"Mr. Nietzsche in the Convenience Store" drama: Episode one recap

 Air Dates: January 21st to March 23, 2016 on YTV, Thursdays at 1:29 pm

 Each episode is about 23 minutes in length

Main Cast: Name of the convenience store is the Three Seven Temple Street Store.

Shotaro Mamiya as Tomoharu Nii.... new worker at the store who works overnight and by day is studying Buddhism, is a very stoic twenty something man

Kenji Urai as Matsukoma..... after being out of work for two years found a job at the store six months prior, works with Nii on the overnight shift

Rena Matsui as Kaede Shioyama.... is a nurse whose shift gets done after midnight so stops by the store every night, fell in love with Nii at first sight and grew up with Matsukoma

Jiro as Watari.... oldest clerk at the store and has the nickname of 'Lottery Senpai' as he often plays lottery games to get rich quick which has never panned out

Jiro Sato as Manager.... only goes by Manager and is quite the goofball

Rio Uchida as Moe Tatsuzaki.... clerk at the store

Ryo Matsuda as Takeshi Shibata..... clerk at the store

 Four years ago began viewing this funny and quite quirky drama. Watched the first three shows and posted mini recaps of them but mainly focusing on Rena who was such a massive fave of mine back then. But think the subbing team stopped after those three shows which is why I never finished, it eventually was completely subbed. So now am back to viewing it and it's a ten episode series, hope to recap the entire drama. Each show is a stand alone one as there's really no main storyline to the show save for Kaede's crush on Nii plus the odd events that happen overnight at the store. The recaps shouldn't be too long but will have plenty of screenshots, let's get on with the post.

 Seems the main character is Matsukoma as he was in every scene this first show but then again the show does revolve around Nii who is on the right in the above screenshot. It was his first night at the convenience store and what an odd person he was to Matsukoma. Nii is such a quiet and stoic person yet when he talks he doesn't mince his words, he says what's on his mind. During the day he's studying to be a Buddhist priest and is so different than other men in their young twenties.
 That second screenshot above shows a pic of the German philosopher Nietzsche and Matsukoma has given Nii that nickname though only says it to himself. Of course that nickname is also the title of the drama. This first show we really only met four of the main characters, the store's manager who just goes by the name of Manager only made a brief appearance plus we didn't meet two of the clerks. There was one other clerk who we did meet though, that's Watari who also works the overnight shift. Not sure of his age but he's got to be twenty years older than his co-workers, Matsukoma has given him the nickname of 'Lottery Senpai'.
 That's because Watari constantly plays any type of game hoping to strike it rich. To date he's never won much of anything but has three tickets that could be worth 300 million yen if they're winners and of course they won't be. Watari's dream is to buy a tank(!) so he can drive it around Tokyo. Matsukoma never tries to cause a fuss so just nodded at Watari's dream but not the new clerk Nii. He pointed out all of the obstacles Watari would face driving a tank around the city. When Nii talks he is such a stern and a matter of fact person, he rarely moves a muscle and also pointed out to Watari a tank would cost at least 700 million yen which popped his bubble. Plus Nii talks with such a monotone voice, usually not the type of person you see as a clerk in a store.

 Above is Rena who was the main reason I first began on this drama four years ago. She's still active as an actress but don't see her doing many other activities and I really miss posting about her. Every show she's in just one scene but as I recalled they were always the best ones such as in this show when we met her character of Kaede for the first time. She's a childhood friend of Matsukoma's and often stops to see him at the store when her shift ends. Kaede is a nurse but has such a flaky personality about her, the kind of person Nii may be looking for?
 Too early to tell but if Kaede had her way the pair would have been married that night! The first time Kaede laid eyes on Nii it was pure love and she was literally in seventh heaven at the store. Kaede began having fantasies on the spot about Nii and thought she was talking to herself when in fact she was screaming her fantasies out loud. Hard to say if she made a fool out of herself as there was no one else in the store save for Matsukoma and Nii who didn't seem to be disturbed over Kaede's
dream sequence.
 It appears it's not the first time a woman has swooned over Nii, he's not a bad looking guy but near the top of the list as far as oddballs go. After a few minutes Kaede calmed down and soon left the store, during this whole sequence she never uttered a word to Nii. But we'll be seeing Kaede visit the store in every future show just to have contact with Nii, have no clue if they'll become a couple before the series ends. Speaking of endings that's where we are in this recap.

