Sexy Tanaka-san
セクシー田中さん
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A quiet accountant becomes a belly dancer at night; the adaptation dispute, and then the author's death, changed how Japan talks about manga-to-TV.
Kyoko Tanaka is forty and works in the accounts department of a company, where her plain clothes and lack of small talk have made her the office oddity. Akari Kurahashi, a twenty-three-year-old temp, spends her evenings at group dates, hoping to marry while she is still young and pretty and settle for an ordinary sort of happiness. One night at Sabalan, a Persian restaurant, Akari watches a belly dancer called Sali and cannot look away. Sali is Tanaka. Tanaka begs her to keep it secret, and out of that plea grows a friendship between two women more than a decade apart.
Akari starts belly-dance lessons and begins to see how she lets men use her, above all her old friend Shingo, who turns up when it suits him. Tanaka is secretly in love with Miyoshi, Sabalan's married owner and drummer. Kosuke Shono, a thirty-seven-year-old trading-company man with rigid ideas about women, calls her an old woman to her face and then keeps coming back. After a night of searching for her lost hamster and too many mojitos he wakes up beside her, having done nothing, and assures her he has no designs on her at all. Soon he is learning the darbuka to understand what she loves. His colleague Konishi, a practised charmer, falls for Akari.
The season passes through a frozen shoulder that stops Tanaka dancing, a show in her home town of Matsudo, a video that spreads online and exposes her dancing at work, and a first date with Shono for which she overdoes her make-up. Working out how to make Tanaka up properly, Akari finds the work she wants to do. When his mother collapses, Shono agrees to meet a woman she has chosen for him. When Miyoshi at last tries to kiss Tanaka, she thinks of Shono and pushes him away.
In the final episode Shono calls off the marriage talks and plays the darbuka while Tanaka dances at Sabalan's Christmas show. Then she leaves Japan with the veteran dancer Aiko to study dance abroad. Konishi gives Akari a ring, but she wants to make make-up her work first. Two years later, at the wedding of Akari's friend Hana, Akari is a make-up assistant, Konishi is still waiting to marry her, and Shono is still single. The guests dance to Shono's drumming, and Tanaka, home for a visit and late off a delayed flight, arrives in time to join them. Whether she and Shono become a couple is left untold.
Starring
Haruka Kinamias Kyoko Tanaka
A forty-year-old accounts clerk thought odd at work, who dances at night as the belly dancer Sali.
Kyoko Tanaka’s story
Tanaka has never had a friend or a boyfriend. At Sabalan she dances, and quietly loves the married owner, Miyoshi. When Akari recognises her she begs for silence, and gains a friend. Shono calls her an old woman, then keeps coming back; she throws him out when he runs Miyoshi down. A frozen shoulder stops her dancing, a video exposes her at work, and her first date with Shono goes wrong under too much make-up. When Miyoshi leans in to kiss her, she thinks of Shono and pulls away, and for a while she cannot dance. Akari brings her back. She dances to Shono's drumming at the Christmas show, then leaves with Aiko to study dance abroad. Two years later she arrives late at Hana's wedding and joins the dancing.
Meru Nukumias Akari Kurahashi
A twenty-three-year-old temp chasing an ordinary marriage, who becomes Tanaka's devoted friend and finds her own work.
Akari Kurahashi’s story
Akari goes to group dates to marry while she is still young and pretty, without much liking herself for it. Seeing Tanaka dance, she becomes her devoted fan, takes up belly dance and plots revenge on Shono for insulting Tanaka. She tells Shingo, the old friend who turns up when it suits him, that she is done being used; he answers that she has only moved her dependence on to Tanaka. Searching for a make-up that suits a woman of forty, she finds the work she wants. When Konishi gives her a set of make-up brushes, she tells him she adores him. At the end she promises Tanaka to be on her side for life, whoever she chooses, and when Konishi offers her a ring she puts her work first. Two years later she is a make-up assistant.
Katsuya Maigumaas Kosuke Shono
A thirty-seven-year-old trading-company man with rigid ideas about women, whose prejudices give way as he falls for Tanaka.
Kosuke Shono’s story
Shono wants to marry, has a long list of conditions, and says what he thinks of women out loud. At Sabalan he calls Tanaka an old woman; after the night they wake up side by side he assures her he has no designs on her, then starts bringing her food. When she admits she loves Miyoshi he runs Miyoshi down and is thrown out, then asks Miyoshi to teach him the darbuka, to understand what she loves. On their first date he hurts his leg defending her from men who insult her. He begins seeing Fumika, the woman his mother chose, with marriage in view, and stays away from the Christmas rehearsals. After an operation his mother tells him to go where he wants. He leaves Fumika and drums while Tanaka dances. Two years later he is still single.
Goki Maedaas Kazuki Konishi
Shono's easy-going colleague, a practised charmer who falls seriously for Akari.
Ken Yasudaas Keito Miyoshi
The married owner of the restaurant Sabalan and its darbuka player, whom Tanaka secretly loves.
Kazuma Kawamuraas Shingo Nakahara
Akari's friend since student days, who keeps her at a convenient distance without ever saying what he feels.
Why it matters
Sexy Tanaka-san sets two kinds of invisibility side by side: the forty-year-old nobody looks at, and the twenty-three-year-old everyone looks at and nobody hears. It asks what a woman owes the gaze of others, through a heroine who took up belly dance to think for herself and stand on her own feet. The line she passes to Akari, borrowed from a film, is that she does not need love; she wants to be respected. The drama is also remembered for what came after it. Hinako Ashihara, who wrote the manga, had asked that it stay faithful to her work and ended up writing the last two episodes herself. In January 2024 she published her account of the dispute, then withdrew it; days later she was found dead, reportedly by suicide. The broadcaster and the publisher each published investigations, and the case opened a public argument in Japan about how adaptations treat the people who created the story.