October 27, 2014
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Massan Plot Summary - Week 5
#25 Massan wakes up in the dog house for using the F (Foreigner) word and Ellie goes on strike. After all, if she is too foreign to understand Japanese concepts of obligation then she is too foreign to make rice for breakfast. He tries a bit of cajoling (family read butt waving here) but Ellie is not impressed. Ellie goes to see Kamoi and asks him to reconsider hiring Massan (Unthinkable! Any wife who did this would be an interfering fool worthy of drawing and quartering.), but Kamoi says that the hiring discussion is ended and that she her job is to support Massan no matter what decision he makes. Massan tells Bossmann Tanaka that he wants to continue with Sumiyoshi. BT calls him a dern fool, and they tearfully declare that they will make whiskey together. Ellie visits Yuko who says that her husband-to-be Jiro has pledged to help support her family and the business and that she is happy about her marriage. Ellie is relieved. Grandpa Chogoro shows up at the Sumiyoshi Brewery and says that the company stockholders are against making whiskey. They will not even open a stockholder's meeting about it. Sumiyoshi may not even be able to make Taiyo Wine, because Kamoi is thinking of building his own brewery. Ellie overhears the nixed whiskey talk and continues her strike because Massan won't work for Kamoi. Ellie goes home and has tea with the wise neighbors who advise her that if you apologize first you loose the fight. but then again two people never agree on everything. Massan finds out that his order for pot still has been cancelled.
#26 Bossmann Tanaka goes to Kamoi and grovelingly asks him to allow Sumiyoshi Brewery to continue making Taiyo Wine instead of having Kamoi build his own brewery. Kamoi relents, but makes no promises about not producing whiskey. Massan is told by the number two man at Sumiyoshi that the company is in no financial condition to even think about producing whiskey and that Massan should wake up and smell the coffee. Ellie is still putting on a mad, so Massan has dinner at a local eatery and overimbibes. Ellie searches him out and brings her drunken hubby home. He complains that he is trying soooo hard to pursue his dream, and Ellie tells him that everybody tries hard and that he might do well to stop whining. Bossmann Tanaka is still very serious about producing whiskey, and asks Grandpa Chogoro, who is his wife's father, to open a stockholder's meeting about producing whiskey. Massan shows up on the scene and does a full groveling bow to Grandpa, but things don't look good. Imho, If Ellie is serious about supporting her husband, she should have been groveling beside him instead of just standing there looking disconnected.
#27 Grandpa Chogoro sees Massan's sincere groveling and agrees to open a stockholder's meeting, which makes Ellie and Massan very happy. Ellie thinks that Massan is really cool. Sincere groveling will get you anywhere. Grandpa says that if the stockholders turn the idea down that Massan will have to give up on whiskey. Neighbor Katherine stops by and says that whiskey has a smelly smoky reputation. This comes from the burnt peat that is used in the manufacturing process. Massan burns some of the peat in his experiments, and the aroma brings someone running with a water bucket. Yuko tells Ellie that some think it tastes like medicine. Yuko is making a fish dish with spices that enhance the flavor of the fish, and Ellie takes a hint. Massan optimistically serves some precious authentic Scotch Whiskey (That one bottle that he brought back never seems to empty.) at the meeting. Jiro Fujioka's (Yuko's future husband) father is also in attendance. Massan gives a fantastic pro-whiskey presentation. After all, Japan is becoming more Westernized and whiskey is sure to become popular! There will be a huge demand! Now for the taste test! The stockholders admire the color, but all start choking on the first sip. Things don't look good. Can Ellie save the day?
#28 Just as the stockholders are choking on their first sip of whiskey and Massan is floundering in a sea of dispair, Ellie arrives on the scene to save the day with a dish of fish and chips, haggis and roast beef. The stockholders all agree that sheep lungs do enhance the flavor, but this is Japan, and not Scotland. Yuko has also been hard at work and the brewery staff parades in Japanese dishes that will go with whiskey just fine. Massan waxes eloquently on the soul of whiskey and that each brewery is endowed by mother nature with its own unique flavor. That is why adult beverages are called spirits. Bossmann Tanaka adds that the times are changing and that if they don't catch this new wave that Sumiyoshi Brewery will be left behind and fade into obscurity. Most of the Sumiyoshi employees do a group grovel (Yaguchi is against anything Massan wants to do and remains in his chair.) The stockholders break into a round of applause. Later, Bossmann Tanaka takes Ellie, Massan and Yuko to the only restaurant in town (Well, the only restaurant that appears in the drama anyway), and BT declares that everything is on him. The entire restaurant rejoices and a fight breaks out, since BT was only talking about treating his own table. Ellie saves the day again by getting everyone to join in a round of Comin' Through the Rye. Later at home, Massan wonders if the stockholders will give their approval. Massan tells Ellie that he will fulfill his spirited dream for her. A few days later, Grandpa Chogoro and Yuko's father-in-law to be Fujioka arrive at Sumiyoshi Brewery to give their final answer.
#29 The stockholder's meeting was a success and Grandpa Chogoro is impressed with Massan's dream, but Fujioka (not even a stockholder), convinces everyone that it is more important to get the floundering Sumiyoshi Brewery back on its financial feet before embarking on a new venture that will take at least five years to turn a profit. You can't run a company on dreams. Makes sense to me. Worse yet, if Sumiyoshi insists on making whiskey, then Yuko's marriage will be called off because Fujioka does not want sonny boy Jiro casting his lot into a black money hole. Chogoro does some light groveling and tells Bossmann Takaka and Massan to forget about whiskey altogether. (This is not quite logical. Couldn't the whiskey thing just be put on hold until the company is financially stable?) Massan sensibly storms out and gets drunk at the town's only restaurant. (They do have a nice noren.) The restaurant staff assumes that Massan had another fight with his wife and tells him to go home and make up. Busybody Katherine shows up to offer comfort. Massan is nothing but an idiot chasing dreams. Yuko comes to see Ellie and says that she realizes that she is a tool in her father's company. She really does want to marry Jiro, but says she is willing give him up so Massan can stay on. Ellie asks how Yuko really feels, but Yuko won't open that can of worms. Massan comes home and wonders if he should abandon the dream that is the cause of so much trouble, but Ellie assures him that he is not wrong, and they will live on his consuming dream. Bakumono.
#30 Massan hands in his resignation to Bossmann Tanaka. Tanaka asks why Massan had to bring Ellie from Scotland when he was looking forward welcoming him back as a son. They will just have to forget about each other, but Massan should never forget his dream. Katherine stops in to tactlessly ask Ellie what Massan could possibly be thinking to quit his job. Massan leaves his pot still blueprints at the metalcraft man's place, asking that they be safely kept because they will surely come in useful sometime. Massan says goodbye to his coworkers. Yaguchi tells him that it's regretful that he was born in the wrong time and country, and that all of the gods on both sides of the ocean are derisively laughing at him. Massan says no, he is determined to make whiskey in present day Japan. Massan takes down his Whiskey Research Lab sign and heads for home. Ellie is working on a handkerchief for Yuko, embroidering it with a heather design and crocheting a lace border. Yuko is in her wedding dress headed for the ceremony and Ellie stops her, gives her the handkerchief and tells Yuko to be happy. Yuko's mom is a pain in the neck as usual, telling the procession to hurry on because talking to Ellie will bring bad luck.
