Review of Rich Man, Poor Woman Ep 1

Hyuga Toru (Oguri Shun), a 29-year-old company president, is lying down in a tatami-mat room while tapping on his smartphone. He enters the name "Sawaki Chihiro" into a search engine and ends up not finding any result. Hyuga is frustrated by this but it looks as if he was expecting this anyway. An alert pops up on his phone and he hurriedly checks the information. At the same time, Asahina Kosuke (Iura Arata), the co-founder and vice president of Hyuga's company Next Innovation, is looking for the latter high and low at a US trade fair and finds that Hyuga had gone back to Japan without telling him. Just then, Hyuga calls Asahina and Yamagami Yoshiyuki (Sano Shiro), the accounting director, that he wants to buy a IT company in India. Yamagami raises his objection because this purchase will eat up a big chunk of the company's cash but Asahina allows Hyuga to go ahead, much to Yamagami's exasperation. In a matter of a few taps on his phone, Hyuga completes the 9 billion yen purchase which he's extremely pleased about. Despite his high-flying status, Hyuga is one who doesn't conform to social norms and has an illness which prevents him from remembering someone's face or name.

On the other end of spectrum, we have this lady here (Ishihara Satomi) who's complaining to her university's career counsellor about how difficult it is for her to find a job despite being a science student in the prestigious University of Tokyo (Todai for short). In the current economic conditions, being a student from a top school no longer gives her an advantage and she's very worried about not getting a job offer before her graduation next spring. Note that I'm not naming her now because something will happen later on in this episode which also explains why she will remain as Miss Todai for now. It will also be worth noting that through this recap of her job search journey, nobody had called out her name once so this piece of information looks set to remain confidential for a while longer.

The hero and heroine would never have met if not for a recruitment talk Next Innovation is holding for  graduating students who want to join the company. As per things would happen in most romance dramas, the two of them leave a bad impression on each other. While asking questions from the students on why they want to join his company, Hyuga had picks Miss Todai from the audience and asks her how many job offers she has received to date. Miss Todai admits sheepishly that she hasn't been successful at all during her job search which leads Hyuga to mock her for being so useless that nobody will want to hire her despite her excellent results and the brand name school she's from. He even goes as far as saying that Miss Todai is a failure under Japan's current education system. This leads Miss Todai to retort that Hyuga should also consider those who don't meet his criteria as worthy of joining Next Innovation instead of dismissing them just because they haven't received offers from other companies. Hyuga tells Miss Todai that there's nothing good about her except her strong memory which earns him another rebuke from her that her name is Sawaki Chihiro, not Miss Todai! This is a strong blow to Hyuga who attempts to cover his uneasiness at the mention of Sawaki Chihiro because that's the name of his mother who he is trying to locate.

Hyuga gets Asahina to help him shift his refrigerator to a new spot which is right in the middle of a bare living room with just a sofa in front of it. Asahina can't understand why Hyuga couldn't pay to get someone to do this to which Hyuga remarks that he asked for it so many times that the company doing it didn't want to take up the job anymore. Just then, Asahina's sister Yoko (Aibu Saki) comes over to Hyuga's place to meet her elder brother and greets the latter as if she has met him before. However, Hyuga doesn't remember Yoko at all so she has to hide her uneasiness when she unwittingly reveals things that she already knows about Hyuga but he can't even recall that he ever told her these. Asahina tells Yoko that Hyuga can't remember people's names or faces so she is determined to make sure he doesn't forget her the next time they meet. They will definitely meet more often as time goes by since Yoko is going to be the lead chef at the restaurant which is located at the ground floor of the building where Next Innovation is at.

Hyuga, Asahina and Yamagami discuss the idea of taking on a project to handle single identification numbers for the government which has yet to be be passed in parliament. Yamagami feels that it is a very risky project given that the idea hasn't even been legally passed and the amount involved is too big. Flopping would mean that Next Innovation would go under. However, Hyuga is bent on making his company become more than a IT company which depended on social media and virtual merchandise to make its fortune while Asahina seems content to let Hyuga have his way. The only thing is, Fujikawa Masako (Daichi Mao), the official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications who is in-charge of the this, simply dislikes Hyuga especially after a clash over another project in the past. As such, Hyuga decides to get Sawaki to act as a high-ranking employee in Next Innovation and try to get into Fujikawa's good books since they are from the same school (Todai) and should be on the same frequency.

