Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.
Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu
(わたし、定時で帰ります / I’m Going Home At The Regular Time)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10
Hiya! Didn’t expect me to squeeze in one last-minute review for January, did you? I certainly didn’t. But it definitely helped that I was finally able to finish all my work for my first semester and had some free time to complete this show in peace and relaxation. This is the second show that came out of my Wheel of Fortune app, and I was immediately excited about it. I remember seeing the trailer for this show in another Japanese drama and putting it on my list straight away. I also liked that my app immediately started mixing shows from different countries! No regrets so far. Anyways, regarding this show, it didn’t take me too long to finish it since it’s quite short – the average length of a Japanese drama – and I found it very interesting. Of course I’m going to elaborate on my thoughts in more detail in this review, but I just wanted to say beforehand that I thought this show did a really great job putting people’s varying views on work and work ethics in perspective. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised that this show came from Japan of all countries, since Japan is known for having such rigid policies when it comes to working and how much you’re supposed to devote yourself to a job or career. Even though I don’t live or work in Japan myself, this series actually gave me hope for more people out there that recognize what’s healthy and what isn’t, and are able to relate to work views that differ from their own.
Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu is a 10-episode Japanese drama series with episodes of each about an hour. The story focusses on Higashiyama Yui (played by Yoshitaka Yuriko), a full-time employee at Net Heroes, a company that specializes in creating and producing websites for other companies. Yui maintains a very specific work style in which she leaves exactly at 18:00, the official end of the 9-to-6 work day. As it’s so common for people to stay and work longer, this sets her apart from her co-workers, but everyone respects it because she has a very efficient work style and always manages to finish her tasks for the day on time. When she leaves at 18:00 sharp, Yui usually makes her way to her favorite nearby Chinese restaurant, Shanghai Diner, where the beer is half the usual price until 18:10. Besides leaving at the official time every day, Yui also frequently takes days off, as is recommended by the company. This way, she maintains a healthy balance between her work and private life – after all, she’s close to getting married to her boyfriend Suwa Takumi (played by Nakamaru Yuichi), and this enables her to keep enough time to spend with him. However, a challenge to her peaceful work-life balance appears when Yui’s ex-boyfriend Taneda Kotaro (played by Mukai Osamu) suddenly joins her team, accompanied by their new department head, Fukunaga Seiji (played by Yusuke Santamaria), who strongly encourages the team to put everything they have into their work, even if that means working overtime. His way of managing goes heavily against Yui’s morals, especially when he starts assigning the team to jobs that require almost impossible efforts for little to no company profit.
All in all, the series follows Yui as she gradually gets to know her co-workers a bit better and occasionally faces challenges in dealing with someone’s deviating work views. While the team goes through several clashes and obstacles they ultimately always manage to see eye to eye with one another and learn to respect each other’s different perspectives.
One main thing I liked about this show was that, from the first episode on, it had this ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ concept. I thought it was really powerful to start out with a team of people who all initially kind of judged each other for their respective work styles, but once push came to shove, you learned about everyone’s backgrounds and really came to understand where everyone was coming from. I think it was really characteristic of Yui to always try and find ways to relate to her co-workers. She always tried her best to understand their perspectives, even if she didn’t fully agree with them. I thought she was a really interesting character because she wasn’t even a busybody who got involved in other people’s business on purpose, but she was a very stable factor in the office and people were just drawn to her naturally. She became a safe person to every single co-worker because of her rational way of seeing things, and she always had a way of ultimately making them see reason with other perspectives as well.
I really admired Yui’s patience and ability to negotiate with everyone. I personally wouldn’t have been able to deal with some people, but she remained so professional, even when things started going against her values. Even when she started criticizing people, she never stopped working for what she herself believed in, and that always saved everything in the end.
If I had to summarize it, I’d say that the first half of the series highlights a couple of Yui’s co-workers and their specific circumstances and work ethics, and the second half becomes a bit more strained as they get this impossible project to work on which starts affecting several people’s lives outside of work, including Yui’s. I’d like to go about my review by first talking a bit about all the characters that get highlighted, and then move on to my own thoughts about the general topic of work ethics.
Let me start with our heroine, Yui. Through the first couple of episodes we find out what has made her so eager to avoid working overtime and letting work influence her private life. The thing is, Yui has had several experiences, not only personal but also with people around her, that have led her to believe too much work isn’t healthy. For starters, her own father has always been someone who put work before his family. He would leave family holidays earlier and always say that people should be devoted to their work above everything, not knowing that this attitude put a lot of worry onto his wife and daughter. When she was still with Kotaro, he was exactly the same, and this eventually resulted in him passing out from exhaustion and even saying that work was more important to him than their approaching marriage. Yui also had the personal experience of being so pressured at work that she even got into an accident. After going through all these experiences, she made up her mind on two things. First of all, she never wanted her life to get absorbed by work ever again, and second, she never wanted to be with someone who had the same work ethics as her father. She’d seen with her own eyes how overworking could physically break someone, and vowed to never get into that situation again. Shortly after she’d broken up with Kotaro, she got together with Takumi who, considerate as he was, made sure to always leave work on time and spend quality time with her. He acknowledged Yui’s needs and incorporated those needs into his own life, also because he genuinely wanted to. When we are first introduced to Yui, she seems to be in a good place, she’s happy in her relationship and her work, thanks to her healthy lifestyle.
