SECOND BLUE (2025)

Tateishi Daichi, an employee at a book design company in Tokyo, has very little interest in real life romance and prefers romance found in books. That is until one day, he reunites with Ichikura Kousuke, someone he knew from his university days who is now working as an editor at a big publishing house. This stirs memories in Daichi as Kousuke was the one person in his life he wanted to forget.

I've been following this drama ever since it got announced since it seemed like my kind of project and I wasn't disappointed! It took me a bit longer to sub since I've been working on finishing my movies, but now it's finally finished. I love the music they used (especially the final scene!!) and the overall atmosphere. I won't spoil, but I hope you guys enjoy watching ^^

Subbed trailer:

Cast (romanization for actors based on the official actor profiles for searchability, for characters same as my usual style): 

• Tsutsumi Koyo as Tateishi Daichi
• Hasegawa Miki as Ichikura Kousuke
• Tachibana Shion as Anzai Rino
• Kawatsure Hiroaki as Daichi's boss (for his other project I subbed)
• Yamashita Kaori
• Hirooka Miyu
• Minase Sho as Hiroki
• Kidouchi Akari as Kana
• Koike Mayuka as Kudou-san
• Asami Rion as Kawakubo-san
• Murakoso Yuumi
• Tokunaga Masako (don't quote on me on her name reading)

Direction + Screenplay: Uchida Yuki

Theme song + Music: Hara Yoshihiro (you may recognize his music from my other project)

Production: eggknock + KOSEI STUDIO

Sponsoring: Ranku Inc.

Casting: Ranku + KOSEI STUDIO

Translation notes:

The title of the book used throughout the drama is Mizumizu (瑞々). But right next to it, you can see an artificial reading given to the title. In this case, it's tan-tan. In Japanese publishing, authors often add a non-standard reading (gikun). This is for many reasons actually and highly depends on what the author wanted to convey. The original title mizumizu means fresh and lively, however, with the gikun tantan, there are more options. The option they wanted to go for, given the water symbolism throughout the drama, is most likely water-related. Tantan is used for the gentle flow of water, but also for the state of something filled with deep water.

You can actually buy the photo book from the drama. It should be this one!

Timestamp 15:18 - She actually uses the word junior, and in Japanese it's used to refer to kids from upper grades of elementary school to junior high school, and sometimes senior high school (but less so), which involves years around 10 to 16 years old. As it's not clear when he started, "young age" was used.

Timestamp 29:50 and onwards - It was a bit tricky to sub this section because of the word "dorama". Apart from the obvious definitions, it's used to describe moments with tension or emotional elements. From my understanding, this can also be applied to books, in this case, it's the rising action and climax part. So I subbed it like that. Technically, it could also represent conflict, but since the protagonist is running away from conflict, it should be the climax part. So that's why the sequel feels flat as opposed to the first book.

Also, wasn't sure if there's any good translation for shinkan gasshuku (新歓合宿), so I just settled for welcoming camp. This is an event where new students stay somewhere together for a period of time, like a training camp. But this time, it's to help the freshmen integrate and build connections with other students. It's usually organized over a period of 2-3 days. It's held in junction with other clubs, so it's not just the badminton club alone.