‘Proposal Daisakusen’ Episode 1: Can I Get Married if We Had Gone to the Koshien!?

* Proposal Daisakusen is a Japanese drama aired on Fuji TV from April 16 to June 24, 2007.

“The key that opens the door of miracle is in everyone’s hand. But the ones who realize that are far and few.”

A wedding is in the works while an old man looks from the balcony of the church.

Iwase Ken (Yamashita Tomohisa) wakes up late for a wedding. He rushes off and hails a taxi.

Meanwhile, the bride Yoshida Rei (Nagasawa Masami) is already dressed. She’s visited by her bestfriend Oku Eri. Eri tells Rei how she used to think that she would be the one who would get married first. To appease her, Rei asks Eri to catch her bouquet.

Ken’s taxi is stalled when a marathon causes a monstrous traffic so he decides to run instead. His friends Hisashi Tsuru, Enokido Mikio and Eri wait for Ken outside the church. Ken finally arrives and is dragged inside by Mikio and Tsuru.

The bride makes her way to the altar with Ken waiting in front. He has known Rei since primary school and has been in love with her for years. But he is not the groom in this wedding but Tada Tetsua, their teacher in training during high school.

Throughout the wedding, Ken thinks about how he has always been beside Rei but never got to confess his feelings for her. Ken realizes that at the moment when you’re about to lose the person you love most in life is when you’ll realize that s/he is the one. However, for Ken it’s too late now.

The wedding is through and Eri gets to catch the bouquet. She tells her friends that she will definitely get married this year. Tsuru asks her to marry him but Eri dismisses him.

At the wedding reception, their old high school homeroom teacher Ito Matsunori makes a speech. Rei laughs at the speech while Ken looks longingly at her.

Ken and Mikio go outside to smoke. They frown at the fact that there would be more boring weddings to attend in the future. Tsuru finds them and tells them that the shopkeeper Nishio Tamotsu will be cooking his hamburgers at the reception. They used to frequent Tamotsu’s hamburger house Shogun’s Hamburger.

The old man from the church looks on as Ken continues to smoke outside.

Ken goes inside and is greeted by Rei who asks him how she looks in her wedding dress. Ken is obviously taken by her beauty but teases her instead. Rei reminds him about his speech.

Ken goes on to make his speech. He talks about how he has been friends with Rei since they were kids and how she once wrote that her dream was to become a cute bride. He congratulates her for achieving her dream and goes on to talk about her embarrassing experiences while growing up. Ken gets teary-eyed when he talks about the time he spent with Rei and how Rei has always put her friends first before her own self. He felt like crying because the vision of Rei in a wedding dress was too beautiful. Everyone in the room is deeply touched.

Next, a slideshow made by Eri and Mikio is presented. It includes pictures of Rei as a kid. They show a picture of Rei when she transferred school during Primary 3 and Ken recalls the first time he met her. They were in the same class and became seatmates.

Ken is distraught at the fact that he could not be the one beside Rei. He turns to drinking to assuage his pain, regretting that he wasn’t able to confess his love for her.

When they show a picture of them during the time they lost a baseball game in high school, Ken remembers how it was the first time he saw Rei in tears. In the picture, everyone including Rei looks awfully sad. Ken wonders whether he would be the one sitting beside Rei if he did things differently. He wishes he could go back to redo things in the past.

Suddenly, Ken sees a bright light and everything stands still. The old man appears beside him. He tells Ken that he would allow him to go back to the past to redo things with the deadline set when the photo was taken so he could live life without regrets. The old man introduces himself as a yousei (fairy). Ken hesitates to believe him at first. Yousei whispers that he only had to say “Hallellujah chance” and strike a pose in order to go back to the past.

Ken does what he’s told and is transported back to the qualifying game for the Koushien’s (National High School Baseball Competition) Kyoto competition. Ken wonders whether this is all really happening and sees Rei cheering for them. Tsuru drags Ken and hits him for spacing out. He tells Ken that they are behind by one point. Ken couldn’t believe what’s happening and thinks he drank too much.

Mikio strikes out and Ken is asked to bat next. Rei looks at him worried. Ken remembers the pitches during the game so he gets to hit the third pitch. He runs to third base and remembers that they lost the game because Tsuru was to bat next and has struck out. Ken figures he needed to change things so he goes for a homerun but fails.

At the locker room, Tsuru asks Ken why he kept on running instead of staying at third base. Ken tells them that they would have lost the game anyway because Tsuru will strike out. He tells them that he comes from the future but is mistaken for a fool.

Ken is disappointed that he couldn’t change the past. Rei finds him at the benches and teases him for losing. She tells him off for being sad all by himself and reminds him that it’s her last day as their team manager. She asks him why he continued to run because the Ken she knew wouldn’t have moved during that key moment. Ken tells her it’s because he made a promise to her that he would bring her to the nationals. Rei laughs at him but is obviously touched. She tells Ken that she never doubted he would touch home and that she would be retiring as a manager without regrets. Rei thanks Ken for working hard.

Eri calls them for a picture taking. They take a picture and Ken is transported back to the wedding.

Ken wonders whether he really went back to the past. He is shocked to see that Rei’s expression in the picture has changed and she is now happily smiling. However, Ken is disappointed that he couldn’t make any dramatic change. He asks Yousei if he could go back in time again. Yousei tells him that a picture couldn’t be taken twice but implies there are other pictures in the slideshow.

Next they show a picture of Mikio, Tsuru, Eri, Ken and Rei at Shogun’s Hamburger. Ken tries to remember why Rei looked so pissed at him.