The first person in Yui’s team to express disdain towards her work attitude is Mitani Kanako (played by Shishido Kavka). I’m going to refer to her as Mitani, as that’s the name she’s generally referred to in the show and it just feels weird to call her Kanako. Mitani is introduced as quite a rigid employee who holds very strict morals regarding the proper work attitude and she is someone who initially frowns upon Yui’s habit of leaving at 18:00 while the rest of the team continues to work. In the first episode, Net Heroes has just acquired three new young hires and Mitani is assigned to mentor one of them. However, she and her junior just can’t seem to see eye to eye and as they both aren’t initially able to understand each other, the new hire quickly quits, saying that she can’t deal with Mitani. Mitani tirelessly keeps working and asking for more responsibilities even when she comes to work sick.
What it comes down to is that Mitani, through personal negative experiences on the workfloor, has become way too fixated on doing everything right. She initially sees Yui’s work attitude as too casual, thinking that she doesn’t show proper responsibility in leaving before everybody else. However, after properly talking with Yui she comes to see that there are more ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle without getting hyperfixated on work and that it’s absolutely fine to take breaks and days off when you’re not feeling well. As she’d been going through a hard time at her previous workplace, she just developed a mindset that made her a bit too serious when it came to ‘doing things right’, which in her view included coming to work even if you weren’t feeling 100% well and continuing to work until everyone else went home.
What I liked about Mitani was that, although her character did go through a change after developing a closer bond with Yui and the rest of the team, she remained consistently rigid in her own way. She didn’t suddenly start acting differently, she just focussed her work fixation on other things, such as teamwork and maintaining a good bond with her co-workers without micromanaging everything. She also started joining Yui at Shanghai Diner more often. I think she was one of the characters whose perspective was positively affected by Yui and only managed to grow as a person and an employee. She may have seemed as one of the most unlikely people to move away from her rigid views, but I liked that she became a devoted employee and ally to Yui. I think that in her own way she even tried getting more friendly with her outside of work, which seemed like a big step for her to take.
Moving on, I’d like to talk about Shizugatake-senpai – I’m going to refer to her as Yae because it’s much easier to write. Shizugatake Yae (played by Uchida Yuki) used to be Yui’s senior when she first started at Net Heroes, and when she’s introduced in the story she just gave birth to twins. When she returns, she is determined to pick up just where she left off without getting any kind of different treatment just because she’s a working mom now. Her husband Yosuke (Tsubokura Yoshiyuki) – the greenest of flags by the way – took on paternity leave so Yae could return to work. However, her eagerness to return to work and take on as much as possible without prejudice counterproductively only causes her team to get more worried about her. Inevitably, an occasion arises where one of her babies gets sick and her husband isn’t able to take care of it by himself. This is where Yae gets confronted with how naturally challenging it is to combine motherhood with full-time employment.
It’s kind of weird to say but this was actually one of my favorite arcs, just because it was so twisted. I was already aware of the issue that many Japanese companies have regarding women who come back to work after giving birth and I guess that’s why it kind of hit differently. I’ve personally worked at a Japanese company where, sometime after I left, a female Japanese co-worker contacted me to vent about how she basically got fired when she announced that she would get married because she got pregnant. I remember her getting so angry about it, how she was just discarded like ‘well, then you’re of no further use to us’. Furthermore, as I was watching this show I was also reading a book that dealt with themes very similar to this. I just finished a chapter about a woman who was close to getting promoted to head editor of a magazine before she found out she was pregnant, and when she came back to work after giving birth she was told to work in the archiving and documentation department, and that it would be impossible for her to take her previous spot as the head editor position wouldn’t allow her to have her attention divided between work and childcare. It was almost painful to watch how Yae tried to convince everyone that her becoming a mother had nothing to do with her capabilities. The fact that she tried to avoid being treated like that inevitably only strengthened people’s doubts about her, and this only escalated with an increase in occurrences that actually forced her to go home to her family.
Honestly, I was just so glad that Yosuke was there and that he had Yae’s back the entire time. It would’ve become so messy if things would’ve gotten rocky between them. Even when he decided to spend some time in Kumamoto to take care of his mom, he didn’t even pressure Yae to come with him. When Yae ultimately decided to take a break and be with her family for a while, I couldn’t blame her, even if she left at such a crucial moment. Honestly, the project they were working on was a shitshow and it was already starting to affect the employees’ personal lives in a negative way as it was, so I was actually happy that she made that decision. And it was even better when she came back after things had settled down on her side and provided that much needed back-up in the end.
I really liked the relationship between Yae and Yui. You could tell they were really close and had learned to depend on each other a lot during their work together. It was really nice to see how they basically became each other’s confidantes. They probably shared the most of their personal lives with each other than with anyone else in the team, and still managed to maintain a strictly professional relationship on the workfloor. It was really nice to see how Yui’s mindset on her newly adapted work style had been inspired by Yae and how she managed to eventually give that same advice back to her when Yae started becoming more obsessive over proving her capabilities as a working mom. These two ladies together were just such a positive force in the office together, I really loved their friendship.
