Midnight Diner
There’s a series on Netflix called Midnight Diner (Shin'ya Shokudō in Japanese). Kind of like Seinfeld, it’s a show about nothing (because not much happens), except, down deep, it’s about human relationships.
Ordinary people, from salarymen and prostitutes to yakuza, drop into this restaurant after midnight to eat. How’s that for a plot? But it’s the poignant interactions and small crises the characters face that give the episodes texture.
The restaurant, with only 12 seats, is open from midnight to 7 am and only has pork miso soup on the menu, but people also order beer, sake, and shochu (a funky distilled spirit dating back to the 14th century). But the amiable chef will make anything you want as long as he has the ingredients.
The somewhat mysterious chef (73-year-old Kaoru Kobayashi, who has a ton of film and TV credits) is called "The Master" in the series. I still wonder, every time I watch the series, about the scar running down his face.
The other mystery that I wanted to unravel is where the heck this idea came from. Fortunately, my friend Noemi unraveled it for me. It began as a manga series in 2006, illustrated by Yarō Abe. You can’t get the manga in English, but it’s available (and popular) in French.
French edition of the Japanese manga
Each TV series episode (there are 50 of them!) is short, around 20 minutes, so it's perfect viewing when you’ve got a gap between watching something and going to bed. The show has been around since 2009 and is likely undiscovered by the majority of subscribers.
I love the show and the setting, so the last time I went to Tokyo, I went in search of the unique shinya shokudo’s that are bound to be all over the city. I never found that particular diner (which is probably in a film studio somewhere), but I found plenty of tiny places like it, along with some microscopic bars.
One of the nicest touches to the program is the music in the opening credits. A definite earworm in a pleasant way. I found myself humming it as I walked through the narrow alleyways.