Recap
Nozue hits the alarm, smokes, and goes about his boring, safe, morning routine. Eating breakfast, he sees a pancake place on TV and remarks that old men can’t go there alone.
At work Nozue is a kind boss, whose employees find both his personality and looks attractive. Togawa works directly under him, and has a sterner attitude towards both the employees and Nozue, but is also considered attractive.
Nozue’s boss tries to promote him and invites him to a gokon, a group blind date. He turns down the latter and promises to think about the former, though he’s clearly going to reject that too.
Togawa finds Nozue smoking in the stairs and wants him to quit. He’s annoyed that Nozue was invited to a gokon and that he’s turning down a promotion. The 29-year-old Togawa doesn’t like hearing 39-year-old Nozue put himself down and feels he wasn’t always this way. Nozue ends the convo by asking about dessert places.
Later, Togawa again tells Nozue to quit smoking. Nozue admires the freedom of nearby high school girls to be silly and have fun. Nozue uses an ancient flip phone to call his boss and turn down the promotion. He uses an excuse that Togawa remembers himself using during an interview, about going nowhere and not knowing what he wants.
Togawa proposes they pretend to be girls, and takes a confused Nozue to a pancake place. Nozue resists as Togawa tries to get him to play along, blaming his age.
Togawa says that Nozue’s afraid, going into a passionate argument that upsets Nozue but he can’t argue. He recognizes he’s in an embarrassing mid-life crisis. Togawa apologizes and promises he’s the only one who’s noticed because he likes Nozue. Working for Nozue. Of course.
He urges Nozue to turn his regret into fuel and work on anti-aging. Finally, Nozue eats some pancake. Togawa then stuffs his face with food, and Nozue remembers seeing him this way in the past, after the interview. That time, Nozue gave Togawa the regret-into-fuel speech and then took him out to drink.
Nozue invites present-day Togawa to drink again. As they walk, Nozue decides not to smoke, saying he’s cutting down not quitting, but Togawa says he’s quitting.
Thoughts
The look and sound of this show remind me, fondly and nostalgically, of the indie movies of America of the 90s. The music feels very whimsical and atmospheric and moody, nothing against pop-music but it wouldn’t work as well with the subdued, realism of this show. The colors are desaturated, which gives it a mellow feeling. It has a slow feeling, to match the contemplative aspect of the characters, one stuck in a slump and the other working to get him out of it.
It’s nice to see such a typical, human problem and an older male lead. Getting stuck in a rut can happen to anyone. It’s also an interesting contrast for this typical seeming middle-aged salaryman to fantasize romantically about being a free-spirited teenage girl. It goes against expectations and gender norms, and I can see why he’d deny himself that dream and feel self-conscious.
As I mentioned on the main page, the drama follows the comic very closely, and this is basically the first section of the comic, right down to Togawa’s food-stuffed-hamster-cheeks.