Another very interesting perspective on work came from the new hire that Yui was put in charge of, Kurusu Taito (played by Izumisawa Yuuki). I’m going to refer to him as Kurusu because that’s what he’s mainly referred to in the show. Kurusu is one of the three new hires introduced at the beginning of the story, and the only one who sticks around after the first episode. What I found interesting in general was the whole notion of how this show acknowledged a difference between the way experienced employees perceived work and the way the new hires did. For younger people, it’s way easier to just quit a job because you can’t get along with a co-worker or because the work is too bothersome. Similar to the other two new hires, Kurusu is initially depicted as someone who sighs ‘Maybe I should just quit…’ quite easily after facing a challenge at work. However, probably because he was assigned to Yui of all people, he’s not let off that easily and he is guided to face his own immaturity and inexperience.
I have to admit I got annoyed with Kurusu several times. Of course he was just a new hire so he lacked maturity in his work and development as an employee, but he initially tended to give up way too easily when something didn’t go his way. He wouldn’t acknowledge his own inexperience and it seemed like he thought everyone (especially Kotaro) was out to get him. He did eventually transform his envy of Kotaro into admiration and a desire to become as capable and reliable as him, but in my opinion he should’ve had a better notion of his own position from the start. Isn’t it normal that your seniors know how to gain a client’s trust better? Isn’t it normal that they can come up with more efficient solutions as a result of making their own mistakes when they first started out? I honestly didn’t really agree with Yui when she kept scolding Kotaro for not giving Kurusu a fair chance. Sure, Kotaro could’ve kept passing everything the client and designer team asked him to Kurusu and told them to only talk to him, but that wouldn’t have led to a good outcome because Kurusu barely knew what he was getting himself into. In my opinion the main issue lay with the fact that Kurusu needed to acknowledge that he still lacked a lot of experience. It was nice that he got assigned the director’s position for that one project, but without going the extra mile to fully grasp the client’s needs he really didn’t come off as very reliable. It was just annoying to see him go ‘okay, then I’ll just quit because you all trust Taneda-san more than me anyway’ every single time someone questioned him in some way.
What redeemed him for me was that, with Yui’s help, he too managed to see reason and acknowledge that Kotaro wasn’t ‘out to get him’. He also came to appreciate Kotaro for his skills and started aspiring to become like him. What did the trick for me in the end was the way Fukunaga started manipulating him and the others to work extra on that ridiculous project, because although Kurusu found his drift in the end, it wasn’t right how his naivety was taken advantage of only to make him work harder.
In terms of people like Kurusu in general, I found it interesting that this show also explored perspectives on the expectations of work. New hires probably go into a new job with certain expectations and ambitions that may be quite naive, and then quickly change their mind when it turns out to be different from what they’d envisioned. They might also make the easy decision to quit and look for something that’s more convenient, because getting hired somewhere else isn’t actually that hard – many companies are short on staff and eager to hire some new young blood. On the one hand you can see that as irresponsible and unprofessional, and I partially agree with that, especially when they don’t even give the job a proper chance and just give up at the slightest inconvenience. On the other hand I also feel like people should be allowed to quit a place where they instantly feel like they don’t fit. I’m glad that at least Kurusu got through his initial objections and ultimately realized this work did actually suit him. Nothing is easy in the beginning, everybody has to start from scratch and everyone develops their skills in their own pace. I think that’s really important to remember, especially before you quickly dismiss or judge someone for not being used to work in the same way as you are.
Another employee that’s highlighted and who ultimately changes his views on work is Azuma Tooru (played by Emoto Tokio). I’ll refer to him as Azuma since, again, that’s what he’s predominantly called throughout the show. Azuma is one of the web programmers in charge of the engineering and design of the websites, I believe. He’s depicted as a bit of an otaku, he has a couple of figurines on his desk and keeps a bit to himself. He’s initially highlighted because the team realizes he has been coming back to the office after clocking out to continue unpaid overtime, and he’s even revealed to be sleeping at the office. What I understood from his character was that he preferred to just be at the office because he didn’t have anything fun to do at home (plus he’s alone), but also that he basically just put in the bare minimum at work. He didn’t really have any ambition to grow within the company or anything like that, but that also stopped him from putting in more effort than necessary. He also lacked some serious people skills, especially when formally meeting with clients. His motivation is temporarily elevated when a new designer temp joins the team, Sakuramiya Ayana (Shimizu Kurumi) and because she’s both friendly to him and genuinely interested in the work he does, her determination in her work starts rubbing off on him and he even asks Yui to teach him her efficient work schedule.
I think Azuma’s issue was a bit less transparent than those of the other highlighted employees. I found it hard to pinpoint what exactly his problem was, other than that he pretty much used work (even unpaid overwork) to fill a gap of loneliness in his life. On the other hand it still didn’t motivate him to think bigger and strive to achieve more. I felt like I understood him on one ground, because I’ve personally had the experience at my last job at a Japanese company that I was pressured into having more ambitions whereas I was happy with just a regular office job. I didn’t want to have to strive to become a manager or something, I was satisfied with my skills as they were, and this ultimately got me fired because my motivation went down each time they pressured me into aiming higher. I did think that ultimately, Azuma became a better and more mature person and employee. He also started getting along better with the rest of the team and he even started judging things with a more critical eye while before he would’ve just done what he was told without thinking twice. He became a much more amiable person who was very easy to work with.
