Series / Hakobiya

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Hakobiya (ハコビヤ, "The Courier") is a Japanese series, first aired on TV Tokyo on January 12, 2024. Ken Shiratori (Seiichi Tanabe) is the proprietor of the Western restaurant Kitchen Shiratori, who moonlights as a courier providing delivery services beyond those offered by conventional companies. One day, Anna Amano (Yuka Kageyama) joins Kitchen Shiratori as a part-time waitress, and also gleefully takes part in the delivery side. However, it seems that Anna might have met Ken in the past...

Order a hot cocoa and peruse these tropes:

• Actor Allusion: Yuka Kageyama is famous as a soccer buff and has a catchphrase related to the sport, "Gegenpressing to your heart!", which has been referenced in this show.
  • A customer suggests that Anna does her job with more humor so as not to be replaced by machines, such as by saying cutesy phrases like "Roast pork to your heart!" when serving an order.
  • When the same customer tries to run from paying his bill, Anna confronts him and yells "Gegenpress! Pincer him!" to signal Ken to cover his escape paths.
• Adoption Angst: In episode 4, a woman hires Ken to deliver a birthday cake to her daughter, who ran away from home because she was upset that her parents never told her she was adopted.
• Alternate Character Reading: As described in the page image caption, the show's tagline is "We'll carry that nimotsu for you", where nimotsu can mean both "package" and "burden" and given the furigana "kimochi" ("feelings"), alluding to the emotional weight of most of their jobs.
• The Cameo:
  • Members of the idol group Junjou no Afilia appear in the background at the TV station in episode 2.
  • Yuzu Hodaishi (played by Riho Sayashi), the protagonist of TV Tokyo's previous drama in the same time slot, Oshi wo Meshiagare, appears in the final episode's epilogue to request the Hakobiya's services.
• Consummate Professional: Ken goes above and beyond in both his restaurant and courier businesses. He believes that a courier's job is not only to deliver the requested items, but also to ensure the intention and message behind each delivery also come across, even going as far as intentionally failing to deliver if he believes it would ultimately better serve both parties.
• Courier: It's right there in the title.
• Embarrassing Animal Suit: Tsubakiyama, a regular customer at the restaurant, requests the couriers to deliver an animal suit to a street corner. However, he misleads the recepient into thinking that Ken will substitute for him for his shift as flyer distributor, and Ken reluctantly does so.
• Food Porn: With a restaurant as the main characters' base, this is expected. In particular, Anna attempts to create a new dish in the end of most episodes.
• Foreshadowing: In episode 3, Anna ponders whether to tell the client that her best friend is actually a chatbot. The next episode is about the consequence of withholding information, as that episode client's daughter ran away from home because she wasn't told that she was adopted.
• Imagine Spot: On the way to the park to deliver a ring from a man to a woman, Anna imagines that they're a part of an elaborate marriage proposal, with everyone in the park, including her and Ken, breaking into a Crowd Song while the man comes to propose on a red carpet.
• It Will Never Catch On: In episode 3, a professor scolds his student for wasting his time on developing a chatbot companion, saying it will never have a meaningful impact on the world, even though such AI companions are already becoming popular in real life.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings: As a child, Anna once enlisted Ken's services to find her Missing Mom. In the final episode, Ken confesses to the adult Anna that he actually managed to locate her mother at the time, but she had already started a new family, so he told Anna that he couldn't find her. Anna forgives him as she could move on and grow up happily, which she believes wouldn't have been the case if she was reunited with her mother, who abandoned her.
• Meaningful Name: Shiratori means "white bird" and he drives a white Nissan Sakura.
• Not What I Signed on For: The Hot-Blooded Anna is very outspoken when he disagrees with Ken's actions, only to apologize later after she understood what his true intentions were. To be fair, Ken rarely explains his intentions beforehand.
• Only Friend: A young girl hires Ken to deliver a teddy bear to her only friend Riko, with whom she interacts only through a messaging app. It turns out that Riko (romanized as "Lico") is an advanced chatbot who is actually designed to be a friend for lonely people.
• Painting the Medium: For example, The Reveal or Plot Twist moments are often accompanied by horizontal camera movements in a Shot/Reverse Shot.
• Product Placement: The Nissan Sakura electric kei van is prominently featured as the courier duo's vehicle of choice. A series of shorts titled Anna's Errand was also published on Nissan's YouTube channel, showcasing the car's abilities.
• Public Secret Message:
  • The restaurant's logo has the word Hakobiya in katakana (ハコビヤ) hidden in it.
  • People who wish to inquire about Ken's delivery services will order hot cocoa, which is on a hidden menu and costs 10000 yen, which also covers the delivery fee. Ken chose the beverage for its calming properties, to help the potential customer explain their unusual circumstances that requires his services.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Ken is much older and more experienced in both career and life, while Anna is young and hot-headed.
• Sense Loss Sadness: A painter wishes to show his best work to his master, who for some reason closed the painting class years earlier and cut off all contact with him. As it turns out, she was losing her sight and is now completely blind. The painter added additional layers of paint over his work, so that his former master can perceive it by touch.
• Tragic Keepsake: Anna still uses the wallet given by her Missing Mom when she was a child.
• Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: A regular customer named Tsubakiyama once confessed his love to his high school crush, promising that he'll enter a serious relationship with her when he had made it as a comedian. His pursuit didn't go well and he works as a flyer distributor on the streets wearing a full-body animal suit. He unexpectedly forms a bond with the young son of his crush, now a single mother, but doesn't reveal who he is as he hasn't fulfilled his self-imposed condition. The mother and son are going to move to another city, and the couriers are compassionate enough to drive the customer to the bus station so he could express his goodbyes... before making him work off his debt by distributing Kitchen Shiratori flyers.
• Work Off the Debt: A regular customer who repeatedly commited Dine and Dash is made by Anna to distribute the restaurant's flyers in his rabbit costume, reducing his debt by 0.1 yen for each one handed out.
• Write Back to the Future: Ken and Anna go to a public park to make a delivery ordered a year before the main story of a ring and a letter, accompanied by a bouquet of roses to be procured on the delivery date, from a man named Mitsuo to a woman named Mitsuki, who would be waiting at the park. As it turns out, Mitsuki is actually Mitsuo after going through gender reassignment procedures for a year; the letter from Mitsuo congratulates Mitsuki for finally being able to live as her true self, with the ring and roses as a gift.