The first episode of the drama series "The Hot Spot" (Nippon TV, Sunday 10:30 pm), starring actress Ichikawa Mikako, was broadcast on January 12th. The episode featured a scene in which single mother Endo Kiyomi (Ichikawa), who works at a business hotel, her senior at work Takahashi (Kadota Akihiro), and Kiyomi's childhood friends Hazuki (Suzuki Anne) and Minami (Hiraiwa Kami) were having a conversation at a family restaurant, which caused a stir on social media.
◇The following contains spoilers.
In the first episode, 41-year-old Kiyomi lives in a peaceful town at the foot of Mount Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture. She is a single mother who works at a local business hotel and raises her daughter on her own. One day, while rushing home on her bicycle after work, Kiyomi almost gets into a traffic accident, but is saved in the nick of time by Takahashi, who uses his superhuman strength. Takahashi warns Kiyomi never to tell anyone about it, but later Takahashi confides in her, "The truth is... I'm an alien." Unable to contain her secret, she tells her childhood friends Hazuki and Minami from the area... and so the story unfolds.
In the story, Hazuki and Minami, who had heard the story from Kiyomi and were interested in Takahashi's true identity, decide to meet him at a family restaurant, which Kiyomi arranges. Hazuki and Minami are surprised when Takahashi bends a 10 yen coin in front of them with one hand, and point out that he looks like an Earthling. Takahashi then explains that he has a rounded back compared to Earthlings, to which Kiyomi and the others respond, "Do you mean hunched back?" and "There are people on Earth who are even rounder than that." Takahashi then complains, "When I eat cold things, my teeth hurt," to which Kiyomi and the others calmly reply, "Do you mean hypersensitive teeth?" and "Me too."
Afterwards, he showed off another ability and convinced Kiyomi and the others, but Takahashi became annoyed when Kiyomi and the others showed no interest in his past tales of heroism, saying, "Since earlier, it's seemed like you only care about your abilities," and the three of them desperately tried to support him.
On social media, many people were amused by Takahashi and Kiyomi's light-hearted conversation, with comments such as "I laughed so hard," "I want to listen to Takahashi's conversation with his three childhood friends forever," "It felt like I was watching a comedy skit," and "I loved the rhythm of the three of them talking lol," and it became a hot topic.