Alongside Azuma’s storyline, we are introduced to another one about the temp, Sakuramiya. I found this a pretty hard part to watch because the guys from that sports company were just so unpleasant. On the other hand, it only strengthened the credibility of this show to go so far as to introduce themes such as power- and sexual harassment on the workfloor. Sakuramiya was hired as a temp to Net Heroes because she had worked with that particular sports company before, but the guys from that company kept inviting her out on activities outside of work hours. Encouraged by Fukunaga, Sakuramiya decided to keep accepting their invitations, until one time it really starts feeling wrong to her. They invite her over to join them for some night jogging and then make her wear this new revealing running outfit for women and even film her while she’s wearing it. The worst thing is that they displayed a mix of power and sexual harassment because while they did tell her ‘You can say no if you don’t want to do it’, they still pressured her. They knew that she wasn’t in any position to say no to them. I hated how they kept doing all these things yet always had a way to turn it around by saying, ‘yeah but she did it out of her free will, we told her she could say no, she was having a great time🤷🏻♀️’. It also made my respect for Yui skyrocket because she just got SO angry and it was very unusual for her to get so wound up about something. I was really glad their company just collapsed into itself in the end when all these employees started confessing occurrences of power harassment that had been going on.
Apart from these highlighted characters, I also personally want to highlight the two team members who didn’t get a more elaborate storyline but who were still very important to the team: Kodama Takeshi (Kaji Masaki) and Norimoto Maki (Sasaki Shiho). They were both in charge of designing the websites. Even though their work consisted mostly of creating the final result and weren’t as much involved with the marketing, I thought that they were very well-established characters who asked the right questions and had critical comments at the right moments. Sometimes work teams in dramas are just made up out of people who are there working in the background and only depicted doing as they’re told, but it was nice to see that every single team member contributed to the work equally and had a proper antenna for when things were or weren’t going very well. I really liked the contribution these two characters in particular provided as supporting members of Yui’s team.
I think it’s finally time to talk about Kotaro and Fukunaga and I’m kind of going to discuss them jointly because their characters are pretty intricately connected. While we don’t get to see a lot of flashbacks from when Yui and Kotaro were still together, we do find out that at the time he exhausted himself to the extent of collapsing, Kotaro was working under Fukunaga. Shortly after he collapsed, Kotaro quit Fukunaga’s company (together with many others) and shortly after that, the company itself went bankrupt. I believe it was through some connections with the CEO of Net Heroes that Fukunaga got the opportunity to become the new department head. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure if Kotaro knew he was getting appointed besides Fukunaga again from the start, or that it came as a surprise to him on their first day. In any case, they have a working history together and Fukunaga never misses a chance to make Kotaro remember how he ‘abandoned’ him before. It makes it increasingly hard for Kotaro to go against him because he’s also known Fukunaga for a long time and is the only one in the team who makes an effort to stand up for him.
To be honest, Fukunaga gave me the ick from the start. The way he would make jokes and smile without any genuine cheer in his eyes just made me go 🚩🚩🚩 Seriously, what was this guy even doing in the office? He barely did anything himself and he only commented on other people’s work and judged them for making certain decisions. He kept guilt-tripping and manipulating people to work harder while he only kept accepting low-profit projects that would lose the company money. His audacity reached the top when he actually started guilt-tripping Yui about how Kotaro had quit his former company because of her. Like, this guy did not know how to keep his nose out of other people’s business. As soon as he felt that Kotaro might strike out on his own he basically threatened him not to ‘abandon’ him again. It was so petty and unprofessional, and it made him such an irresponsible boss. I’m glad at least Yui had the guts to make it clear that she didn’t like him and his way of working and encouraged the others to also think for themselves and tell her when they felt like something was off. The whole Hoshi Jirushi project was such a mess, honestly. The only good thing that happened in the end was that the company’s CEO changed to someone who also didn’t trust Fukunaga. I also really loved the moment when Net Heroes’ CEO left, the only high-up connection Fukunaga had to back him up. Even the CEO was done with his shit, lol. I remember laughing so hard at Fukunaga’s face when they announced he was leaving.
I think Fukunaga was probably the only character that I wasn’t able to relate to whatsoever, even after being given some insight into his backstory. I get that he sacrificed a lot for that previous company only to lose everything, but he definitely didn’t learn from his mistakes.
