Hataraki Man Ep2
Another enjoyable episode, heavy on the internal monologues. With that out of the way, on to the laughable thing I call a blog post. Well, She’s at it again. Hirokko (Hiro) Matsukata, our workaholic lead, has spent another night at the office. where everyone is talking about two photographers who were on a stakeout. They had their cover blown as they were trying to photograph an Olympic athlete and her coach who are rumored to be having an affair. One of the photographers is Fumiya Sagawara who seems to be on the burn-out arc of his career. He and the other photographer are talking with the chief editor about the blown stakeout. The chief editor suggests taking one of the female reporters. After running through the list, Hiro comes out as the nominee. Fumiya rejects the idea of having a Hiro, let alone a woman come with him on the stakeout. Hiro also rejects the idea since she’s got a date with her workaholic boyfriend. right on cue, her boyfriend calls and has to cancel their date tonight because of work. Hiro gets asked by Fumiya and the other reporter to go with Fumiya on a stakeout. As the other reporter is talking to Hiro, Fumiya doesn’t like women like Hiro. He hates strong-willed women. He thinks of them as selfish and doesn’t like their intense expressions. He thinks that women use their sex or some lame reason such as going on a date as a reason to slack off. He’s surprised when she agrees. As Fumiya walks away, Hiro starts to wonder why she doens’t like women or herself.
On the drive over, Hiro tries to find out why Fumiya doesn’t liker her. she mentions that when she started at the company, she worked in the gossip/tabloid division where Fumiya is assigned. She didn’t like it so she managed to transfer over to the political division. That’s part of the reason why Fumiya hates her, he was there when she transferred out.They park and wait outside of get to the athlete’s apartment building. As they wait, Hiro spots someone sneaking up on them. Fumiya realizes that its the same woman who blew his cover the night before. Hiro suddenly hugs Fumiya, telling him to act like they’re lovers. The woman walks up to the car and stares in, watching Hiro and Fumiya. After a few minutes, she leaves and Hiro realizes that she stained Fumiya’s shirt with her natto maki. She heads to a nearby water fountain to clean the shirt. As she’s cleaning it, she sees a taxi carrying the the athelete and the coach drive by. Fumiya also sees the taxi and starts taking pictures of the two as they get out. He realizes that they aren’t giving him the shots that he needs. All it looks like is that the coach is walking the athlete to the door.
As the sun rises in the morning, Fumiya stops the car near a bridge. As Hiro is sleeping, he gets out and walks to the edge of the river and starts taking pictures of the sky. Even though he’s burnt-out, he likes his job and the pictures of the infinite sky is a reminder to him about how insignificant everyone and their problems are. Hiro walks up and asks him why he takes pictures of the sky. He asks her why she’s always eating natto maki. Hiro refuses to tell him why.
This was a pretty good episode. One thing that I liked about it is that not everyone likes Hiro. If this was a average TV show, Hiro would’ve overcome Fumiya’s dislike of her and there’d be a greater understanding and appreciation between the two. Leaving things the way they are seems more realistic and will probably come into play for at least a few episodes down the line. Even with the tension between Hiro and Fumiyua, this was a humorous episode. And here’s another show with an opening them music that I’ve come to like. And hum at different times (damn it).
