Notes on "Muchaburi!: Watashi ga Shachou ni Naru Nante"

 Hinako Takanashi (Mitsuki Takahata) is the harried yet highly efficient assistant to a company president named Hiroto Asami (Shota Matsuda) who keeps her busy following his eccentric directives! 

While she is regarded by the employees as Asami’s “yes man” who seems to kiss up to him and lick his boots, in reality she is laid back and realistic girl who spends her evenings chilling with a beer in hand playing video-games while she rants to herself about how the President is driving her CRAZY with his demands, forcing her to clash with employees and even walking his pets!!

Takanashi already knows to expect curveballs when dealing with the flighty Company boss, even she isn’t prepared when one day he announces that one of her submissions (made early in her career when she still had a zest for it) has been chosen- a new foray into the world of restauranting…and he has chosen HER as its new PRESIDENT!

Takanashi is naturally flabbergasted to hear the announcement and constantly tries to beg off the offer. But the President seems to believe in her (though he may have some ulterior motives, he’s acting very fishy) and wants to see what she can do!

If Takanashi is surprised, it’s nothing compared to fellow company man Ryo Taiga (Jun Shison) who submitted what he (and others) feel is the superior proposal and is stunned by the President’s choice in installing this obvious novice into the rank of Leader!

Even more insulting as that he is transferred into being part of Takanashi’s new team, along with Miyauchi (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa),Tanabe (Shugo Oshinari) and Miyama (Maho Yamada) who are all gathered to make her new project go through!

But it will be an uphill battle, for Takanashi has neither the knowledge or the authoritative voice to solve problems when they clash with the former restaurant chef and staff, and at one point it seems all will be lost. But between it all, her sincerity comes through, and if she can just believe in herself, maybe she can get others to follow her lead as well!

When the drama began, I thought it was going to be like the Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock movie “Two Weeks Notice”, following the hijinks of a eccentric boss and his eternally set-upon assistant, but the thing about taking over the restaurant was a 180 degree turn and I realized it was gonna be more Grand Maison Tokyo...
NOTES:
I know I’ve said this before, but Mitsuki Takahata is such a great actress. While watching this, I thought to myself, “it’s been awhile since I saw her in anything,” before remembering I had JUST watched her in “Iribito”- that’s how much I believed her character in that show. Dark and brooding, it was like a COMPLETELY different actress!

Guess that dude  Sho Kasamatsu from "Eroi Kareshi ga Watashi wo Madowasu" is going to be some love interest or rival or something, as he's introduced and a big deal is made of their meeting...

Also pretty funny to see Jun  Shison here as the uptight and brooding restaurant concept man- the last time I saw him was as the uber-incompetent in “Heaven Gokurau Restaurant, would have been something to see what one character woulda thought of the other!!!
Oh, and in another “Deja-Vu” sighting, that office garden that Takanashi always goes up to (where she clashes with Ryo Taiga)...

Is the same one used in the drama Kaseifu no Nagisa San with Mikako Tabe and Maryjun Takahashi!

Gosh, look at the grass in Nagisa san! Hmm, comparing the two, I see that the garden, which was at first so green, is in dire need of some watering! Or maybe it's just winter....

Poison Daughter, Holy Mother

By the title, I thought this drama would be featuring stories of clashing Mothers and Daughters, but it turned out to be more about perspective, with time dedicated to both the protagonist side and the antagonist side so you see how things are never as simple as black and white.

The first story is “Poison Daughter”, about an actress named Yumika Fujiyoshi (Rika Adachi) who has been raised with a seemingly dominating “Poison Mother” (Shinobu Terajima) who overprotects her to the point of controlling every aspect of her life including film choices and even her love life.

The Second chapter is called “Holy Mother” in which we see things from the Mother’s side this time and find that all her actions had in fact been protecting  Rika from bad things. (Personally I think they went overboard to portray the mother as kind and caring when she obviously wasn’t in Part One, and to paint Yumika as the selfish and uncaring one)

Chapter Three "Sinful Woman" involves the tale of a kind young girl named Yukina Amano (Kaya Kiyohara) who befriends an abused boy named Masayuki in her apartment complex. She is always there to care for him and look out for him like a sister, and is thrilled when she bumps into him as an adult(Yuto Takahashi). She hopes to reconnect, and she is shocked when Masayuki snaps and goes on a mass-murdering spree in a shopping mall.

Yukihiro is put in jail, and through interrogation, we see the relationship with Yukina from his point of view… and find things aren’t quite the same as Yukina remembers it.

Chapter Four "Best Friend": When upcoming screenwriter Suzuka Sazanami (Yuri Nakamura) is knocked out of first place for a prestigious award that would get you work on a new drama, she is at first happy with second place…til she sees the winner.

Kaoruko Omaniuda (Maho Yamada) is an awkward novice who doesn’t know the first thing about the television business and has seemingly won the prize simply because it was a true story of her husband’s cancer and death.

Yet despite Kaoruko’s inexperience, she keeps succeeding upward, while Suzuka keeps struggling every day to even get her name mentioned. This fuels an intense jealousy in Suzuka and she becomes obsessed with making Kaoruko fail.

It’s here that the series takes an interesting turn and begins referring back to the past episodes and we see each story is in this same universe!

A book “Slave Of Love” that the Television studio is hoping to develop is the same drama that Yumika Fujioshi tries to get in episode one-

wehn short of ideas, Suzuka  sees news coverage of the shopping mall murder from episode 3 on TV and suggests they write a story about that.

And  the huge drama that Omamiuda writes to great success is the movie that Yumika Fujioshi stars in at the end of episode 2!!!

Pure GENIUS how they tie all the stories together!!!

Chapter Five "Kind Woman": We have Kana Kurashina as a girl who is too kind to everyone and ends up being accused of murdering her inept co-worker at a company barbecue...

...and the final episode "My Dearest" deals with Ayumi Ito as a woman who can only confide in her cat!

A wonderful, thought provoking series.