The fifth episode of the Fuji TV drama series "Ramune Monkey" (Wednesdays at 10pm), starring Takashi Sorimachi, Nao Omori, and Kenjiro Tsuda, aired on February 11th. The episode featured a discussion of Masaya Tokuhiro's manga "Shape Up Ran," which has been serialized in "Weekly Shonen Jump" (Shueisha) since 1983, sparking excitement on social media.
◇The following contains spoilers
When they were in junior high school, Yuta Yoshii (Sorimachi), Hajime Fujimaki (Omori), and Kikuhara Kisuke (Tsuda) were kindly allowed to use the break room of the rental video shop "Video Jupiter" as a club room for their film studies club.
As the three of them reminisced about Hiruta, Yuta pointed out, "If you think about it, there's no reason for him to be so kind to a damn cheeky middle schooler." He asserted that Hiruta's target was Matilda, also known as Miyashita Misa (played by Kiryu Aso), who was the advisor for the film club.
Hajime said, "My image of my older brother (Hiruta) is Soichiro from Shape Up Ran. He's a college entrance exam ronin who peeks at Ran-chan getting changed," referring to Tokuhiro's work, to which Yuta pointed out, "He's a really perverted character. That was a terrible manga." On the other hand, Hajime retorted, "No, it's a terrible but great manga. Right from the first chapter of the first volume..." and the conversation continued.
On social media, it became a hot topic, with comments such as "Shape Up Ran is so nostalgic lol," "Tokuhiro Masaya sensei's 'Shape Up Ran' material...isn't it a bit too nerdy lol," and "Shonen Jump's Shape Up Ran brings back nostalgic memories." Jump in the 80s was really aggressive. Shape Up Ran was good too."
The original story and screenplay for the drama was written by Ryota Furusawa. It is a "youth-recovering human comedy" that depicts the reunion and rebirth of two middle-aged men who were both passionate about making kung fu movies when they were in junior high school in 1988, but now feel like their lives have reached a dead end, thinking "this isn't how it was supposed to be."
