ハチミツとクローバー (Live Action Dorama) Ep. 02

SPOILER Summary: Takemoto is at one of the school’s bulletin boards where the poster announcing the local shopping district’s lottery is displayed. He has his tickets and is hoping to not win the grand prize nor the first place prize, but rather the 2nd place prize which is a new TV. Morita and Mayama arrive and they have something for Takemoto to do. They dress him in full medieval armor and place him in the room where the women’s art class for painting a nude is being held. Takemoto can’t see anything and his movements are spotted by Hagu-chan. Takemoto thinks he’s busted but she doesn’t give him up. Morita and Mayama are spying on Takemoto and amazed that he’s survived 30-minutes. So they set off the the fire alarm and Takemoto is not only busted, but punished by Shouda-sensei for being so “hentai.”

Morita teaches Hagu-chan about “Comenich,” where supposedly people of Tokyo make a pose from Romanian gymnast Nadia Comenich. When they head to Hanamoto-sensei’s place at school, Takemoto discovers that Morita has already taken his lottery tickets and won some tiny prizes such as little packets of tissue. Hanamoto-sensei comes in, having learned about Takemoto’s perverted ways. Hagu-chan arrives with a bunch of color printouts that proclaim Takemoto to be a giant perv. Takemoto has had enough and is going to leave, but before he can do so, Hanamoto-sensei asks him to escort Hagu-chan to the home center.

The two walk through the shopping district where Yamada’s father is there with a message for Morita. Apparently Morita had forged lottery tickets the year before but this time, the shop owners are ready for him with tickets that can’t be forged. Indeed, Morita is currently working on forging lottery tickets and asks Yamada not to tell her father. Naturally she says she’ll tell, so he threatens to reveal her yearly New Year’s wish for love and for Mayama. She destroys his work but Morita is ultimately able to make a forged ticket. However, Yamada reveals the flaw in his forged ticket. He doesn’t have the stamp she put on the back of the ticket, so naturally he has to make one. They scuffle over the stamp and in the process, knock over one of Hanamoto-sensei’s pictures, which has Rika-san, himself, and another man in it.

At the store, Takemoto and Hagu-chan are looking for a pickle stone after Takemoto mistakenly though was looking at stones for carving. He finds out that the store doesn’t have any pickle stones. A young boy in the store starts crying for his mama, so Hagu-chan goes to comfort him, using the Comenich pose Morita taught here. Takemoto is horrified by what she’s doing, but she smiles sweetly at his telling her Morita lied to her. She points out that the pose has “magic” because indeed it caused the boy to stop crying.

Back at Hanamoto-sensei’s place, Yamada is ranting about the 30-year old Rika-san and Mayama’s obvious crush on her. For his part, Mayama is finishing his final day working for Rika-san. He asks to say, stating he’d even work for free but she won’t hear of it. She sends him on his final delivery task to Fujiwara Design. He gives up his office key and is off. He makes the delivery and is asked to take something back to Rika-san. He states that he cannot do so because he no longer works for Rika-san. The lady offers him a job, but a man there, NOMIYA Takumi, protests. He feels that Mayama’s only interest in architecture is pining for Rika-san.

Meanwhile, Takemoto and Hagu-chan are returning from the store. Takemoto talks of a bakery with an excellent cream cake, but when they get to the store, the cake is sold out. They head to an arcade to play some games where Hagu-chan reveals she’s never been to the ocean. As they start to leave, Takemoto notices that Hagu-chan is eying a gemstone in a grabber game. So he offers to win it for her. However, he is unable to win that gem but wins a large blue one. She’s happy to receive that from him.

Mayama has had a stamp created that says “Mayama no Aho” (Mayama is an idiot) which he stamps on various things for Yamada. Takemoto and Hagu-chan enter and see Yamada is depressed. Morita says it is because of her father and then proceeds to eat the food that Hagu-chan purchases for Hanamoto-sense (“Shu-chan” to her). He tells her that if you space out in Tokyo, your food gets taken. Later, Yamada and Hagu-chan talk of painting as Hanamoto goes over to Rika-san’s place with a bottle of wine for her deceased husband’s birthday.

