The second episode of the Fuji TV drama series "Ramune Monkey" (Wednesdays at 10pm), starring Takashi Sorimachi, Nao Omori, and Kenjiro Tsuda, aired on January 21st. The performance of Naomi Nishida, who plays Akari Ohba, also known as "Minmay," a middle school classmate of Yuta (Sorimachi) and his friends, touched the hearts of viewers.
◇The following contains spoilers
Yuta, along with Fujimaki Hajime (Omori), Kikuhara Kisuke (Tsuda), and cafe employee Nishino Hakuba (Fukumoto Riko), visit the okonomiyaki restaurant where Akari works. Akari was the "Madonna of the school year" whom Yuta had secretly had a crush on in middle school. When regular customers call Akari "auntie" in the present day, she laughs and says, "Sorry, old hag, you're alone."
Akari remembered Yuta. However, when Yuta and a regular customer had a dispute, Akari became furious with Yuta. "You should apologize to my precious regular customer!" she said, pouring a glass of water over Yuta. As the regular customers left, Akari bowed her head and said, "Your bill is fine today. Please come again."
Afterwards, Akari reminisced to Yuta, "The economy was good back then. We were shown this bubble life that was like a dream for adults. By the time I entered society, it had completely burst." Akari, who revealed that her wish to work in the apparel industry was unfulfilled, and that she was hired by a car-related company because of her "good looks," calmly confessed, "My job was serving tea, entertaining customers, and laughing at being sexually harassed. By men who were less intelligent than me and couldn't even do their jobs. I was even told I was a mistress. Even that job was taken by a younger girl once I turned 30."
Akari said that after that, she opened her own shop and raised her daughter while paying off the debts left behind by her ex-husband. "I sell okonomiyaki every day and make a living. It's nothing to be told that. Everyone works hard every day. We're crawling on the ground trying to survive," she said.
On social media, the drama was met with discussion with comments such as, "Nishida Naomi was fantastic as an adult who has endured the hardships of the Ice Age," "She grew up during the employment ice age while knowing about the bubble era, and her words of resolve that her tough life will continue were very moving," "I cried at the sadness of the Ice Age," "I think this is a drama that the Ice Age generation cannot watch without shedding tears," "Nishida Naomi's acting really struck me. It brought me to tears..." and "I can't help but cry at what Nishida is saying... I want to somehow live my life in a cool way."
The original story and screenplay for the drama was written by Ryota Furusawa. It is a youth-recovering human comedy that depicts the reunion and rebirth of two middle-aged men who were passionate about making kung fu movies together in their junior high school days in 1988, but now feel stuck in life, thinking, "This isn't how it was supposed to be." The story is about a trio of very different characters, with different looks and personalities: Yuta Yoshii, also known as "Yun," played by Sorimachi; Hajime Fujimaki, also known as "Chen," played by Omori; and Kikuhara Kisuke, also known as "Kinpo," played by Tsuda.
