I came for the Japanese food but stayed for the food for thought.
If you liked the travelogue drama, “One Day Off,” then you should give this Japanese drama a try. There are 10 half-hour-long episodes. Thanks, @FGB4877, for recommending it.
According to google-translate, the title, “Shitsuren Meshi” means “Heartbreak Meal.” The main premise of the dorama is this: there are many ways to begin and end love. But one thing constant, no matter how love ends, is food. Delicious food uplifts the soul even one that’s suffering from a heartache. This show is about “heartbreak on a plate.”
The female protagonist is a manga illustrator. She goes around town looking for inspiration for her heartbreak meal stories. As of Episode 3, she has three eccentric officemates and one budding relationship with a florist. I don’t know how this dorama will end since I’ve only watched three episodes.
I’ll update my list as I watch more episodes.
Episode 1
Featured food: Saba Miso
Food for thought: “There are still more experiences that I’m unaware of, with both Saba Miso and love encounters.”
Meaning, a newly single person still has many opportunities yet to discover. Just as there are plenty more delicious Sabo Miso dishes to taste, there’s a variety of relationships to enjoy. So a heartbroken person shouldn’t give up on happiness and give in to dark thoughts.
This episode reminds me of a pared-down “Babette’s Feast” (1950). The theme is the same: great food is transformative. It can change a vengeful and bitter heart to a forgiving and hopeful one.
The saba miso:
Episode 2
Featured food: Yakitori
Food for thought: “Three years on a skewer, a lifetime on a grill.”
According to one of the patrons of the restaurant, that’s the code the yakitori chefs lived by. He then explains to a junior colleague that an apprentice chef may take up to three years to learn to prepare the skewers and skewer the meat evenly. But mastering the art of grilling requires even more trial-and-error while handling the charcoal fire. Life is like that, he says. Both the good and the bad make people better.
The yakitori:
Episode 3
Featured food: Negiyaki
Food for thought: “Every one of us has a flower that can cheer us up and make us smile.”
Meaning, we can cultivate humor from simple things. The female protagonist didn’t realize that she’d been walking around town with a negi (or spring onion) stuck between her teeth until she arrived home.
The negiyaki:
Episode 4
Featured food: Candied sweet potato (or Daigaku imo??)
Food for thought: Music can improve your mood.
Spoiler included.
A singer being interviewed on the radio remembers her inspiration for her debut song that she composed. Because no one was listening to her while she was busking on a footbridge, she was heartbroken. She was ready to quit. But then a young girl, a high schooler, appeared out of nowhere and handed her a cup of candied sweet potato. The young girl thanked her for playing music. She shared with the singer that she had her heart recently broken and was sad. But when she heard her song, her mood improved. The singer then composed a song about the whole encounter, “The Sky, the Potatoes, and the Footbridge.” And the song became a hit.
The young high schooler grew up to be the comic artist.
The candied sweet potato:
Episode 5
Featured food: Creamy crab croquettes
Food for thought: Comfort can be found in silence between companions.
Or as the comic illustrator narrated, “Sometimes you need a nudge on the back. And sometimes you just need a back rub. Sometimes the presence of someone who cares can be enough to help you. Like someone who’ll quietly eat croquettes right next to you.”
I like the hint of wedding. The daughter said that walking hand-in-arm with her father down the empty street is like a drill for her own big day in the future.
The creamy crab croquettes:
Episode 6
Featured food: Grilled soup dumplings
Food for thought: “You don’t have to forget her because unrequited love is part of who you are.”
The story of the broken-hearted fangirls had our comic artist Miki reminiscing about her high school days and reflecting on the upcoming nuptials of (I’m assuming) her ex. She said, “That period during high school is something special. Just like the beer remaining at the bottom of the mug, there was love left in the bottle. I’m pondering about ways to come to terms with the remnants of an old romance.”
She also learned that it’s tough to go through a heartbreak alone. But with the company of like-minded friends, wallowing in a heartbreak could be fun. Just like that old Danish proverb, “Suffering shared is suffering halved. Joy shared is joy doubled.” With the fangirls making a big production of their idol getting married, their heartbreak meal actually looked like an homage and a fan-meeting for him.
