"Toki wo Kakeru Band" drama: Episode three of ten recap

 

 Air Dates: August 19th to October 21, 2020 on FOD at midnight. It then aired on Fuji from October 19th until December 7, 2020 at 12:25 am. Title also means Time Bending Band

Subs were done by Nippon Golden/aoinousgai

Main Cast: Top three are the members of the rock trio Chahhan and would say all are twenty in age. Seems they've been together for a while and do have a contract with a small record company but fortune hadn't been smiling on them and the trio have been wavering about disbanding. That was until a man from 2019(?!) appeared suddenly one day and vowed he would make them stars! These first four shows began off in August 2006.

Sei Shiraishi as Yuki Ebana.... The group's guitarist and main singer, that's her second to the right above. Yuki is quite a strong willed woman who wants to make most of the band's decisions but is mellowing out slightly, her mother works at a Ramen shop owned by Toko's father.

Yuno Ohara as Toko Murakami.... Chahhan's drummer and as mentioned her father owns a Ramen cafe. She's the opposite of Yuki as Toko started off the series by being so meek but with the help of their 'new manager' is slowly changing that. She's on the right in the above pic.

Mijika Nagai as Shiori Kato.... The band's bassist and writes most of their songs. She's kind of a gloomy gal who often threatens to kill herself, though Shiori sounds serious she would never go through with it. She gets way too nervous playing live and has passed out twice at shows.

Shohei Miura as Ryo.... No last name for now and claims to come from the year 2019!? He was a record producer in that future year and so far we have no clue how he's gone back in time thirteen years. He quickly became the band's manager and vowed to make them superstars. We see a few glimpses now and again in the year 2019 where it appears Chahhan becoming successful was true, also seemed he was on his 'death bed' in that year.

Mizuki Itagaki as Seiichi Izumi.... Member of the rival band Three Dimension and there's a lot of references back to 1960's music. Seems like a decent guy and Toko has a crush on him though it appears Yuki may be his dream girl.

Hiroyuki Watanabe as Yuichi Yanagishita.... Executive at the small FMR company who has worked closely with the girls. But he's gotten frustrated at their lack of success, though he does like the band he's on the verge of dropping them from the company.

 Audio clip of the group's 'signature' song which is Orange: Orange

Links to the previous shows:

Episode one .... Episode two

 

 Did mention in the first recap that there's a lot of references to older bands and music. Each show's title shows an old album cover, first show it was "London Calling" and in epiosde two it was "Abbey Road". Plus the rivals of the Chahhan group are named Three Dimension which I think refers to the Byrds. For this episode couldn't figure out what the album cover was which is the first screenshot, however can't say I'm a huge fan of classic rock. For these first three episodes one of the Chahhan members was the focus of getting help from Ryo who somehow has traveled back in time from 2019 to 2006. This time around it's the bass player Shiroi who has the tendency of fainting at shows, it's held the band back and can Ryo help her overcome that problem?

 Of course he will but Ryo better do it quickly before Shiori gets dumped from Chahhan! Above is the group's representative for the FMR record company, he's Yanagishita who has really helped the girls out immensely but they're still an unknown band. In the last episode Shiori once again fainted and it was at an audition for a concert, that was the last straw for Yanagishita who wants to bring in a new bassist. 'No Way!' screamed the two other members Yuki and Toko, can't he give Shiori one more chance? Yanagishita really didn't want to but will give Shiori a bit of different training which may help her overcome that fainting problem, he wants her to join an Idol group! Naturally she's furious with that option but with no other solutions to her problem has reluctantly agreed.

 Shiny Live is the name of this trio who has one member on a hiatus and it's unsure if she'll be returning. The two other members are the peppy Airi and the gloomy leader Juri, Shiori is quite a gloomy girl too but the pair didn't get along that well. You can see above that Ryo is giving Shiori some encouragement and she may be the best musician in Chahhan, that's a huge step backwards for her joining an Idol group. Ryo will be by Shiori's side the entire time, he too is a peppy guy and while the band doesn't always like his 'help methods' they've certainly worked. Also in the mix will be the handler of Shiny Live who is their FMR rep Kuro, on to Shiori's new idoling career!

