Is anyone’s head spinning with how fast Asahina appears to have gone to the dark side? It’s like one moment he was all “lalala, I’m the bestest #2 ever in this world!” and then suddenly he’s all shifty and plotting Next Innovation domination. Simply because Sakaguchi called him a cowardly douchebag? I thought he would have known that already. Look, I’m all for some meaningful conflict, and I knew whatever seemingly happy functional working partnership Hyuga and Asahina had was clearly not as peachy as it looked on the surface. I’m just a little taken aback at when Asahina chooses to challenge Hyuga, he doesn’t even bother with a modicum of honorable competition. He flat out undermines him and schemes behind his back.
I don’t think Hyuga will be taken down this easily, especially not with his own cheer leading squad behind him consisting of one Makoto. I swear that girl stares moon eyes at him every minute of every day, and everyone can tell but him. I think Asahina turning evil makes Yoko’s interest in Hyuga all the more uncertain to predict. I still get the feeling that she genuinely likes him and did meet him on the train years ago, but I’m not sure how everything will shake out once her brother reveals his dastardly ways. I was hoping Asahina would straddle more gray areas, but oh well. I hope he doesn’t try to make a play for Makoto to drive a wedge between her and Hyuga. If he does that, I’ll wedge a stick up his behind where the sun don’t shine.
Written preview for episode 6:
Hyuga calls a press conference to discuss the leak of all the personal files. He explains that the leak of the personal files is currently being investigated, and there are no signs that any outside sources have breached their security network. But the Board of Directors continues to pressure Hyuga, and the stock price of the company plummets. This situation causes employees of Next Innovation to be walking on eggshells. Because the company still holds considerable amount of personal files, the company undertakes an investigation of all employees. Despite the surveillance camera footage, no one suspicious is spotted. Yamagami decides that they still need to hold on to the personal files until the new dies down. Makoto is asked to get an update about the investigation into the leak. At that time, Asahina brings up the fact that in two weeks, Makoto’s internship will be up and her contract over, so she shouldn’t be tasked with this matter. Makato wants to take on this project and asks to be allowed to do it, but Hyuga decides not to.
On the other hand, to increase patronage at the restaurant, Yoko decides to use the extra ingredients to run a cooking workshop. She asks her rival the sous chef to help create the menu. Makoto is busying preparing for the upcoming Board meeting and runs into Yoko. Makoto is very affected by what she thinks is Yoko and Hyuga’s relationship, and she wonders what will happen if Yoko becomes Hyuga’s wife. Hyuga is home depressed from the Board pressuring him to take responsibility for the leak. He calls Makoto, but she is with Asahina at the restaurant and doesn’t hear his call. At that time, Hyuga’s doorbell rings….
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Hi Koala! Thank you so much for introducing and recapping this drama. I have never watched a Japanese drama and reading your recaps got me curious. (= But.. just as a clarification, is this Episode 5 or Episode 6? Is there a recap for Episode 5? This drama is getting interesting. Thank you!
Haha.. sorry, this is a preview, NOT a recap. Disregard my message or delete it. (=
I was waiting for the recap cause ep. 5 left me with a big heart pain.
Is anyone’s head spinning with how fast Asahina appears to have gone to the dark side? - Mine! I don't like it at all.
i found a recap of ep 5 here http://bit.ly/RA31V1
Omo please don't tell me asahina will gi after makoto now, i'm sure that doorbell us yoko -_-*
I saw the preview for episode 6 and the last part of the written preview kind of explains what will happen.... -_-
"He calls Makoto, but she is with Asahina at the restaurant and doesn’t hear his call. At that time, Hyuga’s doorbell rings…."
Ding! And that moment in that preview, isn't it?! Damn it. If not, it would've been Makoto!!!! He called Makoto first! Why, the miss-timing?! Argh!
omo! I love your header..make me doki-doki :)
Ms. K thanks for the preview! I’ve been refreshing your page from time to time to check if there is a new entry for RMPW. Hehhehe!
