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!

A Tale Of Two Specials: "Dekinai Futari"

So I watched the Special “Dekinai Futari”, starring Maika Yamamoto and Mizuki Itagaki as two competing co-workers who hate each other's guts (but of course secretly like each other), and after finishing, I went onto Mydramalist to check it off…

Dekinai Futari

...only to find there was another Dekinai Futari SP called “Muzukyun-hen”. 

What the heck was this?
Thought it was a spin off or perhaps even a complete series attached to it, but reading the synopsis description of the show and looking at the screencaps, it seemed like the EXACT SAME Special I had just finished watching???  What WAS this?
Fortunately for my confusion,  a reviewer in the comments section pointed out that the first SP (called Dizukyun-hen) was a truncated version of a longer special, and that was Muzukyun-hen. They explained that in the longer version, more time was made to set up scenes, characters and relationships, etc, so I knew I had to get it!

WELL, just finished watching it and MAN, more than being a longer version of the first, it was almost like the other HALF of it! One special focusing on Maika's side and the other on Mizuki's, and BOTH specials had scenes NOT in the other! You really needed to see BOTH to get the complete picture!

 
Very glad I watched both, and though, admittedly, Dekinai Futari is a VERY cliched and rote storyline, the leads really hammed it up in their spazzy ways as two awkward and frustrated dorks destined for love…and of course, the MAIKA YAMAMOTO goodness is on full blast!!!

That's ALWAYS a good reason to watch!