For Kotaro, I still find him a bit difficult to gauge. Everything we get to know about him is filtered through the perspectives of Yui and Fukunaga, and even until the end he never really reveals what his own true motive was for joining Net Heroes, and if it really was because of Yui. I get that he might still have had lingering feelings for her, as he also explicitly confessed that one time, but I also didn’t find him the type to follow her after they’d broken up. It was clear that they were both awkward when they were reunited and that they’d planned on not seeing each other again. I don’t know, I just find it hard to believe it was an action that came from his will to go after her again, it didn’t seem very Kotaro-like if you ask me. After all, at some point he’s even debating teaming up with a member of their rivalling company and striking out, even if that means he has to leave Fukunaga’s team again. So I really don’t think it was all about Yui. It was definitely nice to see them grow a little bit closer again throughout everything, though. But I was surprised that in the final episode, half a year after Yui broke up with Takumi, he was already suggesting they start living together, like what happened there? Did that mean they got back together or something? I honestly found that a bit weird, because even after they reconciled and Kotaro shared how he felt after Yui collapsed, I still didn’t particularly feel like they fell back in love with one another or anything. So yeah, that was a bit unclear to me at the end. Still, I did feel like Kotaro, despite still having the tendency to get absorbed in his work, did learn from his mistakes and being around Yui and other people who kept caring about how much he worked definitely had some impact on him.
One thing that contributed to Kotaro’s character development was the confrontation with his younger brother Shu (played by Sakurada Dori). When we meet him, Shu is unemployed and stays at home for the most part. We are initially introduced to him through Yui, as she still keeps in touch with him and he occasionally helps her with some background research on certain people and companies. Shu is the first person to warn her about Fukunaga before we even learn about what happened between Kotaro and Fukunaga. From what Shu tells Kurusu when he finds out the latter aspires to become just like his older brother, we learn that Shu also learned the hard way that it wasn’t healthy to adapt the same work style as Kotaro. In Shu’s case, it even almost led him to commit suicide. Contrarily, inspired by Yui, Shu took peace with taking a break from work to settle his thoughts and feelings, and this is what he’s been doing. I found the twist in his character a bit surprising, because he was initially introduced as a quite vulnerable character who even held some grudging feelings towards his older brother.
Kotaro ultimately learned to understand Shu’s feelings better, partially because of his dealings with Kurusu at work. He overhears Shu talking about his experience to Kurusu and Yui and then has to admit he never knew what his younger brother had been going through. Kotaro ultimately comes to acknowledge how much of an impact his way of working ended up having on the people closest to him and it was good to see how he and Shu got on better terms at the end of the series.
I was a bit confused about the purpose of Shu’s character in the beginning, admittedly. I was wondering why he was only written to provide Yui with some helpful outsider information and if that was really the only thing he was doing. But it helped to get his backstory because that put things into perspective for me a little bit. I think it was important to show the negative consequences Kotaro’s bad work habits had on his family, and especially people that looked up to him. In that way, they were able to avoid Kurusu from turning out like Shu. It was nice that Shu offered to talk directly with Kurusu about this, because that meant that he saw the danger of history repeating itself and immediately took action to personally make sure it didn’t. Through that he showed a surprisinly proactive side that I honestly hadn’t expected from him at the beginning.
I have to talk a little bit about Takumi, because he was a very important supporting character to Yui. Honestly, as much as he seemed like a green flag at the beginning, the feeling that he was eventually going to snap kept tugging at me for some reason. He seemed so overly okay and chill with everything, and he even communicated very openly with Yui about how he was still a bit uncomfortable with her and Kotaro working so closely together. I kind of hoped he’d stay that way, but when he snapped at her the first time I couldn’t help but go, ‘yep, there it is, I knew this was coming’. Like, I honestly don’t think Takumi was a bad person. He was super reflective and even took the blame of breaking off the engagement onto himself, although I don’t actually believe he cheated on her. The only link to anything between him and that senior was when she offered to accompany him to the cinema when Yui cancelled that one time, but there was literally no romantic tension between them. I honestly felt like it had more to do with his consistent insecurity towards Kotaro. I mean, he just found out that Kotaro had given her a piggyback ride home after she ran out when they’d had a fight. Instead of confronting her with that and making that the reason, I think he just went over everything in his head and realized he didn’t want to feel like this when he married Yui, no matter how many times she reassured him. The cheating just came way too out of the blue and Takumi wasn’t the kind of guy to do something like that in a drunken mood, he was very responsible.
I honestly quite liked the relationship between Yui and Takumi. They seemed really well-matched, even more so if you considered they worked for rivalling companies. They never discussed work and they always accepted it when the other had to cancel because they just trusted each other that much. I don’t think there was any doubt in Yui’s mind when it came to marrying Takumi, she even came after him because she couldn’t accept him breaking things off so easily. She really liked him and I don’t believe she had any lingering feelings towards Kotaro. It was unfortunate that something came between them, especially for Yui since this was the second engagement in a row that got broken off. But it was good to see that they managed to stay on friendly terms and went their separate ways without any drama.
I think I’ve now discussed all the main characters that were highlighted in this series, so I just want to make some final shoutouts to nice supporting characters.
First of all, Wang Dan, the owner of Shanghai Diner. On a linguistic side note, I know that the Japanese pronunciation of the characters 王丹 is ‘Ou Tan’, but everyone in the show pronounced it as Wan Tan and I personally know someone with the same surname which is written as ‘Wang’ in Chinese, so I’m going to write her name in the Chinese way as Wang Dan. Wang Dan (played by Eguchi Noriko) is the Chinese owner of Yui’s favorite after-work restaurant Shanghai Diner. When she’s not tending to customers she’s typically shown watching Japanese drama series behind the bar, and I really loved how she was just Team Yui all the way. The way she went at Kotaro for dumping Yui every time he came by, lol. She was a very loyal supporting factor in Yui’s life and she just wanted the best for her. I really loved that time when Yui fought with Takumi and just came straight to Shanghai Diner and hugged Wang Dan so tightly. You could tell how much of a comfort person and place Wang Dan and the restaurant had become to her. Wang Dan even came to deliver food to Net Heroes when Yui, Yae and Mitani stopped frequenting because of their overtime, saying that she was losing business because of their absence.
