The eighth episode of Fuji TV's Wednesday 10pm drama "If This World Were a Stage, Where Would the Dressing Room Be?" (Wednesdays at 10pm), written by Koki Mitani and starring Masaki Suda, aired on November 19th. The episode featured a scene in which Jesse Saiga (played by Sylvia Grab), the owner of WS Theatre, listens to music on a CD Walkman, which sparked a stir on social media.
◇The following contains spoilers.
In episode 8, Shakespeare's play "The Winter's Tale" directed by director Hisabe (Suda) is being performed at the WS Theater. Juri (Hamabe Minami), a shrine maiden at Hachibun Shrine, is watching the play and frantically taking notes. Her father, Ronpei (Bando Yajuro), comments, "You can't concentrate on the play, can you?", but Juri refuses to listen, saying, "I'm checking what can be cut."
Juri, who has begun to be attracted to Hisabe, is prepared to do anything for him. The script has already been significantly revised, and an old lady (Rinko Kikuchi) sitting in the audience nastily remarks, "My scenes have all been cut."
Meanwhile, while Koreo Reizaburo (Asano Kazuyuki) and Kent-chan (Matsuda Shinya) are performing on stage, suddenly, someone in the audience shouts, "You're so bad!" It turns out that the person shouting is Toro (Ikuta Toma), Rika's (Nikaido Fumi) former lover.
Later in the episode, Jesse Saiga visits the WS Theater and demands that Hisabe cut the show's time. When Hisabe, unconvinced, leaves the stage, Jesse Saiga vents his frustration to Horai (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and Daimon (Yoshihiro Nozoe), saying, "Why don't they do 'Hamlet'? 'Romeo and Juliet' would be fine too. Basically, do something everyone knows." He then begins listening to "The Ten Commandments (1984)" on his CD Walkman, exclaiming, "Akina is great after all." A caption then appears on the screen: "CD Walkman... The world's first portable CD player was released in 1984. It's the size of four CD jackets, and fits in the palm of your hand."
On social media, when the CD Walkman appeared on the screen as an "80s" item following the "smoking cessation pipe" in the previous episode, comments such as "It's a CD Walkman!", "I'm nostalgic for the Walkman", "Here's the explanation for the CD Walkman lol", "I liked the CD Walkman because I could buy CDs and listen to them on the train", "The CD Walkman was pretty big", and "It's sad to see the explanation for the CD Walkman appear at the bottom of the screen" were posted, attracting a lot of attention.