I don't know if I can bear to watch the kiss between Yoko and Hyuga! My heart will surely broke. When are we going to see a kiss between OTP???!!! Whhha! Yoko the pinkberry is already leading with 2-0???!!!!
I don't understand Japanese and the episode's not subbed.
* SPOILERS *
- actually not sure since I don't understand Japanese but just in case.
But did Yoko just declare she liked him and he **** her? I was like ^%$#@^&*( I am so frustrated.
Sigh, can you tell I am addicted? Asahina is evil. How can he drop a cement block on his own foot? That guy, or the writer is nuts.
Thank you for the text preview... holy h... I'm still not over the last kiss and here comes another misplaced one already... breaking my heart. Hyuga looks like a lost puppy starving for affection.. and Yoko appears out of the blue. Faaaaan-tastic! :/ Geeeez.. Makoto should pay more attention to her phone! :O Asahina is going to make a move on her in the parking lot which she'll refuse, I think and then realize the boss called and she'll call him back but a step too late... Aigoo this is too much for my weak heart in this summer heat... :) but I keep coming back for more. Have been a while for me to be addicted to a jdrama... feels weird but I like it so far. :D
Omg you're right. When Hyuga was leaning in for a kiss, they showed his phone and makoto was calling him. Ugh. Why r they not together yet? Just quit the company and go plant tomatoes in the countryside.
Oh, oh! Can I hope for he stopped before planting the kiss, and takes the call? *beams*
me too.... hope he realize that a wrong girl and just take a phone, and get out from that place without looking back to Yoko
Oh my gosh, at that moment when Toru is leaning in I was flapping my hands and screaming that he had the wrong girl. I would actually ship Yoko and Toru if not for Makoto, because I think Yoko is a cute if misplaced character. At the very least, I DON'T want Asahina the ass making moves on Makoto - that girl has got to step up her game!
So we basically have a case of second lead syndrome.
Given Asahina's ambitious nature (read: when Hyuga refused to sell his original company/idea to the larger firm and attracting Ashina to begin with) I can see him going headlong into whatever nefarious scheme he has for Next Innovation but given how Next Innovation is essentially his "baby" just as it is Hyuga's I have to wonder how far he's willing to go to show Hyuga (and by extension the world) the kind of person he really is.
I'm curious a to why people seem to dislike Yoko. I know in their minds she's a fifth wheel in the Hyuga/Makoto OTP but beyond that what has she done that has caused such feelings? She generally seems to care about Hyuga (whether the initial training meeting happened or not). I presume people are now associating her motives with Asahin'a own and simply casting her as another "black" sheep and must be gotten rid of.
As for Yoko and her dram at the restaurant I'm not really sure what to say about it. It just seems as if the sous chef was passed over for Yoko's position and is trying to drive her out by being distracting/destructive to the business itself (oft used tactic really) but I'd rather this kind of drama be minimized if not someone do a Deathmatch and best Orzo Pilaf wins.
I like Yoko! sure she's quite boring, but at least she fights fair. I wish there was more of a point to the chef war scenes. Yoko and dude chef have chemistry but that isn't being taken advantaged of.
One thing more, i dont get why would people think that Yoko lies about their encounter in the train?
They most likely think she's playing off the fact that Hyuga has prosopagnosia and wouldn't remember her regardless. Given that she could implant a memory of their first meeting and to that extent show Hyuga just how long she's liked/waited for him to reciprocate those feelings.
I don't think it's so much that people dislike Yoko, it's just that she's incredibly boring and Hyuga/Makoto are so astoundingly interesting to watch what with all their adorableness and chemistry that people (including myself) perceive the Yoko storyline with increasing bitterness since it takes precious screentime from the HyMa couple.
