Living No Matsunaga-San

 A  girl named Miko Sonoda (Hikaru Takahashi) finds out that her family is moving to another town just as she is about to start her graduation year at high school. Desperate to finish her school semester here with her friends, she moves in to a share house run by her uncle. While there she meets the gruff but reliable Jun Matsunaga ( Kento Nakajima) who, though they get off on the wrong foot,  eventually ends up standing in as her guardian while her parents are away.  In this close living situation, will romance soon follow? Well, what do YOU think, LOL. Seems to be a typical share house drama set-up, but Hikaru Takahashi is her usual adorable self so may be worth tuning in!

Catching Up With Fuka Koshiba in "Kanojo wa Kirei Datta"

I had forgotten ALL about the latest Fuka Koshiba drama “Kanojo wa Kirei Datta~She Was Pretty” which I’d anticipated earlier this year on checking out, happily when I found it,it had long since completed its run and was all nice and subtitled for me to immediately dig in and enjoy!!

When she was a young girl, Ai Sato had rescued and befriended a bullied boy named Sosuke Hasebe. Back then, Ai was a pretty, affluent girl and Sosuke was a hapless and overweight kid. But they connected and became fast friends! In a way, Sosuke was Ai’s first love, and she was saddened when he and his family moved away to the USA. 

In that time, fortune has not been so kind to the Sato family. A scandal caused them to lose their wealth, and as she grew up, the young Ai lost her feminine features she got from her mother and began taking over her homely father’s traits instead!!  By the time we’ve caught up to her in the present day, Ai is a frumpy tomboy (Fuka Koshiba) with little regard to beauty or finesse, with a clumsy, spazzy demeanor, ill-fitting and tacky clothes, and a radiantly awful tangle of hair! LOL!

As a waitress in a busy izakaya, Ai knows full well how much physical beauty and social skills can elevate any person’s favor, and sees how well the attractive staff are treated as opposed to the gangly Ai.  When the kind-hearted Ai steps in to defend a pretty employee from a drunken customer’s advances, of course SHE is the one who gets in trouble and is almost unsurprised when she is told she is fired. 

Ai does have one bright spot in her life, and it’s her best friend Risa Kiriyama (a svelte Yui Sakuma) whom Ai has been living with. When Ai arrives home, she is stunned to find that Risa is the only one (including Ai herself) who remembered that it is her birthday. Such friends are they!!

 One evening Ai gets an email that sends her feelings into high gear- it is her childhood friend Sosuke who is returning to Japan and wants to meet up with her. Ai is delighted with the reconnection and they make plans to meet up the next day. 

 Ai is on pins and needles as she makes her way to the meetup place, but her happiness turns to despair when, far from the fat kid she remembered, she sees that Sosuke is now a sharp and stylish looking young man (Kento Nakajima)!!

 Ai is mortified to meet up with him in her present state but tries to make the best of it. But as she approached Sosuke, he mistakes a beautiful women off to the side as Ai!!! It’s then that Ai realizes Sosuke remembers her as the pretty young girl and expects the grown-up Ai to be just as stunning! 

 In a panic, Ai flees, but, feeling guilty for abandoning him, coerces Risa into PRETENDING to be HER, if only to save Sosuke from being jilted.  And of course, Sosuke, believes Risa is Ai!!

 The two go to dinner, and Ai has a time coaching Risa on what to say whenever Sosuke begins reminiscing about their childhood. Risa, of course, can’t go on pretending to be Ai, so she tells Sosuke that she’s moving to the UK the following day and so this will be the last time they can meet up. The trick seems to work, but there will be much complications in the days to come…

 In the meantime, Ai gets some good news- she’s just been hired as a temp for a publishing house! On the way up, she meets with a young man named Takuya Higuchi (Eiji Akaso) who is smitten by the scatterbrained Ai and her “Michael Jackson looking” fashion sense (LOL). 

 She begins her first day as a gofer in earnest, but when she takes some work to the floor where Fashion Magazine The MOST takes place. 

Unfortunately, the staff thinks she’s the new proofreader and gives her an unending stream of tasks to do! 

 By the time it’s all been sorted out, The MOST has asked to officially take in Ai as their employee for the three week trial, mostly due to the recommendation of editorial staffer Higuchi who remembers Ai from her Jackson shoes! 

 As the daughter of a print business, Ai knows proofreading and does a fine and fast job, and she thinks she can make a go of it…until they announce a new boss coming in from America…and of course, It’s SOSUKE himself! 

 She’s nervous as hell and desperate for him not to notice her, but she needn’t have worried: he thinks so lowly of her that he doesn’t even begin to recognize Ai as his childhood friend. Even when he sees she’s got the same NAME as his friend the differences are too vast to ever cross his mind! 

 Her nervousness around him makes her more klutsy than ever, and he begins to have a real dislike for this jumpy girl. And when he cruelly berates her, she believes that the loveable childhood friend she once has is truly gone. And with this resolve, she decides to forget about him and make the most of the job! 

 Fuka Koshiba strikes again!!! Is there ANYONE more charismatic than Ms Koshiba these days?! so wonderfully fun, spritely and SPAZZY, you just can’t take your eyes off her!I can already tell that this is gonna be one that I’m gonna DIG! 

 Besides the fun and heartfelt moments, one thing I really like about the show is the friendship not between Ai and Sosuke but the one between Ai and Risa. Who wouldn’t wish to have a best friend like Risa, and who wouldn’t want a dear friend like Ai? They are always supporting each other, when Ai gets fired, Risa is there for support and when she gets hired, they both jump around with delight! 

I really loved this one scene where Risa is plum tuckered out and falls asleep on the couch…and Ai takes her head in lap and removes all her makeup for her. So touching!!!!

I just hope they’re not establishing their close friendship because they intend for them to become enemies due to this stand-up Cyrano de Bergerac business where they end up falling out due to both falling in love with the guy, etc...

Cautiously optimistic!!!