 Future recaps should be this length or perhaps even shorter, episodes are 23 minutes long but two of them are for credits. This is a show where often there's long periods of no dialogue, a short recap may make it seem as though it's a boring show which it isn't as visuals play such an important element in the story. As I did say at the top there's really no ongoing storyline save for the possible romance for Kaede. Following this post are three more recaps, seeing as how they don't take too long to write up thought you wouldn't mind reading four in a row for a change.

Million Yen Women drama: Episodes eleven and twelve recaps

 Air Dates: April 14 to June 30, 2017 on TV Tokyo, Fridays at 1:00 am

Main Cast:

Yojiro Noda as Shin Michima

Rena Matsui as Hitomi Tsukamoto

Rena Takeda as Midori Suzumura

Rila Fukushima as Minami Shirakawa(murdered in episode nine)

Yuko Araki as Nanaka Seki(murdered in episode seven)

Miwako Wagatsuma as Yuki Kobayashi(murdered in episode twelve)

Lily Franky as Tatsuyuki Michima

Takashi Yamanaka as Seiji Sakurai

Tomoya Nakamura as Yuzu Hanaki

Tetsuhiro Ikeda as Ryuichi Moriguchi

  Bit of an intriguing ending to the previous episode as we've finally learned the identity of the person who sent the five invitations. But also that person is also behind the murders of two of the five and at the top you'll notice that the number of deaths has now increased by one. These final two shows were as usual a bit up and down but all in all it was interesting with a few curveballs thrown in with also a few confusing scenes.

 As they say it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for and that term was Yuki to a T. She's someone who most including me would never have suspected but kind of glad it was her as she didn't have too much screen time throughout the series. Yuki was married to a man named Keisuke Kobayashi who is probably in his seventies and is lying with a terminal disease in a hospital.
 We knew he was rich but he's much more wealthy than we imagined, Yuki had been his housekeeper when he proposed to her. Besides his riches Keisuke also has many connects with the police, media and Yakuza which Yuki used to her advantage. About a year ago she had read one of Shin's novels which was a bomb at the time though she really enjoyed it but not for all the right reasons.
 Shin's novels never have any violence or deaths which Yuki picked up on, she couldn't believe someone could be so scared of death so her 'mission' was to make Shin a popular writer. You can say her quest was successful as Shin's latest novel "Drifting Memories" was a huge hit and ended up being the top selling novel of the year.

 This opening scene took up over half of the show though it never dragged. Yuki really never gave a cut and dry reason for her actions, why exactly did she want Shin to become popular and were the murders necessary? Almost seems as she was a bored housewife with too much time and money on her hands which is why she set this whole game up.
 Yuki also didn't explain why she wanted Midori to be killed as it shows in the above screenshot, why was she jealous of a seventeen year old who won big on the lottery? The two murders weren't planned though as it was more of a case of Nanaka and Minami getting too close to the truth. Both knew Yuki had sent the invitations and had they told that to the others they may not have been murdered. And those murders didn't come cheaply, to have Nanaka killed cost 100 million yen though Minami's price was just 10 million yen.
 Yuki though was very level headed during her confession to Shin, that's actually not her true name as her real one was never revealed. With her connections Shin can't bring her to the police, he knows he has to do something but what? Yuki knew what was going on in his head and she really tempted him by giving him a knife. He wanted to stab her so badly but couldn't bring himself to do it, as Yuki had mentioned Shin really is scared of death. It's true most don't want to kill someone but here may have been a case of it being the right thing to do.

 For the most part this game as Yuki called it is over, she briefly mentioned hurting the two survivors Hitomi and Midori but don't think she was overly serious. Yuki eventually takes her leave and think her next move is to create another game to bring some excitement into her life. Shin is dumbfounded by everything he just heard and of what's happened to his life over the last six months.
 Bit of a slowdown to wind up this eleventh episode as we see what's going to happen next in the lives of the three ex-housemates. Shin will continue to be a writer but for now he's unable to think of anything to write about which goes on for a while. He did move out of the hotel he's been staying at and has moved into a rather drab and small apartment.
 The other two women for now have no definite plans for their future. Hitomi just loves books and has since she was a young girl as her father was a very successful writer, However she has no talents of her own and for now is just going to kill time until something comes her way. Midori is extremely wealthy and never has to work another day in her life. She's still only seventeen and wants to quit high school but as of now we're not sure what any of them will be doing in the future.