ESPECIALLY anything and everything related to her god-forsaken restaurant. It's such a random side-plot that it's not clear why it is included at all, except as a time-filler. If this were a kdrama with 16 hour-long episodes, I'd be more forgiving. But given that it's a jdrama with around 10 45-minute episodes, I am upset with basically everything that takes the camera off of Hyuga and Makoto being cute. Yoko is the most egregious and irrelevant time-drain, thus the hate.
She's a second lead and even then they still need to give her some back story and/or reasons for the audience to care about her. So the sojourns to the restaurant and/or the drama surrounding her are all relevant to the overall story. Worse case scenario is when things between Hyuga & Yoko go south they can still muster some kind of story to give her a happy ending (even if it's with the sous chef).
Since you bring up KDramas you have to know that it's not always about the OTP having 100% of the screen time [this is true 100% of the time] so even if this is your first venture into JDramas it should have prepared you for a similar set up and/or resolution for the story, its characters, etc.
I am well aware that they are *trying* to make us care about Yoko by filling in her backstory and motivations, but for a lot of people (including myself and, it seems, many people here), they are not succeeding. I'm not trying to convert you to the "hate on Yoko" train, I'm just trying to explain what I perceive as the rationale behind the Yoko hate, since you asked.
The main problem IMO is that Yoko's backstory/current struggles are completely extraneous to the main storyline. Saying that her story time is relevant because of the tropes that exist for 2nd leads is missing the point, I think. There are many examples of 2nd leads who are integral to advancing the story. This is why in most workplace dramas, the 2nd lead is a career rival to the lead. It's an elegant way of increasing the stakes for all parties by integrating the romantic conflict into the non-romantic one. In this way, the 2nd lead serves not only to cement the leads' feelings for one another, but also to provide conflict that advances the non-romantic conflict. It's obviously not the only way to do it, but it's a formula that works well.
Here, since there's SO MUCH interesting, rich conflict to mine in the Next Innovation/Hyuga's hunt for birth mother/Makoto's ambition & attempts to carve out a career for herself/Makoto's budding relationship with Hyuga/Hyuga's transformation into a real human being who cares about other human beings, it's frustrating to see a significant portion of the screentime dedicated to advancing a substory that is completely irrelevant to what I consider the "meat" of the show. Particularly when, as with episode 5 & Asahina's betrayal of Hyuga, I feel that some of the more interesting conflict goes unexplored.
If this drama were established as a show about a rich, lonely, brilliant man's search for true love, then I wouldn't care about Yoko's restaurant storyline being given a lot of screentime because she would be more at the forefront of the conflict. But it's not. It's about Hyuga's friendship with Asahina and his relationship with Makoto and his search for his lost mother and his learning to be a leader of the staff of Next Innovation and learning how to get up when his ideas fail and getting smacked in the face with the politics of the workplace and learning more about his face recognition disease and it's also about Makoto's evolution from an oddball timid little jobless graduate to an empowered career woman and it's ALSO about Asahina's jealousy of Hyuga and his ambition and his power plays for the company. And that's not even scratching the surface.
I think the show already suffers a little from lack of focus, so given all of that, is it any wonder we're frustrated when the show navigates the completely unrelated and significantly less interesting restaurant conflict?
I definitely don't expect 100% of the OTP 100% of the time (though I certainly wouldn't mind it!), but I don't buy the argument that just because a character is introduced to the story, that character is relevant to the story. What has Yoko accomplished narratively so far in relation to the primary Next Innovation/Hyuga plot? She's romancing the main lead and, in so doing, sort of preventing (or at least slowing) the main character from recognizing his attraction to the female lead. But can you see how inactive that is? She's holding the plot back rather than pushing it forward. I'm guessing as the Asahina/Hyuga conflict beefs up, Yoko might take on a more interesting narrative role in the drama. But as of right now, that's about it.
@semi-fly: I would also like to reiterate that Yoko's language reveals her to be a rather charming character. In fact, I quite loved her in the first episode. She's a bold, smart, no-nonsense woman. But we have other charming characters who I care more about, so given that she's a total narrative sideline to the plot, I have no patience anymore for her storyline.