers correct. The questions ranged from what certain Kanji characters meant, some geography of Japan and other present day things that most people should know. Erina appeared to be a smart gal but some of the questions were very tough and her passing the exam was in doubt.
 It went down to the final question as Erina needed to get it correct to pass and have the privilege of living in the real world. That final question was what does 'HB' mean on a pencil, will admit I didn't know the answer. Erina did and now I've learned something new as 'HB' stands for Hard Black. It's time for Erina to celebrate as she now can live freely in the real world, actually there wasn't much celebrating as the show ended rather quickly as twenty questions took up too much time.

 Personally thought this series was quite enjoyable, not a must watch but if you're an Erina or Hello Project fan then would highly recommend this drama. Will give it a grade of an 8.5/10, haven't given a high grade like that for a Japanese drama for a long time. Then again it was a late night series which are usually much better than current prime time shows.
 With quite a few Idols or groups having so many recent late night shows it's surprising there hasn't been any from Hello Project since 2012, I would certainly watch them as the ones I've seen have been all good. If you just want to watch this drama and not download it the show is subbed on Daily Motion, quality though is only so-so but there are some sites which you can download this from.
 May be difficult but will be on the hunt for another late night show like this one, AKB has many but would prefer not watching them. One show I'm curious about is "SKE48 no Ebi Friday Night", has anyone viewed that show?
EDIT: Actually Juice=Juice had a drama last year titled "Budokan", the Fuji-TV version is subbed but waiting for the a different and longer version to be subbed.