The grilled soup dumplings:
Episode 7
Featured food: Shutou carbonara
Food for thought: Time heals. Meanwhile, good food and good wine let you “savor the sting of a broken heart” in a charade of happiness.
Ah! Sato #3 is in love with the florist, too. I like the poetic way Sato #3 said that her rival (the comic artist) wasn’t that much different from her. In her own words, “the gap between us is no thicker than a sheet of letterhead or a page in a comic strip.”
The shutou carbonara:
Episode 8
Featured food: Yakisoba buns
Food for thought: Though weddings and reunions will constantly bring back memories of heartaches of being caught in between friendship and romance, friendship endures.
Over yakisoba buns, a friend of Miki the Illustrator confessed that (spoiler alert!) that the one she loved the most was the girl sitting next to her eating a yakisoba. The friend had suppressed her feelings for her to avoid destroying their friendship. Caught between romance and friendship, she chose friendship.
The yakisoba sandwiched in buns:
Updated: 8/14/2023
Episode 9
Featured food: Curry
Food for thought: “A chance encounter in the vastness of space. A chance romance. Sometimes things work out by chance, and sometimes they don’t. There’s something so human about letting these such trifles lift your spirits up or weigh them down.”
I think the alien mascot is the loneliest character in this dorama.
For one, he considers himself an alien. He sets himself apart from humans and he thinks he’s superior to humans when it comes to relationships.
Miki: Do aliens get heartbroken?
Alien guy: We don’t because we can’t fall in love. Unlike humans. Getting worked up over a crush or down over a heartbreak isn’t rational behavior. Humans are the only ones who indulge in the bothersome thing known as romance. But that’s also the cute part of humans.
He also said this —
Alien guy: Humans are notorious for doing troublesome things like grinding the fruits, seeds, and roots of plants into a powder, and stirring it together to then finally get to eat it.
All the while, he was also doing troublesome thing like putting a napkin around himself. These “troublesome” things are what we call rituals, customs, and traditions, and he’s not above practicing them himself.
For another, he has alienated himself from human experience, that is, he actually BELIEVES that his job as a mascot is his true identity. He doesn’t separate himself from his job.
At least, our cartoonist Miki does. Do you see how she “enters” her professional world? She takes out her hair tie from her pocket then ties her hair up in a ponytail. That’s her signal that she’s about to do work. She does this in the restaurant when she’s about to eavesdrop, and when she’s at home preparing to start her illustration. But on other times, like when she’s walking around the streets or visiting the shrine, her hair is down.
In contrast, the alien mascot is constantly in his gear. He even ate the grilled dumpling with his head mask on. I was fully expecting him to eat the curry with the heavy gear, too. And I was surprised that he removed it. I noted that he was quite adept eating with chopsticks and unfolding his napkin with his alien hands.
To me, he chose to alienate himself, literally and metaphorically, because the alien world was much safer than falling in love again. He revealed towards the end that he suffered a heartache. He was pretty excited sharing his story to Miki once he found out that she was the famous writer.
In this sense, he must have felt a kindred spirit with the florist. They both like to observe love from afar after going through a heartache.
The curry:
Episode 10
Featured food: Cabbage rolls
Food for thought: Just like it takes effort to overcome a heartache, it also takes effort to cultivate love.
Let’s reverse the premise of this dorama. In the beginning, the cartoonist Miki said this, “There are many ways to start love. There are also many ways to end love. However, one will still get hungry no matter how that love ends. The taste of the meal is what lifts the spirits after a heartbreak. Heartbreak on a plate.”
I got that. Food nourishes and renews not only the hungry body but also the tired soul.
But I was inspecting to see the flipside and I wasn’t disappointed. The last episode began with Miki making a short list of things people can do to get over a heartache, like
Drinking water was if replacing their cells
Swinging out all their worries (in a batting cage)
Binge-shopping and ignoring the limits
Shouting loudly as if breaking out of their shells
And eating delicious meals.
But just as there are many ways to overcome heartbreak, there are also many ways to pursue love, like the super-fast, stealth way that Sato #3 and Sato #4 fell in love, or the slow-burn romance of Miki and the florist.