Having a specific go-to bar or restaurant is a typical element in many Japanese dramas, and I always really like it when shows have a place that the characters can frequent to unwind after finishing their daily work. Shanghai Diner became a really special place, and it was all the more fitting that they had their final celebratory dinner there after finishing the Hoshi Jirushi project.
Just to mention one more character before going on to my final thoughts on the main theme of the show, I just want to give a shoutout to Ishiguro Yoshihisa, nicknamed ‘Guro-san’. Guro-san (played by Kinoshita Takayuki) was this big intimidating-looking guy from administration who ended up being a lifesaver to Net Heroes when it came to the Hoshi Jirushi project. Apparently he was Yui and Yae’s boss before, and he was reliable enough to respond to Yui’s criticisms regarding the tight budget they were given by Hoshi Jirushi. Guro-san completely acknowledged Fukunaga’s shady business, and despite not being able to stop the budget from being approved (another pulled string from higher-up), he did end up jumping in to help Yui’s team during a weekend of overtime as he was so incredibly quick and thorough. I really liked that Yui at least had a reasonable guy like him on her side, and he was just a fun character in general. Honestly, anyone who saw through Fukunaga’s BS was on my good people list, but he actually went the extra mile to help Yui’s team out, so that made me respect him a lot.
Now that we’ve gone over all the important characters, I just want to give some personal comments on this show. On the whole, as I mentioned before, I was pleasantly surprised by how the writing of both the story and the characters showed such open-mindedness towards work ethics. It was extremely gratifying to see a Japanese drama series touch on this topic, because I feel like it isn’t talked about enough even though everyone knows how badly people in Japan are forced to work overtime. We all know the images of office employees passed out on the subway or even on the street. The fact that this topic was tackled this way and that it was screenwritten by two women (🙌🏻) was very satisfying.
As someone who personally has experience working for several different Japanese companies, there were a lot of relatable points that hit home for me. I may not have worked within Japan and the companies I worked for did to some extent adapt a European work style, but I still had to answer to and deal with the Japanese headquarters and there were definitely some very typical regulations to take into consideration. I also have a Japanese friend who frequently updates me on the power harassment and toxic environments they have personally experienced on the workfloor. From everyone close to me who’s worked at a Japanese company with a Japanese manager before, the stories are pretty much the same, and not in a particularly positive way. So yeah, it came as a very pleasant surprise that a Japanese drama depicted these familiar issues in this way. I found it very satisfying to see how all kinds of different perspectives were addressed. I think it’s safe to say that the main issue this drama managed to explore was the role of work in a person’s life, and especially what working meant to people. How important it is to maintain a proper balance between work and one’s private life, and how it is ultimately possible for everyone to work efficiently without overtime and still manage to get stuff done. Discovering this improved the work and life productivity levels of every single character in this show. It even comes full circle at the end, when Yui asks her team members what they thought the purpose of work was and they all gave different answers whereas her own answer was, ‘I don’t know’. You could say it’s a combination of every answer. People work for money and their company, but also for their families and for themselves. The most important thing I’m taking with me from this show comes from another brilliant comment of Yui’s: ‘I’m not here because of my company. My company is here because of me.’ It was just so inspiring to see her provide all her team members with the validation that they deserved and how, without getting nosy, she became such an important role model for everyone. It’s so special how some people manage to maintain such humility and are honestly not aware of how much impact their teachings have on others, and Yui was definitely one of those people.
The series was well-balanced throughout, nothing was rushed and the episodes were structured in a way that was very easy to follow. The acting was good, the characters were well established and there were some very powerful dialogues alongside the important themes that were explored.
I noticed that the English title wasn’t literally translated from the Japanese. I guess ‘teiji’ is a bit of a tricky term to translate and therefore people used a transposition to translate it as ‘I Will Not Work Overtime, Period!’, focussing more on the ‘no overtime’ association. While I personally find this translation of the title a bit too strong, I do get that it comes across as more of a statement, and might therefore be suitable as it’s basically Yui’s catchphrase.
It’s time for the cast comments! It was really nice to see a combination of familiar and unfamiliar faces in this series.
I recently saw Yoshitaka Yuriko in Saiai, but I also know her from Tokyo Dogs, Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu and Tokyo Tarareba Musume. I really liked seeing her quirky and bright side again in this role, even though it was mixed with some stronger emotions. It was nice to see more emotional variety from her, it really shaped Yui as a character, seeing her get genuinely angry in the face of harassment while also seeing her genuinely enjoy her life outside of work. Honestly, I think Yui is a rolemodel to all of us in the way she decided not to let work influence her personal life and to create a healthy balance between the two. She had a really nice chemistry with her co-actors and I think she was a good fit for the role. She never became a passive or pathetic female lead character, she kept standing up for what she believed in and she went to incredible lengths to understand her fellow team mates. The fact that she even went over her own limit and got hurt only to find out what Kotaro must have felt like while working was pretty wild, but also very characteristic of her. I think she may have been one of the most empathic female leads I’ve seen in a series so far. I really liked seeing her as the main lead in this show.
