Review of Koi ni Ochitara Ep 4

Ep 4: Hills wa Utau (The Hills are singing)
O.A. 5 May 2005
Ratings: 15.6%

Shimao experiences again how ruthless Takayanagi can be when it comes to achieving his goals. The latter took over his buddy's recording company despite his pleas but Shimao can only look on helplessly.Takayanagi gives Shimao his next task of handling the first concert to be organized by this company whereby he has to attend to the opera singer, Michele Andorini. However, this singer gives Shimao a tough time as he tries to make him happy but Michele keeps flaring up at him. He asks for help from Mariko and Ryuta but fails to get him in the good mood.

On the day when Shimao is supposed to sign the contract with Michele, he gets a call from Ryuta that Mariko fell from a staircase and is hospitalised. He rushes off to see Mariko even though Takayanagi stopped him. Luckily, Mariko is fine except for a crack in her ribs but Shimao's action causes Frontier to lose the contract and has to cancel the concert. He wants to go and apologise to Michele but Nanami stops him since Takayanagi is already there.

Takayanagi offers more money to get Michele to perform but his manager asks him to let Kaori spend the night with Michele in order for the contract to be signed. Without a thought, Takayanagi tells Kaori to do so but she refuses. However, when she sees how much this contract would mean to Shimao to achieve his aim, she is prepared to sacrifice herself. However, Kaori realises that Michele is just upset about his relationship with his girlfriend being objected by his parents and tries to console him. Shimao gets the wrong idea and ends up bashing Michele when he rushes to the hotel to save Kaori.

Michele offers to perform after coming to his senses as a result of Shimao saving Kaori but there is no venue since the concert is cancelled. As such, he performs with the orchestra at Roppongi Hills' roof garden much to everyone's surprise. Takayanagi is extremely unhappy about the fact that Shimao thwarted his plans but Nanami reminds him that Shimao can win people over and get the work done unlike Takayanagi who spoils his relationships with people due to his forceful way of doing things. Of course, this is not music to his ears.

Takayanagi is getting irritated and he's likely to explode in the next episode. The more Shimao achieves, the more it makes him feel that by doing things differently, Shimao can get more than what Takayanagi gets. As such, I think he's starting to realise that Shimao is a rival and may resort to destroying him since Takayanagi is the one who gave Shimao a chance at success. I don't think he's that magnanimous to see Shimao succeed in a different manner from his since it would prove that his way of doing things is not so correct after all. He won't be able to tolerate this humiliation...

And looks like Kaori is already in love with Shimao but he doesn't seem to have realised it. Or else, why would she want to sacrifice herself for his sake?

Anyway, I'm now more interested in the battle between Takayanagi and Shimao rather than the relationship between Shimao and Kaori. Seems like those two guys are going to have a very interesting clash since a lot would be at stake, including money, fame, beliefs and a woman. Kaori used to like Takayanagi but after this episode of asking her to sleep with someone for the sake of the company, I doubt she will like him anymore.