 Stage fright is Shiori's problem, she doesn't know why or how it began but playing in front of others is such a terrifying ordeal. Shiori has also always looked down on Idol groups as she thinks they have it quite easy and really don't need much talent. So she was in for massive surprise as Idols truly need to work hard at learning dance steps, interacting with the audience and many other things. This idea by Yanagishita was actually a brilliant maneuver as Shiori had to quickly learn a different way of presenting herself and in a bit of a surprise was kind of successful. As you can see above shortly after joining Shiny Live they had a mini concert, for the first time Shiori didn't faint at a show.

 Though she didn't want to admit it Shiori was enjoying the Idol life and seems like the group's small fan base was attracted to her quirky ways. But the bottom line is it's just training to stay on as the bassist for Chahhan, Shiori did admit to her mates Yuki and Toko that being an Idol was not nearly as easy as she presumed. But Yanagishita still needed to see more than just one mini street concert where Shiori didn't pass out, next up will be a bigger concert at an Idol festival but somehow the other two members Airi and Juri went to the wrong location, will Shiori have to do a solo show?!

 Luckily for Shiori her Chahhan mates were there, we didn't see them too often in this show but they were asked to perform until the other Shiny Live members showed up. Chahhan may have played their best show to date though we still only see them perform one song which is "Orange", for the first time at a concert Shiori overcame her stage fright and didn't pass out. Observing the show were the late in arriving Shiny Live gals, also in the audience was their third member Akira who has decided to remain with the group and Shiori's days as an Idol are now over. It's back to being Chahhan's bassist and in the next two episodes we didn't seen Shiori pass out once.

 An episode is only 21 minutes long which is why these are half the length of regular recaps. Sometimes it helps when a show is shorter as there's no filler and the action zooms right along. That's been the case in this drama though being shorter episodes means things don't always get explained well enough. Next post is the recap for the fourth episode, will have a pair about every five days.

"Toki wo Kakeru Band" drama: Episode four of ten recap

 

 Air Dates: August 19th to October 21, 2020 on FOD at midnight. It then aired on Fuji from October 19th until December 7, 2020 at 12:25 am. Title also means Time Bending Band

Subs were done by Nippon Golden/aoinousgai

Main Cast: Top three are the members of the rock trio Chahhan and would say all are twenty in age. Seems they've been together for a while and do have a contract with a small record company but fortune hadn't been smiling on them and the trio have been wavering about disbanding. That was until a man from 2019(?!) appeared suddenly one day and vowed he would make them stars! These first four shows began off in August 2006.

Sei Shiraishi as Yuki Ebana.... The group's guitarist and main singer, that's her second to the right above. Yuki is quite a strong willed woman who wants to make most of the band's decisions but is mellowing out slightly, her mother works at a Ramen shop owned by Toko's father.

Yuno Ohara as Toko Murakami.... Chahhan's drummer and as mentioned her father owns a Ramen cafe. She's the opposite of Yuki as Toko started off the series by being so meek but with the help of their 'new manager' is slowly changing that. She's on the right in the above pic.

Mijika Nagai as Shiori Kato.... The band's bassist and writes most of their songs. She's kind of a gloomy gal who often threatens to kill herself, though Shiori sounds serious she would never go through with it. She gets way too nervous playing live and has passed out twice at shows.

Shohei Miura as Ryo.... No last name for now and claims to come from the year 2019!? He was a record producer in that future year and so far we have no clue how he's gone back in time thirteen years. He quickly became the band's manager and vowed to make them superstars. We see a few glimpses now and again in the year 2019 where it appears Chahhan becoming successful was true, also seemed he was on his 'death bed' in that year.

Mizuki Itagaki as Seiichi Izumi.... Member of the rival band Three Dimension and there's a lot of references back to 1960's music. Seems like a decent guy and Toko has a crush on him though it appears Yuki may be his dream girl.

Hiroyuki Watanabe as Yuichi Yanagishita.... Executive at the small FMR company who has worked closely with the girls. But he's gotten frustrated at their lack of success, though he does like the band he's on the verge of dropping them from the company.