It’s been a while since I saw Mukai Osamu appear in anything! Personal anecdote: I actually saw him in real life once and locked eyes with him through a train window, lol. He came to the city my university is in one time and I remember walking with my friend who also recognized him going, ‘wait isn’t that…’ Good times. Anyways! I’ve seen him appear before in Mei-chan no Shitsuji, Hotaru no Hikari 2 and last year in First Love: Hatsukoi, and in the movies Hanamizuki and Paradise Kiss. I think this might be the first time I’ve seen him in a role that wasn’t completely snobby, lol. I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel like I’ve seen him play a lot of confident and not always friendly guys. Anyways, seeing him as Kotaro was really nice because despite his consistent vagueness about how he was feeling, I think he portrayed a very wide variety of emotions through his face. It was nice seeing him as this guy who appeared to be super chill and aloof but at the same time needed to be rescued from his working ways just as much as everyone else. It was surprising how a guy like him could still let himself be tied down by a manipulative person like Fukunaga, but it did shape his character that he also had this vulnerable and fragile side to him. It was really nice to see him appear in this role.
So Nakamaru Yuichi is from KAT-TUN! I knew the name Nakamaru Yuichi rang a bell but my main associations with the group are Kamenashi Kazuya and Akanishi Jin so I didn’t actually know him, haha. I hadn’t seen anything with him before either, but I thought his portrayal of Takumi was very refreshing. In the beginning he was such a considerate and kind green flag of a boyfriend to Yui, it was very nice how chill he was always so comprehensive regarding her circumstances, even when they were dealing with wedding preparations and she’d get held up for example. As I said though, I did feel like it wasn’t going to last and it was a shame that he got so affected by Yui’s reunion with Kotaro. They could’ve made a very nice couple. Then again, having to hear his mother’s voice every so often would’ve freaked me the hell out, lol. Part of me is glad they didn’t show her reaction when they broke off the engagement. In any case, I still think Takumi was a good guy. He never intended to hurt Yui and the moment he felt like he couldn’t make her happy he put it on himself to break it off. He could’ve been a bit more honest about the true reason, but I never got the idea that he had any true malicious intent. He was very reflective of himself and he thought things through very thoroughly. In the end I guess they were better off separately. He did a nice job on this show, I liked how grounded and realistic he was.
I’ve seen Uchida Yuki before in a show called Naomi to Kanako and there’s at least one other Japanese drama with her on my list. She has such a genuinely warm and friendly face and smile. I think she was a perfect fit for the role of Yae, who’d just become a mother. I also really liked her relationship with her husband Yosuke from what we were shown. If ever there was a green flag of a husband, it was him. Seriously, the scene where he came home after she’d had to take care of the twins by herself all day and she knelt behind him and back-hugged him and he was like 😌 was so touching. Although I did find Yae quite frantic in the beginning when she basically begged people not to treat her any differently from before just because she’d given birth, it was so relatable and understandable why she did it. You could say how hard it was for her and how long it actually took her to allow herself to actually make time for her family. It was clear that that’s really what she wanted to do all along but she just didn’t let herself admit to it because she knew that she was only going to prove people right in their prejudice about her. I think for any woman who’s been in this position or who can imagine being put in this position, Yae is a very representational character. I really liked her performance in this series.
I’ve seen Yusuke Santamaria appear before in Higashino Keigo Mysteries and Tantei no Tantei, although I don’t really remember him from there (it’s been a very long time since I watched those shows). Anyways, I think he did a very good job of giving me the ick throughout the series, lol. I’ve had my fair share of bad bosses and managers, but Fukunaga definitely took the crown. It was almost unbelievable how a guy like him could’ve been promoted as a department head. There were many times in the show that I genuinely wondered what he even did during work hours while everyone else was working their butts off for his neglectable projects. I loved when Yui just gave it to him straight by saying ‘dude, stop manipulating other people to make up for your own incapability’ 💁🏻♀️. Although it was good to get a bit of insight about what he had been through himself, I still feel like he learned the least out of everyone. I didn’t find him a very sympathetic character, he was always pointing fingers at others and telling others to do stuff for him. If they’d go against him, he’d use something to manipulate or guilt-trip them into doing it anyway. The way he actually went to have face-to-face dinners with all the team members to tell them to take on all the extra tasks because Yui was getting married soon and they shouldn’t add to her work load 🙄 while he’d literally just gaslighted Yui into putting in extra effort and even working overtime not to add to Kotaro’s work load 🙄 and all the while he himself was just twirling his thumbs in the background. It was so satisfying when the new CEO from Hoshi Jirushi called him out on his BS. Anyways, back to the actor, lol. I guess here it also proved that the actor is doing a good job if they make you sincerely dislike their character, so well done to him!
