"Ramen Daisuki Koizumi san" drama: episode one and two recaps with screenshots

 Also known as 'Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles'

Air Dates: June 27 to July 18, 2015 on Fuji-TV, aired Saturdays at 11:40 pm, rating was 5.43%

Main Cast:

Akari Hayami as Koizumi 

Karen Miyama as Yu Osawa

Seika Furuhata as Misa Nakamura

The three male customers:

Yutaka Ono, Toshifumi Muramatsu, Hideki Tanaka

 Always try to introduce new actresses or Idols here but trying to do more of them recently as some of you may have noticed. On occasion do get into a rut posting about some of my faves and that even includes Nogi. Also been trying to watch more dramas lately as there was such a long stretch without viewing any as most of them these last two years have put me to sleep. That is except for these late night series which usually prove to be interesting and enjoyable.
 Have also wanted to start posting about Akari, she's been off and on my radar for about two years now. Was curious about this show and had never seen any her in anything or least none that I recall, thought this would be a good intro for her. Will be doing some regular posts for Akari very soon, possibly in the next day or so. If you didn't know it she was once a member of Momiro Clover, that's a J-Pop group who I've always liked and she turned 21 last April.

 Hopefully this will be an easy drama to review, there's only four episodes and a show is only twenty minutes long, it was somewhat popular and did have a special which aired in January. Could do a very quick synopsis of the drama and will need only a few words for that: It's about eating ramen! For the most part that's it, seems 80% of the episodes take place or going to eat in a ramen shop.
 Koizumi is a high school senior(?) who has recently transferred to a new unnamed school. She has no friends and is a bit distant but that draws the curiosity of Yu. One day she notices Koizumi standing in line at a ramen shop, at the time she's with her best friend Misa who doesn't like Koizumi at all or at least yet. She departs as Yu goes to wait in line with Koizumi and it's the first time the two have met.
 The pair end up eating at the ramen shop, Yu had no idea what an expert at ramen Koizumi was. Yu also likes ramen quite a bit but isn't in the same league as Koizumi who never smiles until she finishes a bowl of superb ramen. Yu then becomes Koizumi's friend though it's more of a one-sided friendship as she tags along whenever Koizumi visits a ramen shop who would prefer to eat alone.

 Mentioned that Yu isn't in Koizumi's league as far as knowing everything about ramen, that also includes eating it. Koizumi seems to have a bottomless pit for a stomach and can eat the largest bowl in any shop. But not just any shop as Koizumi hunts down just the best eateries, most are popular but she's discovered a few out of the way places that serve unique ramen.
 Eventually Koizumi starts to warm towards Yu, think she enjoys having someone around who she can tell her knowledge of ramen to. Now to the third member of the soon to be trio which is Misa who hasn't taken a liking to Koizumi. Misa had a boyfriend, Koizumi and Yu had watched from a window as she was dumped by him. She hid her sadness but because of Yu's urging she joined the pair at a ramen shop called Mokotanman which was known for it's spicy ramen.
 Koizumi ordered the spiciest ramen they had, Misa said she could eat whatever she did and ordered the same dish. To say it was very spicy would be an understatement as it left the two girls in tears, some of Misa's were from her breakup. However Koizumi and Misa started to respect each other and soon it would grow into a friendship which brought us to the end of the second episode.

 Of course with a length of twenty minutes a show these recaps will be short which is why these two were combined, did the same with the next two episodes which are the next post. Don't know exactly why but really enjoy these kind of off beat dramas, there's zero action or suspense but there's some unknown factor which makes me keep watching these quiet, quirky dramas.
 Only problem I had were with the subs, the translation was fine so I thanks the persons for doing them. There were a few teams as the timing was way off, they were corrected a bit but were still off which kind of affected my taking screenshots. But the translation was accurate so all in all the timing was a slightly annoying but didn't affect my viewing pleasure.
 Very easy series to find too as many sites have it, would recommend this drama if you enjoy more off beat shows and wish there were more of them in this vein. Though very short shows took a huge amount of screenshots so you can follow the story better even though the story was just about eating ramen. Was looking for a promo video for the show but couldn't locate one, least yet, but the episodes are on YT.

"Ramen Daisuki Koizumi san" drama: episode three and four recaps with screenshots

 Also known as 'Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles'

Air Dates: June 27 to July 18, 2015 on Fuji-TV, aired Saturdays at 11:40 pm, rating was 5.43%

Main Cast:

Akari Hayami as Koizumi 

Karen Miyama as Yu Osawa

Seika Furuhata as Misa Nakamura

The three male customers:

Yutaka Ono, Toshifumi Muramatsu, Hideki Tanaka

 For you newer viewers when this blog was started it was mainly to post about Erika along with reviewing J-dramas. Did fall off for a stretch in doing drama posts but that was mainly because of the (lack of) quality of them. However there's been many under the radar shows I've found that have aired in the last few years which have been very enjoyable. Just brought that up as many may be wondering why there have been so many drama posts as of late. I truly do enjoy watching and recapping them along with posting about the actresses in them (slightly)more than Idols.