 Audio clip of the group's 'signature' song which is Orange: Orange

Links to the previous shows:

Episode one .... Episode two

 

 Did mention in the first recap that there's a lot of references to older bands and music, as you can see in the first screenshot this episode's title is a take off of Queen. Now that Chahhan's new manager Ryo has helped the band overcome their individual problems it's time to step it up a bit. In the next two shows there will be some auditions for a music festival, what the girls need are some new songs as we've only heard "Orange" to date so how can they do a concert with only one song? A new tune is the main topic of this show but they still need may more than two songs.

 While the bassist Shiori is the best writer according to everyone "Orange" was written by the Yuki who plays the guitar. Guess she may be the main singer too but hard to say that when Chahann only has performed one song to date. Shiori and the drummer Toko had thought "Orange" was  a love song but that wasn't the case, Yuki had written it about her hamster who died! So as you can see above Yuki has vowed to write her first love song and mainly because Ryo who said that's the kind of songs fans are into these days but then again he did say there's too many of those songs. If Yuki wants to pen it really needs to be original but to date Yuki has never even gone out on a date!

 Writer's block came quite soon to Yuki who doesn't appear she'll ever be a prolific songwriter, Ryo suggested the pair go out for a stroll to clear her head. On that trek the two ran into Seiichi who is the front man for Chahann's rival group Three Dimension. This was the first time Ryo had met the man who seems to be slightly older than Yuki who is twenty in age. Ryo noticed from the first second that Seiichi is head over heels for Yuki who has never noticed a thing, romance is not her forte. Won't give asway any spoilers but in the next episode we learn from Ryo that the two will become a couple in the future and that Seiichi's band Three Dimension will be immensely popular. The girls from Chahann haven't pressed Ryo too much about all of his 'future talk', that will be changing in slightly in the next show but he's hesitant to reveal too much of what happens with the band.

 Yuki's writer's block seems to have evaporated and it's on to writing her first love song plus that means Chahann can play two tunes at an audition. Right above is the group's bassist Shiori who had just heard a rough draft of the song along with the drummer Toko. The word Eisei has three meanings in Japanese, for this new song it'll be referring to a satellite or perhaps a moon. It was a love song to an extent, the girls and Ryo liked it but all threw in a huge 'But....'. It's a slower song which Yuki only wrote for the guitar and never thought how the bass and drums could be added. Ryo had stressed for a band it's very important to work on the music together which Yuki hadn't thought about. So will this new song be one the band will include in their audition video?

 For this upcoming rock festival new bands need to audition for it, there will be a few rounds with the first one being a video of a band song. Yuki really wanted to include "Eisei" on the video even though it was far from finished, Ryo and her Chahann mates voted for "Orange" Not that it's a superb song but it's already been on a CD so it's complete plus it's a much more rockin' tune. "Eisei" is just too slow of a song and in all honesty Yuki's mates didn't tell her their true feelings of the song, it has potential but needs much more work. Even Chahann's fans agreed as when they put the two songs on their band site, "Orange" won by a landslide for which song was better.

 Each episode we see about a minute of Ryo from the year 2019 where he originally was from, we still haven't learned how or why he ended up in 2006. But as you can see the band kept on working on the "Eisen" song which was a massive hit but it didn't become one for thirteen years? In 2019 Ryo is in the hospital which is another mystery, seems he's been there for a while and does that mean he doesn't have much time to live? Back to 2006, by a vote from their website and by the customers at Toko's father's Ramen shop "Orange" is the song the group will create a video for but it will just star Yuki and Ryo. Toko will direct it and Shiori will be her assistant, she's always nervous in front of a camera so Shiori didn't mind not appearing in the video. 

 Seeing as how that filming took place in the last two minutes we have no clue if the audition judges gave the "Orange" video a high mark. That you'll learn about in the recap for episode five, if they pass then they have to perform live in the second stage of the audition. Should have that recap along with the one for the sixth show this weekend. At 21 minutes in length these are definitely not long shows so they're easier to write up so perhaps all ten episodes can be recapped by the end of next week. It's certainly not a must watch drama but I'm finding it quite enjoyable.