Reflections
As already mentioned here, it is a disheartening turn of events (Hina’s father looking to Ryo (esp. his job) for stability and reliability, the debt problems of Ebigawa-san the antique shop owner).
What I like about this story is how real the scenario seems. Having a dream to do something more meaningful, but practical obstacles always getting in the way for Ryo. Even the colleague Yoshitaka’s checked out attitude costs Ryo in several ways: his work is pushed into the night, and rather than being stuck at work checking over the expense report, he goes home to do it without getting overtime. It seems he left because he was hoping to catch the flea market event at the department store. On top of not getting overtime, Ryo will apparently have to do work instead of using his free time to figure out how to make his dream shop come true…
So in the end, due to Ryo’s boss Tabuchi handing off the expense report work to Ryo, and Yoshitaka slacking off, Ryo is (once again?) spending his time doing urgent and important work, at the cost of researching opening up his antique shop. In other words, his long term goals keep getting pushed back…
This scenario reminds me of a book that was really popular a while ago, called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”
In this book, Stephen Covey describes four different quadrants of activity that we engage in:
(1) urgent and important (crises, deadlines, unavoidable work)
(2) urgent but not important (a phone call, an email that pops up, interruptions that distract you)
(3) not urgent, but important (long term projects, dreams and personal goals that have no external deadline)
(4) not urgent, not important (scrolling social media, time wasters, busy work, procrastination)
Covey said if you want to progress in your true goals, you need to minimize #2 (turn off email notifications or silence phone ringer, eg.) and eliminate #4 in order to make more room for, or prioritize #3 (because you can’t really control #1 in terms of time..unless you set boundaries I guess..).
In Ryo’s case, his time to pursue his dreams (#3) shrinks because his boss and colleagues create tasks that need his immediate attention (#1)
The story also highlights that Hina and Nasuda are in positions where they are fairly financially unburdened, so can kind of take chances and follow their dreams. Hina lives at home and doesn’t pay rent so she works part-time and makes accessories. Nasuda’s dad owns a real estate company and has always been a Prodigal Son (something like a trust fund baby?) so he dabbles in all kinds of things relating to his dad’s business. Both Hina and Nasuda seem carefree and enjoying life because they seem to be doing what they like. Ryo, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have that freedom.
Lastly, as usual, I wondered if the cat bookstore run by Yasuhara actually existed so I googled it (is this procrastination and the reason I am always behind in the book club 
). So… it turns out there is a cat book store called The Cat’s Meow Bookstore in Sangenjaya (三軒茶屋) Tokyo. And I think I found the article Ryo scrolled through while he was in bed. As you can see, the photo is of the owner holding a black cat and wearing a shirt with a cat drawing! The real owner is named Yasumura (安村), not Yasuhara though.
PS. one expression I really enjoyed learning was 何食わぬ顔. When Hina rejoins Ryo in the library, Hina goes with Nozomi to get a library card leaving Ryo behind. Ryo, embarrassed by the collection of business start-up books, he returns all to the bookshelf but the one “innocent looking” book about the British Royal garden. The expression 何食わぬ顔 is perfect, just like finding a child standing in the kitchen next to an open cookie jar, with a face that says “I didn’t eat anything…” (or at least that’s how I understood this expression)
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