 Wonder how many ramen shops there are in Tokyo, would imagine thousands of them. If there was a second season perhaps trying to visit every one would make for an interesting theme but there would have to be many more than four episodes. The third show started off at the Papapapapain ramen shop where there specialty, as you can see above, was pineapple ramen. Koizumi is the ramen expert and she was quite impressed with it's taste, if she says so then it must be worth trying.
 Misa has slowly warmed toward Koizumi and is now a third member of the 'ramen team' along with her best friend Yu. The next adventure for the trio is visiting the Tsuta Soba shop which has won a few awards the last few years. An adventure because of the long wait it takes just to enter the shop. It's opening time is 11:00 am but eaters start lining up hours before that.
 Koizumi and Yu arrived an hour before the eatery opened but it would still be two hours before they could enter the shop as the line was so long. Misa had noticed the length of the line and instead of joining them went to an ice cream shop, she figured she could just join them as they were about to enter. That's taboo to Koizumi and all fans of ramen, when Misa showed up Koizumi said they would have to go to the end of the line even though she and Yu were next to enter.

 Of course that made Misa angry but Koizumi won the respect of all of the other ramen lovers in line with her decision. At the back of the line were three older gentlemen who we see every show as they're always at every ramen shop where Koizumi and Yu have eaten. Those three are true experts, Koizumi is a bit jealous of them as they've eaten at so many defunct places she's only heard about.  One of them even tries to relate to Misa the foundation of life which is ramen because she didn't want to wait two hours to eat. They said if she quits waiting for some of the best ramen on the planet then she'll quit at everything. Misa leaves but of all people it's Koizumi who runs after her to stop her from leaving. They have their first serious talk and Misa relents into waiting in line for two hours, it was worth it as the trio were able to eat the award winning Tsuta Soba ramen.

 On to the fourth and final episode, Koizumi and Misa had overheard Yu on the phone saying she was going to transfer at the end of the semester and move to Sapporo. At one time Misa disliked Koizumi but the two become a team and get along so well as they secretly prepare a special going away present for Yu.
 What they decided on was to create a unique ramen that Yu will love, it's not that easy thinking of something original. The pair end up taking a ramen cooking class, Koizumi is an expert eater and history buff on ramen but can't make it to save her life. The cooking class helped them make ramen but the problem they had was creating something new, Koizumi thought it'd be wrong using the recipe they learned in class.
 After so many experiments the duo still couldn't come up with the perfect new ramen dish for Yu but Kloizumi had one secret recipe up her sleeve. Yu's favorite food is red bean jam pork but that's not something that would or should go well with ramen. Koizumi and Misa head back to the ramen shop where they took their cooking class, Koizumi explained to the expert ramen teacher what they wanted to create. He had never heard of such a combination but was willing to help the girls out, it was a success as with his help they created a red bean jam pork ramen.

 May 17th was Yu's last day at school, at lunch she was invited to the science lab for her secret ramen present. Didn't mention it before but Koizumi ate her lunch in the lab most days as she prepared packaged ramen and added in her own odd ingredients. Yu looked bewildered at what the pair at done, she had no idea why and thought their unique creation wouldn't be too tasty.
 To Yu's surprise the ramen was like seventh heaven, she had never tasted ate anything so delicious. Koizumi and Misa told her why they prepared this special lunch as it was a going away present as she was moving to Sapporo. Yu told them they were mistaken, she's was just going to visit some relatives there and wouldn't be moving. Yu had also been a bit cold to the other two recently but she explained to them it was because she was on a diet from eating so much ramen.
 Yu told them that the diet is now over and she had done it as she wanted to spend her Summer holiday with them eating ramen all over Tokyo. That brought tears to the eyes of Misa and even Koizumi who never shows any emotions except when devouring a bowl of ramen. With that the episode and series comes to it's conclusion, left it open for a possible second season.

 This does seem like the kind of cult drama that could have more than one season though haven't heard any news of it yet. There was a special that aired in January, will be watching and posting about it soon. The series averaged a rating of 5.43% which is a really good figure for a late Saturday night show, the special had a rating of 4.2%.
 Won't give it a grade as it was a bit too short of a series, really enjoyed it and wished there were a few more episodes. Another person from this cast who I want to check out is Karen Miyama who played Yu, she's one cute gal who will be turning twenty in a month. She's been in many dramas and films even though she's a bit young and it seems like she's going to be around for a long time. Many more screenshots for you to view, would recommend this short series as the total length was only 80 minutes so you're not giving up too much time to watch it. Searched again but for some reason there were no Fuji-TV promos or interviews for the show.