Love and Chocolate in "Romantics Anonymous"

Ha Na Lee ( Hyojoo Han) is a young woman working as a chocolatier specializing in specialty bonbons for a chocolate company called Le Sauveur . Due to a childhood traumatic experience, she cannot look people in the eye and has severe anxiety about being in public and socializing with people. 

Because of this, she has a hard time trying to get a job, but through the kind understanding of the old owner and chef of La Savuer, Kuroiwa (Okuda Eiji),  who takes her under his wing and hires her in his kitchen, she becomes his apprentice and a genius in her own right creating confections!

Understanding about her malady, he makes a deal with her and the chocolate shop, where Ha Na will be allowed to make her creations in the privacy of her own kitchen and then deliver it anonymously to the shoppe!

This agreement works out fine for both the company and for Ha Na, that is, until the Le Sauveur’s head chef and owner passes away, leaving he company to be taken over by a huge conglomerate confectionary company called Futago Confectioners.

 This company is to be run by Sosuke Fujiwara (Shun Oguri), a young businessman who is making his way in his company and has a great deal invested in the success of this absorption. He also harbors a secret: like Ha Na, he ALSO has a phobia developed from a childhood event- his is the phobia of germs and of human touch!

His first order of business with this new Chocolate shop is to manage all outside distributors, and  when he sees that one is from an anonymous and undisclosed supplier, he immediately orders all business with her cut off!

Stunned at the news, Ha Na bravely makes her way to the company in order to plea her case, but her awkward manner and inability to look anyone in the eye causes everyone to think she’s there to apply as a new candy confectioner! And as NO ONE knows that she’s  the supplier that has just been cut, she ends up taking the job!

Ha na's first day is hard as she struggles to work without looking anyone in the eye, and she feels she jsut cannot do it. But when she bursts into President Fujiwara’s office to call it quits, she crashes RIGHT INTO HIM flyting into the air and stumbling to the ground!

Scrambling to get up, both of them realize a staggering fact: Ha Na can look right into Fujiwara’s eyes and not flinch- and Fujiwara can be touched by Ha Na without any adverse reactions!

They do not know how, but somehow when they are dealing with each other, their psychological maladies do not flare up at ALL!

This creates a bond between the two that they cannot share with any other person in the world and makes for a lively partnership! And it’s a good thing too, because it will take both of their skills to get Le Sauveur back on tis feet and become the huge success Fujiwara knows it can be!

So far ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS is a fun and sweet show (pun intended) with leads with great chemistry and a great support cast which includes both Yuri Nakamura and Jin Akanishi as romantic interests of sorts for the two leads....

We'll see when this drama goes!

A Calculated Revenge: Miss King

Ahhh, Japan does love its' revenge flicks, and here we have the latest with MISS KING, a tale of revenge set against the backdrop of Shogi. Our Story:

Asuka Kunimi (actress Non) is the daughter of a famous shogi player named Soichi Yuki (Shido Nakamura II). A grandmaster in his field, he is loved and respected by all, and Asuka lives an happy young life with him and her mother Keiko (Kaoru Okunuki).

That is until Soichi’s great defeat at an important event and his subsequent fall from grace within the Shogi Chess community thereafter- after the devastating loss, he struggles to regain his foothold and began to take it out on his family. Believing them to be a hindrance to his reinstation, He abuses them both physically and mentally until he ultimately submits divorce papers to Keiko and abandons them, erasing them from his life forever.

Years pass by. And in time Soichi is able to regain his place in the shogi world and make his way back to the top in even grander fashion as a top master and even author. Soichi has remarried and is living a life of wealth and fame with his new wife Kaori (Sayaka Yamaguchi) and son Tatsuya (Shoot Mori)… but for Asuka and her mother, things haven’t been so good. 

Since being abandoned by Soichi, poverty, debt, and health problems have been continually plaguing them as they struggle to get though the days.Though Mom Keiko always kept positive with a smile for her daughter, Asuka has had nothing but a deep resentment for the man that left them, a man who will not even aknowledge them when her Mother is dying and Asuka begs for financial help.  And when her Mother finally passes away from illness, Asuka falls into black despair.

Having to watch this man she once knew as her father and his family boasting his successes with his grandmaster title and glorious new family in in the media and in his books , and with nothing  now left to live for, makes up her mind that before she dies, she will meet up with the man who abandoned her and her mother…and KILL him!

There is to be a grand tournament with Yuki  Soichi in a highly promoted event for a championship, and Asuka decides it is time to act. On the fateful day, she makes her way to the event and blends into the background crowd. Hiding in the wings, Asuka withdraws the huge knife in shaky hands and in a crazed fashion, begins stumbling out to the stage.

Her murderous plans are halted when she is stopped by a man named Seigo Todo (Naohito Fujiki). Like Asuka, he seems to have some kind of grudge against Soichi Yuki, but advises that killing the grandmaster with a knife is not the way to get her revenge.

He explains to her that if Yuki is murdered at the peak of his game, he will be elevated to deity-like status and loved and worshipped even MORE. No, the only way to truly slay the king, he says, is to defeat him on his own terms- on the platform and at the shogi board. Only a defeat there can truly kill him.

 

And when he sees Asuka gravely playing against her father’s chess moves on a nearby shogi board, he realizes that this angry young girl may have the power within her to do just that- to rise up to the Master’s level, and defeat him at the top!

But this is not so easily done. True, Asuka played much shogi as a child under her father, but she has not held a piece in years and must start from the very bottom and work her way back up. Only once she has attained “Kishi” status will she be able to go up against another master like her Father, and for that, she must become very, very strong and win every game set before her!

It seems an impossible task, but with the help of Todo and his friend Reiko Sakai (Kana Kurashina) to guide and support her, Asuka puts her future into their hands and slowly makes the first steps towards true retribution!