Sawaki is called to Next Innovation to meet Hyuga. Although she believes that she wouldn't be hired after that outburst, she is somewhat eagerly anticipating something good to come out of the meeting. To her surprise, Hyuga starts treating her like she's some goddess in front of his staff but his true colours show when they are alone in his office. Hyuga tells Sawaki about his plan and offers her money to help him out. He gives her a huge stack of materials to memorise before they meet Fujikawa. Although Sawaki is rather reluctant to help Hyuga because of his arrogant attitude, she decides to prove to him that her strong memory is a plus point despite Hyuga dismissing her the first time they met. Sawaki fulfills her side of the promise and goes to Hyuga's office the next day, armed with the knowledge she had memorised over night. However, Hyuga tells Sawaki that her dress sense will definitely give the game away and brings her to branded boutiques to have a makeover. Even Asahina is surprised by how Sawaki looks and gives her the thumbs-up.

 The trio then head to a party where they are supposed to meet Fujikawa. Sawaki is overwhelmed by the grand setting and starts to get cold feet. Hyuga gives her a boost in confidence by saying that she can do it so Sawaki tries her best to manage the situation. True to what Hyuga had expected, Sawaki does manage to impress Fujikawa with her knowledge and sharp views on the single identification number issue. However, a smart-aleck remark by Sawaki at the end of the party offends Fujikawa so much that Hyuga knows that it will be a miracle if Fujikawa still views Next Innovation favourably as a potential vendor for the project. This makes Hyuga so mad that he scolds Sawaki till she's on the verge of tears. When Hyuga leaves the party, Asahina goes to console Sawaki who knows that she created a mess despite being so close to success.

As Hyuga is driving, he notices Sawaki's shoes in his car and turns around to return to the party venue. However, when he sees that Sawaki and Asahina are leaving the place together in his car and how she seems to have cheered up after being scolded, Hyuga gets mad for no reason and drives off without returning the shoes.

Meanwhile, Asahina and Sawaki are discussing where to have some food since they didn't manage to eat much during the party. However, when Asahina suddenly asks Sawaki who she is and why she's using a fake name, this makes her stumped and she keeps silent while Asahina waits for her explanation...

If not for the final twist in this episode, I might not want to watch this drama any longer. The premise isn't that new because Cinderella stories have been really common in J-dramaland for a very long time where a rich man's son meets a poor woman. Strictly speaking, Hyuga isn't a rich man's son since he built his company from scratch so that's one thing different from the norm. On the other hand, Sawaki isn't a typical poor girl too because she comes from a top-notch school and seemingly has a supportive family but she's expected to be poor in the future, given that she can't find a job yet. 

Hyuga's success is largely due to Asahina and Yamagami because his out-of-the-box thinking and ideas wouldn't have materialised without Asahina and Yamagami doing all the ground work. It's no wonder why the whole world thinks that Asahina is a better choice as CEO rather than Hyuga and nobody understands why Asahina wants to remain in the background. I think Asahina really thinks that Hyuga should bask in the limelight and he is indeed impressed by the latter's abilities. However, I don't think this will remain like this for a long time because in dramaland logic, Hyuga has to undergo a setback somewhere in time and I feel that Asahina holds the key to that. Sawaki may be the catalyst that sparks a change in status quo between these two buddies.Without Asahina, Hyuga may find it difficult to do what he wants because no one else can be as indulging as him.

Although I don't foresee that Yoko will be a strong contender for Hyuga's feelings, I think the past that they shared (not sure what it is yet) could be a factor that draws them closer. However, Sawaki already has an added advantage because of her name so Yoko looks set to fight a losing battle. Nonetheless, I like her character so far because she's not like the usual 2nd female lead who looks so frail and gentle and her vivacious personality will surely make her look more endearing even though she will be a stumbling block for our lead couple.

There's been talk going on about how this drama feels a lot like a typical Korean romance drama. I can see some similarities here and there but to be fair, some of these things have existed long ago in both types of dramas so it's rather difficult to say who copied who. One particular thing I find quite interesting is, most J-dramas wouldn't feature the 2nd leads so prominently in a poster or on the index page of its website but this drama features all 4 of them with equally big pictures (refer to the pre-site image) just like in K-dramas. That's rather unusual because 2nd leads are usually relegated to the sidelines or do not even make it to the poster images. I would think that Yoko and Asahina are not your mere 2nd leads who exist for the sole purpose of fighting for the affection of the lead couple but rather, their roles are important enough for them to be put together with the leads.

Like I said, the feeling of deja-vu kept popping up when I watched this episode because I've seen a lot of things which were present in the past. The idea of our heroine using a fake name was really ingenious (I wonder if she thought of the name on the spot or she was connected to Hyuga in the past) so I'll be interested enough to watch a few more episodes to see how it turns out. I just hope that the reason or rationale surrounding why she used this name would be explained in a reasonable manner though or I'll be quite mad at being taken on a ride to nowhere.