No matter how love is found or gained, hunger is universal. The taste of the meal enhances the mood of a couple in love. Love on a plate. Or as Sato #3 said, “Mutual Love on a plate.”
To me, eating together with a loved one is one of the simplest yet most memorable pleasures in life. The wow factor in these foods came neither from the expensive ingredients nor from the “novelle cuisine.” None of the food Miki tried out was from fancy, Michelin-starred restaurants. She ate at small, local restaurants. But the experience became memorable for her because the food was cooked to perfection, and the company and conversation she had made an impact on her.
I also believe that the way a person digs into her food and relish every morsel is predictive of the way she abandons herself to love. That’s why the extreme close-up of Miki’s mouth, as well as the other diners’, as they chewed the food looked suggestive to me. Lol. Me and my dirty mind….
The cabbage roll:
I can’t help noticing that we started with a very dark dish, the saba miso, which matched the mood of the angry and bitter girl, and ended up with the cabbage roll. Its light green color is suggestive of spring, budding romance and hearts in bloom.
Overall, I consider this dorama an amuse-bouche. Each episode could be consumed in one bite. There was no heavy sauce (or melodrama) to hide the plot. Thus, the characters and themes could shine. The screenwriter and director showcased their skills by turning what could have been another boring slice-of-life drama into a funny and quirky advice to the lovelorn. Just as an amuse bouche isn’t meant to fill our stomachs, this dorama whetted my appetite for more dramas with an uplifting view of reality.
Hi @pkml3, the premise is cute. I enjoy Japanese food a great deal. I watched Episode 1 … came for the food and hope to stay for everything LOL. Gotta run! 🙂
Hmm… it’s happening again? I didn’t get an email confirmation that I subscribed to this thread. Let me try again.
Well, I’m still not getting my email notifications, but I did breeze through 5 episodes of this quirky series, and now I’m feeling ravenous for those Japanese dishes!
I added Ep 4.
Did you get the notification for this post, @GB?
Hi @pkml3. I’m afraid no, I did not get any notifications, in particular for this thread.
Let me post on one of the Hidden Love threads and see if I get a notification there.
Episodes 1-4
I thought at first that our protagonist, Kimimaru Miki (or Miki for short) had had no experience of heartbreak herself, as she scoured the streets and shrine for examples of people with heartbreak stories to draw from for her manga. She did not even seem to know what places sold delicious versions of the various foods or what food to feature in her manga.
But in Ep 4, we find that both she and the busking musician had commiserated with each other over candied sweet potatoes. So she did at least have 1 experience of heartbreak, but perhaps she had forgotten it, especially after eating the candied potatoes? LOL.
Because of the encouragement of 1 person, the busking singer did not give up, and instead became a celebrity, featured on radio.
Together with Miki’s search for heartbreak stories and good food, we also have the fun of watching her eavesdropping on and watching people to get her ‘models’ for her next manga as they sit in restaurants.
I like that we get to see her imagination at work as she slots herself into the scene of those other people’s stories and creates/augments some of the conversations or thoughts they might have had. In the same way that she chooses to order and eat the same dishes as those strangers do, discovering new eating places and enjoying the food along with them, so too does she insert herself into her mangas in some way. By eating as they ate, it is as if she walks in their shoes in that short moment of their heartbreak which turns to an uplift of spirits over the food, and so shares their stories too.
We are introduced laughably to 3 unusual staff of the STO Kikaku (a small design and publication house) whose surnames are all Sato. As a result they have to be called by number. Number 1 is the older gentleman boss, Number 2 is the more flamboyant, flowery dressed lady and Number 3 is the very rigid, proper, suit wearing younger lady, who still believes in time card punching her work hours when they are only 3-(4?) of them.
It’s cute that miki’s STO colleagues follow her manga suggestions in deciding what to order in for lunch. Although it looks like their free paper comes out with the manga on a daily basis, I feel that surely it would take about a week to finalise and print every next instalment of her Shitsuren Meshi.
