Saki Fukuda: Ghost Friends drama episode 1 recap and screenshots

Air Date: April 2 to June 11, 2009 on NHK, it aired at 10:00 pm on Thursdays, rating was 3.6%.

Main Cast:

Saki Fukuda as Asuka Kamiya.... normal teen who for some reason can see and talk with ghosts

Takahiro Nishijima as Kaito Hayami.... he's a ghost

Ayame Misaki as Miku Aoyama.... one of Asuka's friends who died and is now a ghost

Ai as Yui Mishima.... Asuka's other friend who died and returned as a ghost

Noriko Iriyama as Misora Hongo.... the ghost who Kaito is chasing after

Nana Katase as Ayako Ono.... owns the cafe where Asuka works PT

Tomochika as Seiko Kamiya.... Asuka's dead mother who also returned as a ghost

 The current drama season is just so weak, no real strong one and out of all of them am only currently watching two. One good thing is that it gives me a chance to watch a few I've missed over the years like this series here. Have always really enjoyed Saki but haven't seen her in enough things, main reason for that is they're not easy to find or if you do find something it's not subbed. Kind of a simple drama through episode 5, usually Saki's character Asuka helps a ghost out with a problem in each show, first one though that doesn't happen as we're introduced to all the main characters and find out what exactly is going on. Will keep the recaps short but there will be plenty of screenshots in all the posts to fill in the gaps plus Saki looks really, really good too.

 Asuka(Saki), who is a high school senior and her two best friends are very much into art, on their way home from a art field trip their bus gets into an accident her 2 friends die! Shortly after, it's never explained why, Asuka can start to see and talk with ghosts who try to take advantage of her by having her due many things for them. Asuka is such a sweet girl she can never say no to them and does various tasks for them as they are ghosts and can't do anything in the human world. Also her two best friends Miku and Yui she can now see, why she can see certain ghosts and not all of them is also not explained right in the beginning. One day Asuka happens to be at a fashion show when she notices a ghost who had been possessing a human body and then left it. She began chasing after the ghost but to her surprise there was another person chasing after it, another human who can see ghosts like her?

 No, it wasn't another human but a ghost who had just recently died, he was given special permission to take the form of a human to bring back the other ghost who Asuka was chasing. This human ghost was named Kaito, though he was sent to earth to bring back the ghost who against all rules was possessing a human body he also lived like a regular person as for some reason he worked in an office and had a place to live, couldn't have been too urgent of a matter then to bring back the other ghost, I'll explain more about him and his relationship with the other ghost in upcoming posts as it doesn't get explained until then.
 The ghost who Asuka and Kaito were chasing managed to escape but the two of them started talking and hit it right off. Actually more so for Asuka who had a slight crush on him from the beginning and one that grows and grows with each episode. That about cover the first episode, mainly introducing all the main characters but there is a bit more that did happen and in the posts following this one will get more into detail about what is going on.

 Have watched the first 5 episodes so doing a recap of them all at one sitting before I forget what happened, that's the advantage of screenshots as I can look back and see all that I forgot. No must see drama but it's been a fairly good watch, all the episodes are fairly interesting and it moves along at a good pace. Next 4 posts have recaps for the next four episodes, it's been an enjoyable watch so maybe they'll get you interested in watching this drama. Main reason I'm watching this is because of Saki, she's done a solid job throughout the series and looks so darn cute to boot, here's a lot more screenshots of her from this episode.

Saki Fukuda: Ghost Friends drama episode 2 recap and screenshots

Air Date: April 2 to June 11, 2009 on NHK, it aired at 10:00 pm on Thursdays, rating was 3.6%.

Main Cast:

Saki Fukuda as Asuka Kamiya.... normal teen who for some reason can see and talk with ghosts

Takahiro Nishijima as Kaito Hayami.... he's a ghost

Ayame Misaki as Miku Aoyama.... one of Asuka's friends who died and is now a ghost

Ai as Yui Mishima.... Asuka's other friend who died and returned as a ghost

Noriko Iriyama as Misora Hongo.... the ghost who Kaito is chasing after

Nana Katase as Ayako Ono.... owns the cafe where Asuka works PT

Tomochika as Seiko Kamiya.... Asuka's dead mother who also returned as a ghost

 What wasn't mentioned in episode 1 has to deal with Asuka's ghost friend Kaito. When Asuka and her two friends were involved in their accident also Kaito and his girlfriend Misora were involved in the same accident and both were killed. Misora felt she had so much more to do in her life so against the rules of the ghost world she came back to Earth and has been possessing humans in order to use their body. Usually when she does possess a body it's never for good intentions and Misora and Asuka have a mini showdown about this which went nowhere as Misora grabbed another body and went elsewhere.

 Meanwhile it's not just Misora but there are many, many other ghosts who are possessing bodies, at least their intentions are somewhat good. In this episode a ghost occupied one of Asuka's teachers, one who was picked on by the students and they paid him zero respect. That is until his body was possessed and his character did a complete 180 turning from such a weak person into someone who would stand up to anyone which he did against the students who now obeyed his every command. The ghost who did the possessing was like the teacher in that he led a very meek life and for once wanted to show the world how strong he was, the only way to do that was by possessing a human body. Every episode features ghosts taking over human bodies and not sure why they're allowed to get away with it, from what Kaito has said it's against the rules for ghosts to do that, that's why he's trying to capture Misora.

 Anyways, Asuka eventually talks the ghost out of possessing her teacher's body, she does have a way with ghosts where they usually do what she suggests and her advice would seem to come from someone so much older, not the 17 year old girl she is. And not sure if it's going to go anywhere but Asuka's dead ghost friend Miku had been trying to date the star of the captain team and she was about to go on a date with him but of course now that she's dead there was no way. She talked Asuka into going on the date with him and the boy Takumi has said yes to the date. The pair do go out and have a good time, Asuka seems to like him but actually Takumi likes her even more. Like I said don't know how that potential relationship may turn out as Asuka rapidly is really falling in love with Kaito, he knows nothing of that but Asuka's two dead friends are seeing what's going on.
 That about sums up this episode, every show has been an enjoyable watch but to date this was the weakest of them all, the story does pick up much more after this episode. And as usual have some ultra kawaii screenshots of Saki from this episode.