Back at their dorm, Takemoto goes through a box of stuff and finds a large pickle stone. Morita comes in to inform him that Lohmeyer-senpai is back. They, along with Mayama, talk of how he won the grand prize in the lottery the year before, which was a trip to Hawaii. They ask Lohmeyer-senpai his secret. He doesn’t have one, but he states that just turning the lottery wheel gives him pleasure. Thus having your desire on winning the prize must be the thing that kills winning the prize.

The following day, Morita has his forged ticket(s) for the final day of prizes. Yamada’s father (whom I’ll now call “Yamada-san”) informs Morita that his ticket is under investigation. A group of old men look at it and reject it. Morita demands to know why and learns that Yamada tricked him with the stamp on the back of the ticket she had. Meanwhile, Takemoto goes to give the pickle stone to Hagu-chan, only to discover that Hanamoto-sensei beat him to it. Yamada learns that Mayama no longer works for Rika-san and goes to find him. He’s lying on an outdoor bench all depressed and Yamada tells him that he needs to get over her. He tells her that she needs to stop caring for him.

Takemoto runs into Teramobori-san, who’s looking for Morita. Because he’s purchased some stuff from the shopping district, he has a lot of lottery tickets and asks Takemoto to take them from him because he doesn’t want them. Takemoto does, but finds his dreams of a TV short-lived when Morita takes them from him. Morita then goes to see Yamada, who’s crying after her encounter with Mayama. She doesn’t want to face Mayama again, but Morita manages to get her and the rest of the group together just the same. They head for the shopping district to use their pile of lottery tickets and discover Lohmeyer-senpai has won the grand prize of a car. Morita wastes all their chances but the final one, which Hagu-chan takes and wins the 5th-place prize of a gold-colored inflatable tube, flippers, and air mask. Morita isn’t happy about his prize, but Takemoto remembers his conversation with Hagu-chan and thus suggests they go to the ocean.

They borrow Lohmeyer-senpai’s new car and at Morita’s insistence, the leave it decorated with the prize stuff on it. Morita shoves Yamada up front next to the driving Mayama. Yamada forces him to take a window seat with Takemoto in the middle and Hagu-chan on the end. Takemoto notices the ring Hagu-chan is wearing is the ring (or gem) that he won for her, which makes him happy. They spend the afternoon at the beach and Yamada gets drunk. In the evening, they are ready to leave, but Hagu-chan has lost her ring and is saddened by that.

Mayama tries to get the drunk Yamada to get up, but she only wants to sleep. She calls him “aho” (idiot) over and over again. He gets her to get on his back so he can carry her. Crying, she tells him she loves him over and over again. He simply acknowledges her statements as he carries her to the car. Meanwhile, Takemoto makes a frantic search for the ring, but Morita comes up with an artistic solution to the problem using a bottle, the moonlight, and a cap. As such, it appears she has a ring on and so Morita takes advantage of her “spacing out” and kisses her just as Takemoto finds the ring and starts to return it to her, who witnesses the kiss.

Thoughts: It has been a long time since I’ve seen the anime, but I do remember certain scenes and stuff. So the trip to the ocean was fun, but the scene with Mayama carrying the drunk Yamada on his back was very memorable to me from the anime. The live-action version played it very well I thought. Morita kissing Hagu-chan on the beach was different but yet had the same impact.

I like how the end credits are done. In effect, we get an extra scene showing an “unscripted” moment where the actors, mostly in character, are shown doing something together. This time it was one of those restaurants where you cook the food at your table and they are cutting up and stuff while there.

Based on the two episodes I’ve seen, I really like this about as much as I liked the anime. There are moments of good humor (even if it isn’t gut-busting humor). The angst and the unrequited love stuff is there. Takemoto and Morita being interested in Hagu-chan (and vice-versa) is there. So thanks again to JSM for reminding me of this series. ^_^