I didn’t know Shishido Kavka from anything else, but she definitely made a very distinct character out of Mitani. Apart from her appearance and unique hairstyle it was nice how she just managed to adapt that whole rigidness into her movements as well. The way she would just glare at something and go, ‘What about it?’ was pretty funny. I was a bit scared that she might turn a little petty once she found out through Fukunaga that Yui was planning on getting married – it might have felt as if Yui hadn’t opened up to her enough to tell her that even though Mitani had been trying to become friends with her? – but luckily it didn’t go that way. Fukunaga just used it as a way to get Mitani to take on more work instead of Yui as well, just like he did with everyone else. I think once Mitani got closer to Yui after the first episode she became a much more likable character, and it was nice that she even started coming to Shanghai Diner after work herself. I think she portrayed a very interesting character as Mitani.
Apparently Izumisawa Yuuki appeared in an episode of Unnatural, but I don’t think I remember his character from there. He was one of the new faces that I encountered in this drama. I think he fit the role of Kurusu very well, and he certainly did a good job portraying the resentful frustrations towards Kotaro and anyone else who wouldn’t give him a chance to prove himself in a big project. In a way, his immaturity also made his character very realistic because I guess we can all relate to getting super excited to be put in charge of something big only to constantly be interrupted by your seniors on how you’re not doing it right. Although I was annoyed with him a couple of times, his behavior was very understandable. I mainly felt bad for him once he started getting manipulated by Fukunaga to work himself to the bone in order to prove his capability to Kotaro – that was just plain power harassment and taking advantage of his innocence. I’m glad he got to talk with Shu and it was a real show of character from his side that he properly listened and learned from what he was told. I also liked the junior-senior relationship between him and Yui, they had really good teamwork and it was heartwarming to see how much Yui wanted him to thrive in the team. He did a good job!
Apart from some appearances in Shinigami-kun and Dame na Watashi ni Koishite Kudasai which I don’t even remember him from, I see that Emoto Tokio has also appeared in a lot of movies, starting from 2006. I thought Azuma was a really nice character to have around in the series. He just brought a very chill energy and despite his lack of ambition it was nice to see that they gave him enough confidence in his own skills and they didn’t make him into a typical people-shy otaku as Japanese dramas sometimes tend to do. He had a very good supportive presence in the office and a good nose for shady things as well, even though he still needed to learn how to voice his critical opinions a bit better. I thought that the issue that his character was highlighted for was interesting because it wasn’t as linear as the others, there were some dualities to what he was going through and I thought that only made him more realistic as a character. I liked his performance!
The way I sqealed when Sakurada Dori came on screen! I really missed my baby. I’ve seen him so far in Good Morning Call, Koe Koi, Kirawareru Yuuki and Hana Nochi Hare. As I mentioned before, although I was a bit sceptical about Shu’s character at first because I wasn’t sure in what way he was going to contribute, I was ultimately glad to get some more backstory from him and how he even played a part in settling things between Kurusu and Kotaro. In the end he became an important asset in proving to Kotaro that he had really negatively influenced the people around him with his obsessive work behavior. He may not have gotten that much screentime in this show, but it was still nice to see him.
Finally, I want to give a major shoutout to Eguchi Noriko, who played Wang Dan. Watching her reminded me of Takahata Atsuko’s character in Naomi to Kanako, which was amazing. She really cracked me up with her Chinese accent 😆 especially since the only other character I’ve seen her play before this was the super frigid lady from Jimi ni Sugoi! It was a very funny contrast. Actually, that’s not completely true, I’ve also seen her play the abusive mother in Boku Dake ga Inai Machi and she also played a role in Kuragehime. In any case, this was a very fun side of her acting that I hadn’t seen before. I love how she can talk like that with such a straight face, she really has a surprising comical talent. I loved her character.
And with that we have come to the end of this review! I spent another day on it but it was much more relaxing to write than my previous watches. Sometimes I just love watching Japanese dramas since their stories are so straightforward and there’s not too much intricate drama involved. It was definitely a very refreshing show to watch after leaving the fantastical historical realm of Alchemy of Souls which I watched before this. I can’t help but feel like it was a necessary snap back to reality, even though I loved being in the world of magic for as long as I could.
I really liked this show and how realistically it depicted several contemporary issues that have been identified as problematic in Japan’s current society. These topics – of people that work themselves to death, people that are forced to stay after working hours merely to show responsibility to their co-workers, people that find their private lives influenced by their work and aren’t able to rest well because of it, people that are demoted at work simply for having a child and consequently being degraded in terms of capability – all need to be talked about, and even louder for the people in the back. It’s so important that these issues become known and it would be so great if there could be more companies like Net Heroes, where the CEO establishes a proper work ethic that prevents its employees from ever ending up collapsing due to excessive overwork. It is so important that people get to enjoy their lives outside of work and are enabled by their companies to take enough breaks to maintain their health and happiness. Sure, work is important, but it should never become someone’s entire life. Let’s try to decrease the number of people like Kotaro who feel like their lives account to nothing if they don’t have work. We need more happy and healthy people in the world!
Having said that, I’ll bid thee farewell and we’ll find out soon on which show my Wheel of Fortune lands next.
Bye-bee! x
