The (Un)Talented Miss Takano: Nanao in "Munou no Taka"

Nanao as the titular Takano-san.

 The zany "Muno No Taka" follows two Office workers who are looked down upon by their co-workers for their weaknesses, yet they both harbor strengths no one else can see...

Michito Hiwada (Akihisa Shiono) is a man with a mind for graphs, statistics and numbers, and is quite good with his predictions and assessments. But he is a jumpy bundle of nerves, and with his stammering and sloppy appearance, makes no one take him seriously or even listen to what he has to say, a real shortcoming for someone in outside sales! Though he is smart about his work, his constant scoldings by his superiors makes him dread every day at work.

Tsumeko Takano (Nanao) is the exact opposite: Svelte, stylish and brimming with confidence, she is someone who commands respect whenever she steps into a room, and one cannot help but get invested in anything she has to say...

However, this assessment is literally only skin deep, as her company soon finds that outside of her powerful illusion of intelligence, Takano is incompetent at every aspect of her job, from filing papers, organizing files, or even simply making copies on the xerox machine! Nonetheless, she faces each day with a huge smile and a twinkle in her eye as if she's just made employee of the month!

The company's supposed star...

...who can't even STAPLE papers together correctly!

Supervisor Hatoyama looks over the mess....

...but clueless Takano thinks she's done a good job!

It's all he can do to keep his patience!

Though their immediate superiors (Arata Iura, Asuka Kudo, Honami Sato) are trying their best to work with them despite their glaring flaws, their section chief (Katsumi Takahashi) is on his last straw with them and has plans to fire them if they don't improve.

When he hears this, Hiwada talks it over with Takano, and is shocked to find that despite this news of her impending doom, she remains positive about her future with the company. For a guy like Hiwada who worries about every day, he wishes he had some of her confidence...the things he could do if he were only HALF as self-assured as her!

Then, like a bolt out of the blue, he comes up with an inspiration: Teaming UP with Takano, taking her WITH him to his sales meetings, and using her POSITIVE ENERGY to work the deal in his favor!

"How would you like to join me in sales?"

????

The company has huge misgivings about trying something like this, but Hiwada points out that if they don't try, they lose the contract and the two of them will lose their jobs ANYWAY!  So their very futures are riding on this!

And so it is that the two venture out as sales partners of sorts, planning on using the strengths of each other to "boost" their chances!  

Takano takes the lead, starting the meeting with confidence and energy, relaxing the clients and making them eager for the sales-pitch...

...and once they begin asking about the specific details, Hiwada steps in with his concise information and assessments. And when he starts to falter, Takano is right there to bring back up the mood of the room!

With this remarkable strategy, they unbelievably SEAL the DEAL!! it's the first victory for BOTH of them!

With their very first sale under their belts, their jobs have been saved for just one day longer, and this looks like the beginning of a BEAUTIFUL partnership! But how long can it last? And what ELSE might develop from this teaming up?  Only time will tell!

PS: If I have one gripe about this show, it's the huge inconsistencies in Takano's intelligence. Depending on the situation, they'll make her either moderately competent and in others so dumb  that it's impossible she can even life life normally. Like in some scenes, she's be wasting time on her phone or browsing the web, but in the next episode she doesn't even know how to work the computer, click on icons, open folders and use apps... she doesn't even know what the MOUSE is, and I'm like "Brah, I just SAW her using the computer just fine in the episode before!" Let's get CONSISTENT here! 

"That's a mouse"

My only explanation is that they're going to later reveal that her stupidity is all an act for some reason and reveal she's actually a genius who is only pretending to be an ignoramus to hide/repress something bad, or she's an investigative agent placed in the company to infiltrate some kind of corruption or something...Make a lot more sense than this fluctuating intelligence, but I guess we'll see!

Roppongi Class おわり

Back in July, I did not think much about the first episode of Roppongi Class, likening it to a one-dimensional melodrama about the rich persecuting the poor, summing up my thought with these sentiments: 

"I only began watching [Roppongi Class] for the Yuko Araki goodness, and while she is very, very good in it, I REALLY don’t have the stamina to sit through another one of these “Corrupt People in Power Persecuting the Innocent” kind of dramas like the aforementioned "Hanzawa Naoki”… Unless this turns into some kick-ass movie a la “Fukushuu No Miboujin” where the persecuted parties are the ones with the upper hand and gleefully extract their revenge on the crooks, I’m probably going to pass on this one…"

WELL, fast forward to three months later, and Roppongi Class has delivered ALL of that, and MORE, making it one of the most amazing dramas I’ve seen and my vote for BEST of the SEASON! I’ve long said that what makes a good movie to me (or drama series), is the amount of scenes and passages that I just have to watch again.If there’s a drama that has lots of scenes that I like and want to rewatch, you can bet it will become a fave, and Roppongi Class has it in SPADES! This drama is simply OVERFLOWING with incredible dialog, gripping scenes and emotional moments!

Another thing I found wonderful was how DENSELY packed this drama was, so much themes, motifs and mini-arcs going on within its borders… I had no idea how many ideas they had ‘bookended” until, one by one, they all wonderfully resolved by the show’s last episode.

Not just story arcs, but the characters themselves- absolutely NO ONE was wasted in this show. Every character who is introduced in this show, from the Cops, Criminals, Businessmen and Con Artists, all of them “go” somewhere within the story, and I was impressed how they managed to tie it ALL up for a HIGHLY and WONDERFULLY satisfying conclusion!

Though in my first watch I noted how Actor Teruyuki Kagawa always played these powerful bad guys as to be almost typecast, I MUST say that as the show went on and I saw how much of the show's "stakes" hinged on believing the evil and POWER of the antagonist, I realized there were few actors who could carry such a HEAVY role with such command, and in it, he was BRILLIANT!!!

And I can’t finish this praising of Roppongi Class without GUSHING about incredible Yurina Hirate, the sole person whom, to me, was the absolute “heart’ of the show, and it was so sweet to watch her go from a flighty  and arrogant waif to someone who becomes the rock of the group!!!

I remember at the time of the first few episodes, hamanosilence said:

"Techi will probably be the Kataomoi Character here which seems to be the most interesting so far, even though the whole brat with an attitude is a bit too much in the beginning."

The “brat" thing WAS a bit much, but sure enough, this prediction TRULY came to fruition when she became one of the most vibrant and DAZZLING characters EVER, taking me for a LOOP and KNOCKING me OUT, as evidenced in my feverish GUSH about her weeks ago! I simply can’t imagine ANY other person playing Aoi!! (PS: Why in the world is Yurina Hirate called “Techi????”)

I originally watched this show in a smaller file format (hardsubbed by the amazing Citrine Subs team), but I am really going to have to get ahold of HQ file copies- This is a wonderful, wonderful show, one that I will be rewatching for years to come!

Enthusiastically posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com!