There is a note of whimsy as I notice the ‘Clean Alien’ of the matchmaking shrine, or rather the cleaner dressed in a big headed alien suit all the time, (how can he bear it in hot weather!) who seems to pop up at odd times with his broom. I have yet to notice if his appearance is significant.
I wonder about the link to aliens/extraterrestrials, because the eccentric Staff Number 2 made a strange disappearance after dinner with Miki, as if she’d been beamed up magically from the street. Or was that just Miki’s imagination again?” Even the lyrics of one of the songs mentions a alien.
In any case, Number 2 seems to concoct stories about Miki that Number 1 drinks in almost unquestioningly, until Miki’s manga contradicts Number 2’s assumptions. I laugh, wondering why they don’t just ask Miki herself about her past and her story.
I received the Word Press Subscription email at last… now to see if the subscription worked!
= = =
Episodes 1-5 (minor SPOILERS?)
The other half of our plot revolves around the faltering to-ing and fro-ing in the relationship between Miki and the part-time flower seller. He seems like such an uncertain shop assistant, unable to make suggestions to customers on what to buy with confidence. Miki herself is also bumbling in how she tries to make his acquaintance, it’s cute and also embarrassing.
They both speak the same language, but seem to have difficulty in communicating. It’s almost painful to watch!
I’m onto Episode 5 and laughing at their interactions. It was such a joke that Number 2 seems to be stalking Miki over her visits to the flower seller, and hides her face by holding a small bag containing a gold fish in front of it, as if it can disguise her. This reminds me of how in One Day Off our protagonist held a French Loaf in front of her to hide behind LOL.
For me, even if the food might have been delicious, it was the warmth of the different people that served as companions to the broken-hearted what made those foods memorable.
As I said in my Birthday, sometimes a little bit of goodwill and having someone that cares about you can make all the difference.
In fact, even if Hirose Alice’s character was looking for inspiration (you could say she had ulterior motives), she was that person for the lady in episodes 1. In episodes 2 and 3 those people were the boss of the man with a canceled wedding and the female colleague in episode 3.
Hirose Alice’s character was also the one to make the singer think that her music was valid just because it made a highschooler get out of the blues in episode 4, much like what the teacher did for her student in episode 2 in “One Day Off” (the painter that asked for validation during her performance.
I drooled over the food but loved the interactions and the characters. Had a blast with Sato N° 2 feeding all those strange tales to Sato N° 1 😀 . Also pay attention to Sato N° 3 😉 , she will pay off big time in the last episode.
Thanks for the heads up @FGB. I’m falling asleep now, and so will continue watching later tomorrow. 🙂
Will read you properly later,f dear @GB 😉
This sounds like my kind of show–but I can’t seem to find it on any of the usual streaming sites. Where are you all watching it?
@Beth B,
Dramacool.
@GB,
I laughed when Miki ran out of the flowershop and bumped the door with her hip. She looked like an elephant in a china shop. Had that happened to me, if I were to make a mad dash out of such small flower shop, I’m sure I’d shatter through glass or break some of the vases.
I like what she did with the flower and the eucalyptus, though. Instead of chucking them, she was going to make dried flowers of them. That will indefinitely prolong their use.
I think there’s symbolism behind those plants. The gerbera (or yellow daisy) is a sunny, happy, low-maintenance flower. Kinda like Miki. The eucalyptus-looking foliage is nothing much to look at, but it has curative properties and its smell is heady.
The florist guy is always wandering around town carrying a bouquet. I thought that he was only the delivery guy. lol.
I consider it part of the “magic-realism” approach of this dorama that people think that they could hide their faces behind a small plastic bag with a goldfish in it or that three people could hide behind a lamp post.
Hi there @pkml3, the greenish stalk of flowers was probably a breed of Dendrobium orchids.
https://www.aranbeemorchids.com.au/product/a644-den-areedang-green-orchid-world/
My screenshot of it for comparison: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UYMjQKcx4JBPwTDN-XA5_D-BsUsDC4OT/view?usp=sharing
Yes, about the “magic-realism,” … I see that jdoramas sometimes have this very childlike, cutesy quality to them. Perhaps because Shitsuren Meshi is itself “based on a comic essay by Kimaru Misakiit” and is meant to be manga-like with characters who are simpler.