 Have left some of the details out as don't want to spoil things of you haven't viewed this show yet which I do recommend. Some people who do reviews just give away too much of the story and why end up watching it if you know everything? It's on to the final show which ended up being much better than the previous one even though there was no cliffhangers going into it.
 It began with Yuki and Midori meeting up again after not seeing each other since Shin's house burned down. You would have thought Yuki set up the get-together but it was Midori who did, she has a few tricks up her sleeve. She causally asked Yuki if she was scared after receiving the invitation to live with Shin, that made Yuki curious why she was asked that as she was the one who sent them.

 If you read the previous recap you may recall that Minami had left all of her assets to Midori in her will. Minami had also given her the right to use her bodyguard Sunako until she was twenty, plus there was a letter to Midori explaining all of the evil things Yuki had done. Minami knew she was going to be killed and had set it up so that Midori along with Sunako could finish off Yuki.
 Yuki didn't know about the letter or Minami's will and never did, for another minute or so the pair made some small talk which is the last time Yuki spoke a word. Silently Sunako appeared behind her and with a wire string slowly strangled her to death, slowly as Midori wanted her to hear some harsh words she had for her.
 With that death now three of the five women who the show started out with have now been murdered, all because of a strange game that Yuki wanted to play. Sunako took the body away and we see a surprise person for a few seconds. That was Takeshi who had grown up in the orphanage with Midori, after she won the huge lottery he began to siphon money off her. Minami had heard of his actions and had it set up for him to be killed with Sunako running him over. He did but Takeshi survived, now for some strange reason Sunako now has him working as his assistant.

 We only saw Midori once more in the show and that's when she had visited the orphanage she grew up in. She gave them a present that was a ten million yen check though it was in Minami's name. On to the last two characters and Shin is still struggling to write a new novel. He may not have to as his first three books have all been reprinted and money is the least of his worries.
 Meanwhile Hitomi is still at a loss on what to do with her life, with her love of literature no idea why she never went to college or tried her hand at writing. Hitomi does end up taking a part time job at a book store and continues to be Shin's #1 fan, at the store she had set up a nice book display of all of his novels.
 At the store she ended up meeting Shin's editor Sakurai, Hitomi had told him she shouldn't meet Shin ever again though she did get his new address from him. Sakurai had told Shin about the book display that was set up by his huge fan but didn't reveal who the person was. Shin would soon learn the identity of that person as a few days later upon returning to his apartment who should be sitting there waiting for him but Hitomi.

 Know what I would say if someone like Rena was there saying those words but Shin isn't me. Hitomi confessed her love to him which has been building up for many years even before she had met him, she's been a fan since his first novel. Needless to say Shin is dumbfounded about what's happening but to him the most logical thing for him to say is that she can't live with him.
 That's what he tells Hitomi and finally tells her the main reason for that. Shin is scared of losing someone else he cares about, first his mother is killed by his father, his father is executed and now three of the women who lived with him are dead. He's also lived by himself his entire life except for when the five women came to live with him which is another reason.
 Hitomi tells him none of that matters these days, he'll never find any woman to love him like Hitomi does. Wasn't a tear jerking scene but Shin finally caves in and Hitomi immediately moves in with him. That brings us to the conclusion as the last thing we see is a happy couple, now Shin is able to start writing again as the show comes to a happy ending even after all of the deaths.

 Never did bring up Shin's rival Hanaki as the pair didn't have any kind of duels or face offs, the less we talk about that jerk the better. Probably gave you almost every detail about the plot but left some things out as I always do as if you do plan on watching it best to not to know everything.
 Will give this drama a 8.5/10, some sluggish stretches here and there but the best scenes easily made up for them. After writing six long recaps there's nothing to add that hasn't been said yet, all in all considered it an interesting watch and bet most reading this would enjoy it though don't think it received many positive reviews.
 Next few days will start back up on the "Reunited Worlds" recaps as that show ends it's run tomorrow. Plus will be doing some posts on the third season of 'Code Blue', unsure what other Japanese drama I'll be watching but there's plenty out there but sadly the ones I want to view the most rarely get subbed.