Up In The Air with "Nice Flight"

Airport-based Romcom featuring a young pilot named Sui Kurata (Yuta Tamamori) who finds a connection to the voice of an air-traffic tower controller when she guides he and his co-pilot Nanami Kitami (Michiko Kichise) out of a tense landing situation.

Drawn to the soothing and concise voice during his missions, he becomes obsessed with finding the woman behind the voice in hopes of thanking her for her service…little does he know but he’s already bumped into her!

Her name is Mayu Shibuya (Anne Nakamura), and though she is stoic and sure-footed behind the microphone of the Air Traffic tower, she is a gruff and introverted person outside, and after literally bumping into Kurata outside, has decidedly negative feeling towards him!

During a goukon (of sorts) which CA Rikako (Tomoka Kurokawa) has put together (to hook up with a mechanic James (Ukon Onoe), LOL), both Kurata and Shibuya are rooked into attending, and when he realizes both Shibuya and new trainee Kasumi Kawahara (Tina Tamashiro) work in the control tower, Kurata asks if any of them know the woman behind the voice.

Though both girls know it is Shibuya that Kurata is looking for, they say not a word, and in fact Kurata manages to get even further under Shibuya’s skin!

Things could have been left at that, but when Shibuya’s bicycle chain breaks as she's ready to go home, Kurata takes it upon himself to repair it, and a truce is made. For the first time, Shibuya can see the good side of him!

It’s during this short time that they make a connection between each other, alas it is seemingly too late as the crafty Kawahara, who is interested in Kurata, has lied and taken credit as the woman whose voice he was looking for! (Nooooo Tina!!!!)

A fairly basic Airport drama of which we’ve seen many times, I suspect the bulk of this show will be the usual: irate or incapacitated passenger problems, prideful or put-out personnel, etc, however it features a nice cast and I’ve been looking forward to seeing Anne Nakamura branch off into bigger roles like this!

PS: While I was anticipating this drama for the Anne Nakamura goodness, I had no idea Tina Tamashiro was going to be a part of it til she tweeted out some behind the scenes pics on her twitter before the first episode!!

Awww, so glad to be seeing her again, even though it seems a very naughty role at that!

Just what are you up to, Tina?!

Itoshii Uso: Yasashii Yami

 The new mystery drama Itoshii Uso: Yasashii Yami reminds me a lot of the 2013 drama Gekiryu~Watashi wo Oboete Imasuka? as both begin with an almost identical plot:
In Gekiryu, Five High school friends reunite when they get a mysterious message from a  fellow classmate who disappeared 20 years ago, saying only a cryptic “Do You Remember Me?”
In the same way, Itoshii begins with six High School friends reuniting after 20 years, and when they open up  a time capsule, they see a cryptic one-sentence message from a fellow classmate who disappeared 20 years ago, “I’ll never Forget You All”…
Itoshii Uso: Yasashii Yami stars Haru as Mio Imai, a struggling Mangaka whose meek and mild manner results in her pushed around by those around her. Though she clenches her fists below the table, she never fights back.

 She is called out of the blue by a former classmate of hers, Amemiya, (whom she had a secret crush on in school) to be receptionist for a class reunion, which she does without complaint, and is reunited with her group of friends from her childhood.

There is Reiko Honda (Yuika Motokariya), always the brains of the group and now a lawyer,

Nanae Iwasaki (Yua Shinkawa), the class princess and now an instagram darling,

Yumi Nose (Tomoka Kurokawa), the levelheaded one and now married,

Ryo Fukuzawa (Junpei Mizubata), now a novice wine maker in his family’s company,

and finally, Shuichi Amemiya (Kento Hayashi) always the most popular of the gang and now a company president.

On the surface everyone seems happy and succesful, but as we go deeper, we find that all of them are having hard situations they must deal with...

 At the reunion the class goes to dig up a time capsule they buried years ago. And at the bottom of the box is the lone note left by the boy named Mizuki, saying he'll never forget them. 

But who exactly WAS this boy? When he is brought up, everyone clams up, and there is a shroud of darkness about him. 

It seems everyone has dark secrets he or she is keeping from the others in the group...And when one of their classmates is brutally murdered, the reunited students have to accept that the murderer may be ONE OF THEM!

This was probably the drama I most anticipated for this season's new releases, but while it's certainly intriguing (hope they continue as a straightforward mystery and not the Shinhannin Flag type of "fake out" red herrings each episode which are so tiresome already), one difference between this and the aforementioned Gekiryu Watashi wo Oboete Imasuka is that unlike Gekiryu, which showed the closeness of the classmates, I really have a hard time believing Haru and these others are friends of any kind, past or present. In fact, most of them are resentful and confrontational towards each other, making it feel like they have no bond whatsoever. All their friendly interactions seem forced to me. Maybe I'm SUPPOSED to be feeling this? I don't know, but I hope this disbelief about their friendship doesn't affect the overall story...