That Clean Alien keeps turning up, for instance, making his cute noises but he is also able to speak with people. He is somehow near where Miki may be. I’ve not had time to take note of whether he pops up only at certain times, but perhaps I will later. Maybe he’s meant to symbolise the need to clean the cobwebs from our minds. LOL.
It was an orchid, @GB?!! Lol. Thanks. I was relying on my memory and I thought it was just plain foliage. I didn’t even see the flowers. Good thing you did the research!
Yes, I don’t get the “Clean Alien” popping up. If that thing popped up beside me all the time, I would be suspicious and alert security. Especially since the face was covered and I didn’t know who was inside the mascot outfit.
Only in dramaland do I find these things acceptable. lol.
@pkml3
I’m noting that this show gives natural sounds its own place in the story, making it richer for us viewers. We not only see/read the manga, but hear it. When the characters look at the Saba fish, for example, we hear the sound of the sea/waves. When the father and daughter eat, the sound of biting into crispy batter is clear every time, every swallow of alcohol by Number 2 and Miki can be heard and all the crockery noises are not muted when Number 3 lays out the dishes for Miki and herself.
By contrast, Number 1 and 2 who eat bento of the same food, do so without making the same sounds or only muted ones. Number 2 complained that the bento Croquette had very little crab in it. Their experience of Miki’s manga is one step removed. Instead of going out to live the experience, they sit back to discuss or analyse Miki’s experiences.
They seem to live vicariously, following Miki around to see the progress of her acquaintanceship with Flower Seller, and asking each other what made her write her manga. Number 2, who is Miki’s editor and who should know the most about her, loves to hint that she can give the low down on Miki, as if Miki’s life is full of drama. Before I finish the series, I’m still not sure how much of what Number 2 says is true and how much might be just her dramatizing Miki’s life. (They could just talk to/ask Miki directly rather than chat about her, but perhaps that’s what they best enjoy: imagining all the possibilities behind her manga writing.)
Despite being able to only read Shitsuren Meshi, the fan who writes letters is deeply touched, able to derive healing 2nd or 3rd hand from reading and imagining Miki’s meals. It seems Number 3 has guessed who the letter-writing fan is.
You’re right about the sounds, @GB. When I heard the sizzling and the crunching, I imagined my stomach growing in unison. The camera doing an extreme close-up of their mouths chewing is like food porn, though.
Did I get it right? Are Sato #1’s lunch orders getting bigger and bigger — and more expensive — after each release of Miki’s cartoons? Does he just keep on adding the new food to the existing food order?
Also, did the translator/subber get it right? Instead of sweet honeyed potato, they got french fries instead? lol?
And what’s up with Sato #2 and her mythomania? Why can’t she just tell the truth about Miki’s background? Is this how she keeps Sato #1 interested in her? By spinning tales about Miki? Lol.
Now that you mention it @pkm3, yes, it does seem that No. 1 is crazily ordering more and more each time a new manga is published. He just keeps adding on a new dish and gleefully announces the cost of every dish before he pays the delivery man.
It seems that the only type of potato that the Harahachi bento place has are french fries LOL. I think No. 1 has a thing about supporting that place for whom he designed the poster and flyers. He might have some stake in that food business.
The darnest thing about No. 2’s tall tales is that she’s easily found out to be lying, but No. 1 is so gullible he just falls for it every time. I feel it’s just her trying to push her own myths as far as she can, to pull No. 1’s leg.
Perhaps the truth behind Miki’s mangas is too mundane for her and she enjoys spicing it up to while the time away in that very relaxed office. I do not see them working, only eating and chatting!
@pkml3, I’m so chuffed. I’ve just watched Ep 8 and some of 9 and what I said about the Clean Alien being out to clean away the cobwebs of the mind actually came to pass.
EPISODE 8
The Flower Seller (FS) is continuing to eat the dishes he has read about in the manga. He has moved on to grilled dumplings now. The Clean Alien is nearby and says to him “That fragrant smell is from grilled dumplings, right?”
