Sei Shiraishi Returns in "Shimobee"

Just began “Shimobee”, a very cute and entirely zany school comedy about a schoolgirl and her seeming Guardian Angel!  A lone man (Ken Yasuda) stands guard atop a hill like Batman presiding over his Gotham City.We do not know who he is, where he came from, and he utters not a word. But as we will soon see, he is a capable man of action!

At the same time, two schoolgirls are being harassed by a bunch of thugs. They are Yurina Kamoshida (Sei Shiraishi) and Aki Kitajima (Honoka Miki Yahagi) and the moment they are trying to get back Yurina’s phone which has been snatched by one of the guys.

As he waves it in front of her face, Yurina sees a curious app on her phone, and instinctively she cries out “Shimobee!”

At that moment miles away, the mystery man hears the call…and immediately springs into action!

The thugs are closing in on the hapless Yurina and Aki when the unnamed man leaps in between them…and makes QUICK WORK of the young punks!

The two girls don’t quite know WHAT to make of this odd man as he dusts off Yurina’s phone and hands it back to her. But before they can ask, he dashes off to his next quest!

How did this all come to be? Yurina thinks she has an idea. A few days back, she was browsing around on her phone (looking at pastry instagram pics, LOL) and an app called "Shimobee~A Convenient App for Helping You" appears… "I’ll help whenever you’re in trouble” it states, and without her prompting, installs itself onto her phone! From then the app has sat on her phone but until she saw it today, she never thought about actually using it for help!

WELL, upon hearing the explanation from Yurina, Aki doesn’t believe that the man is part of some strange app program who’ll help them when they’re in a fix,  but just then they realize they don’t have enough money to pay for their desserts. 

They don’t know what to do…and of course it’s then that they mystery man reappears in front of them!

Striding over to their table, he slaps a handful on change onto the table…JUST enough to cover the remainder of the bill!

From that day on, it seems that whenever Yurina is in trouble, the mystery man is there whether is be holding back pestering guys or even just to hand over an umbrella in a sudden rain…

A guardian angel might be JUST what Yurina needs to make it- she has extremely poor studying skills and has just learned that if she doesn’t get it together for the final test, she’s going to FLUNK and repeat the year!!! 

She also has to deal with the unwanted advances of another classmate Reo Tada (Shuichiro Naito) whom Aki is in love with and when she sees him going after Yurina, gives her the cold shoulder.

That would be hard enough, but just then a transfer student appears in class. His name is Tatsuma Sasaki (Daichi Kaneko), and though she doesn’t immediately remember him, her mother (Akiko Yada) informs Yurina that the two were friends when they were little!

The next day Yurina happily confronts Tatsuma, but discovers that he has become a cold and stand-offish kind of guy who wants nothing to do with her!

Poor Yurina has to deal with heartbreak from this rejection from Tatsuma, being ignored by Aki, and being harassed by Tada... With this and so many other problems afflicting her, Yurina’s Guardian Angel is going to have his hands FULL making sure she leaves each day with a smile on her face!

This drama reminded me soooo much of the 2018 drama “Tantei ga Hayasugiru” With Alice Hirose as the student and Kenichi Takito as the schleppy guardian angel set to guide and protect her at all costs! Looks to be a FUN one!!