FS : “Oh, you know about it?” He offers Alien a dumpling which he accepts. Alien says he’s read every issue of Shitsuren Meshi.
FS : “I had a painful heartbreak when I was in high school.”
Alien does not understand why FS suddenly mentions this.
FS : “I thought we’re talking about Heartbreaks, because that’s what the comic is about.”
Alien decides that he understands now and asks FS if he wants to continue that thought.
Alien : “Cleaning up the mental cobwebs is also the job of a Clean Alien.” (!!! I just mentioned that without knowing he would actually say it!!!) “Let out all those cobwebs from your mind.”
FS says seriously : “I had a crush on a girl. Just watching her from afar was a delight for me.” We see in his flashback that the seasons pass and all he does is follow the girl from a distance.
In winter, he comes out of school alone, and wonders where the girl is. She passes by on a bike of another boy.
FS : “But then one day, that love suddenly came to a screeching halt.”
Alien : “Huh?”
FS comically : “That’s all.”
Alien : “That’s supposed to be a painful heartbreak?” (LOL)
FS : “I’ll never forget her, even though I’m never meant to see her again.”…”Thanks for listening to me.”
EPISODE 9
Miki has just seen the Flower Seller (FS) with a pregnant lady and thinks he’s married and about to have a child. She imagines the conversation between the FS and the lady, although she cannot hear a word of what they say. She believes her own rendition of their conversation.
She’s really out of it at the STO office. Now she’s the one with the heartbreak. However she finds out that her manga is so popular that her work is about to be made into a book. No. 1 (who had $ $ signs for his dark glasses) already started using her royalties without her permission!!
Once again she pretends to be unconcerned about a book, but she’s elated.
The Alien sits near to Miki in a restaurant. He’s a nice looking guy under the big head. He tells Miki as he reads her manga: “It’s about how good meals can rejuvenate you after a heartbreak.” Since she looks at him, he looks back at her and asks “Wanna talk about it?”…”Cleaning up the mental cobwebs comes with the job of a Clean Alien. Feel free to let out all those cobwebs from your mind.”
Miki : “I was attracted to someone. Watching him from afar was a delight for me. “
Alien : “Just watching from afar?”
Miki : “Huh?”
Alien : “A person just told me something like that.” (LOL… yes it was the same person she’s attracted to.)
The Alien claims that he does not have crushes and that only humans have romances which make them cute. He points out that Miki may have got her guesses wrong over the pregnant woman and her crush, the FS. They could have just met coincidentally and she’s making a heartbreak out of a non-event. However Miki still believes her own rendition of her broken heart.
Miki has lunch and cries over the very nice curried vegetarian food that looks like veges to be eaten with rice (looks like Indian style spiced veges on basmati rice). She enjoys her meal with Alien next to her. He’s super excited to know that she’s the writer/illustrator of the manga and tells her his own heartbreak story although Alien’s don’t have crushes LOL.
His story gets into a manga and later on we see that Miki’s mangas do indeed get published as a book. She’s overjoyed. However when she puts a book next to or in front of the fan letters that used to make her smile, she still sheds tears over her broken heart.
Love Clean Alien as a representation of the people we talk to decompress and to get our own ideas straight. Also love that he calls out Miki about getting her wheels spin over a non-event. Sometimes her imagination gets the best of her.
Dear @GB, you seem to be resonating with the Writer’s ideas 😉 .
@PM3, in my watch I imagined that STO was a very small publishing company struggling to cover ends-meet. A free magazine that does not get their money out of the final costumers but from advertising. The kind of publication that will give Miki a low income but on the other hand give her a lot of freedom in her creative work.
So when money comes in… they will get crazy fast 😀 . You could say that them buying more and more expensive food is that process unraveling in a show-don’t-tell fashion.
Also love Sato N° 2´s mythomaniac ways. In my head sehe is “Fantastic Number 2” 😀 .
@FGB, that’s certainly an idea! The STO people are celebrating their unexpected success by buying in more and more food LOL.
Yes, I agree that No. 2 being Miki’s editor is also her fan. I might peg her as her first fan, however, who loves to inflate and augment her idol’s ordinary life into something more melodramatic. Somewhat like the way fans daydream about their idols constantly. Like a true fan, she speaks of Miki to her colleagues and stalks her. LOL.
By contrast, the fan letter writer is the second or third fan. We see later that even Number 3 does more for Miki than No. 2. She concocts a heartbreak story in order to encourage Miki to recover from her own heartbreak.
Clean Alien as the walking mind decompression chamber is a very good image!! I believe you are right. He does not manage to get Miki to realise that her imagination does not constitute truth, but he’s the only one to tell her that there are many other ways to interpret the scene she saw between Flower Seller and pregnant lady.
EPISODES 9 and 10
I noted in Episode 9 that the Clean Alien was an avid reader of Heartbreak on a Plate. However he sits in a restaurant at the next table to the author of his fave manga, without knowing it’s her.
He turns to Miki : “Sorry for the late introduction, my name is Kawamoto.”
Miki introduces herself. Hearing her name he’s excited that it’s the same as the name of Heartbreak on a Plate’s author. (Another fan!) When Alien finds out that she is indeed the writer of Shitsuren Meshi, he’s so excited to tell of his heartbreak story, where a woman had her photo taken with him and her boyfriend, without knowing that her ex-bf was in the Alien suit. He’s not in the least upset however.
Miki wonders : “Was that romance between an alien and a human?” She starts imagining Clean Alien and herself meeting in space LOL.
Imaginary Miki calls out to imaginary Clean Alien : “Hey!” They pass each other in space and say “Bye, bye!”
Voiceover of Alien : “A chance encounter in the vastness of space. A chance romance. Sometimes things work out by chance, and sometimes they don’t. There’s something so human about letting such trifles lift your spirits up or drop your soul down.” Spoken like a true alien who’s observing mankind amusedly.
Unlike Miki and Flower Seller (who remains nameless), No. 3 does not just stand back to look at her crush from a distance. She’s been busy establishing that there should be a Business Client Service day when the STO company offers the Harahachi delivery guy, Sato Hachirou, a proper meal. She makes sure to introduce herself as Mitsuko Sato.
In Episode 10 we find that she’s enthusiastically dating Hachirou, who now pops up in an all white suit. LOL. No. 2 notes that No. 3 is very jolly about dating. Miki naively and laughably tells them : “She was already jolly when she said her heart was broken, but now she’s overjoyed.” LOL.
To be continued…
Continued …
Flower Seller and Miki have a choice to treat their passing relationship like the Alien-human romance, in which case, they should be unaffected by the separation. Or they could have chosen to be like No. 3 and 4 where romance was properly pursued.
However even in Episode 10, we find that FS and Miki prefer the naïve, admire-from-a-distance type, of romance, where nothing is done to move the romance forward, and yet a broken heart is suffered when there is a separation. On the one hand I guess the Show seems to say that it’s also valid that a young, distant crush can also give people a heartbreak, but I find it too ridiculous that the 30-something year old Miki and Flower Seller cannot get beyond a few sentences over flowers.
They could at least have made more strenuous efforts to be friends rather than risk a separation that was going to result in heartbreak! They should at least have exchanged names and phone numbers! Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, but they left it all to fate.
As fate would have it, FS almost did not locate the right fan signing event to deliver his flowers to. He even chose not to meet Miki face-to-face but got Clean Alien to congratulate Miki on his behalf. (I want to knock his head. Of course he deserves the heartbreak!) He even hears the potato song but does not go back to meet Miki or the singer.
It’s Miki who seems to recognize whom the flowers are from and who goes back to the little shop check if FS is there, that moves any relationship forward at all. Miki finds out that FS misunderstood her order to forget or keep secret her manga. Then is shocked to find out that FS never even wrote a single fan letter to her. Understandably, until the very end, neither the new flower shop nor the Flower Seller have a name!! Show does not think they deserve one!!!
However we have the true fan, Clean Alien, who has a name and a face, who still devotedly writes another fan letter to Miki. He’s far more impressive than FS who can barely suggest the right kind of flowers to buy. 😣😖
@FGB @pkml3, did you laugh over the long farewell between Delivery Guy and No. 3? The intense background music! The dramatic expressions! The over the top poses! I cringed so hard and had to laugh it off. I felt that they were play acting goodbye scenes from multiple young people romances.
I liked that the book signing event was held at or next to the shrine where Miki often went to pray, and that the Show bothered to bring back the first taxi driver who was the STO CEO Sato who had introduced her to the good yakitori place and who had eaten the sweet potatoes with her. Also the singer, Haru, whose fame became possible because of Miki’s encouragement. These other encounters made much more of an impression than the so-called romance of Flower Seller. Even meeting Clean Alien was more instructional, if only Miki paid enough attention and had bothered to find out the truth about the pregnant architect.
It seems so much heartbreak could have been avoided!! Perhaps this together with having 1 person to share one’s heartbreak with and over a nice meal are the messages in this quirky tale.
Dear @GB, that is why I recommended not to lose sight of Sato N° 3 😀 . After the end of the series it struck me that she was the most passionate character in the whole story. She was as Gung-ho following the rules and counting the time Flower Seller mentioned a certain word (I don’t remember which one – that was in the Carbonara episode with Sato N° 3’s supposed heartbreak) as she was exuberant while declaring love to Sato N° 4. She made me cringe hard and laugh harder 😀 .
Also loved Sato N° 2’s Mythomaniac ways. I think she enjoyed feeding N° 1 all that misinformation just for fun and to see how far she could go.
The colorful characters in this series were the female ones with the exception of Clean Alien who was colorful in his sageness.
Done watching and posting my updates.
Sato #2 continued on with mythomania, and Sato #1 — and now Sato #3 — were her eager followers. No wonder opera music always played in the background when she invented her tales. She liked to tell soap-opera-ish and heartbreak-y stories too.
I vote for Clean Alien as the loneliest character in the dorama. He’ll forever be writing his fanmail (from AFAR!) because he’s in denial. After suffering from one heartache, he believes that engaging in human emotions is a waste.
He could have moved Miki if he had shown himself to her at her workplace. Miki was predisposed to fall for him anyway because of his fan letters. But he chose anonymity. Oh well.
@PM3, it is not unheard of that after a very bad love experience people starts to get the idea that Romantic Love can be also a kind of Hell. I will not judge Clean Alien for that. Yes, he is the loneliest character: just an observer and an ear.
He did not meet Miki as a Mangaka until the penultimate Episode as far as I know, so maybe she flight under his radar.
Dear @PM3, about how the food is simple yet delicious, I think we have stumbled with the Makanai tradition of cooking. That is, the cooking that the staff actually gets in a restaurant. Simple, nutritious, filling and delicious.
In other words, Soul Food 😉
@pkml3 @FGB what an interesting thought that Clean Alien is the loneliest character in denial. I take him to be an alien who does not really have the same romantic bone as humans, and so is happy enough as he is. His so-called heartbreak was strange in that, I wonder if it were true, or if he wanted to come up with a story for Miki’s next manga.
Surely a real girlfriend of Alien would know that he was inside that suit and not just take photos with him with her current boyfriend!!!
If she really didn’t know, then perhaps from Alien’s attitude, it’s true that humans make a fuss about things that aliens do not. He seemed perfectly happy recalling his ‘heartbreak’!
While his fan letters moved Miki, he may have had little idea that she’d hold on to them with such devotion. His style was truly alien in this day and age, in that others would have sent an electronic message to the publishing house, but he chose to put pen to paper.
He was a sweet, naive sort of ‘guy’ and looked quite self-contained with or without a sweetheart.
Episode 5
Still with Makoto talking to Arata in a closed Old Jack & Rose with Master.
Master will be there to protect Arata, but Makoto is alone (Master will play “sleep”) when he turns to beg for support.
It is a small manly detail: Makoto must develop his own answer. He has the power to stop Sumire’s firing… or at the very least he can use his voice, to do the best he can. You could say that Master is leaving Makoto to his own devices when he kind of gives him the space and the clues to do the right thing, the one that will give him self-respect or at least some peace of mind. For being a man has its subtle ways 😉
It is funny, I am watching this Drama more slowly than I would like but it seems like I am savoring it.