Attention Please

( Japanese serial " アテンションプリーズ ")

This cute little story of transformation of a tomboyish, overconfident, careless rock singer to a caring, mature flight professional is worth watching. The story is that of Misaki Youko (played by Ueto Aya), a girl who grew up with 4 brothers and a father. Naturally, she went on to become a tomboyish teenager, with no female friends. Being a cabin attendant is the most unsuitable job for her. But, just because a friend she has a crush on, says that he would like to see her in uniform, she applies for the post. During the interview, she manages to conceal her rock-star like appearance by borrowing a costume from the fellow interviewee and surprisingly, gets selected.
Here onwards starts the real drama - her continuous struggle to fit her unrefined self into the sophisticated surroundings; all this while dealing with a strict trainer Mikami Tamaki (Played by Maya Miki), not-so-supportive classmates and seniors. Everything she does is wrong, right from the speed of bowing to the tone of her speech. This obviously leads to frustration fueled further by her crush falling in love with some other girl. She almost gives up the wish to become a cabin attendant, now that the main motive is lost, but the trainer challenges her. Too proud to accept her failure, Misaki starts training again, just to defeat the trainer, though she is no more interested in the job. Her instinctive behaviour leads to some incidences which make her infamous. People start commenting that she is the one who is spoiling the whole class and how could someone like her get selected in the first place. But then, a moment comes. Just for fun, she wears a senior's uniform and then realizes the responsibility that comes with it. The immense satisfaction derived from helping an utterly confused Chinese traveller by communicating through sign/body language (due to language barrier), makes her start loving this job. In addition to this are the encouraging words from a newly acquired engineer friend, Nakahara Shouta (played by Nishikyodo Ryo).

Finally, as the exam nears, Misaki works really hard and performs pretty well. During the practicals, she maintains her smiling face though the examiner tries to pester her by her actions. Everyone agrees that she should pass, but the trainer declines. This is the most shocking incident for Misaki as this was the first time that she had done something so seriously and had still been a failure. This leads to the increase in her hatred for the trainer. But when finally, she realizes that the trainer knows her "inner beauty", more than anyone else and wanted her to become perfect, she softens, works hard again and finally passes the second test. During OJT (On the Job Training) again she does some classic mistakes, but when scolded by the senior Asou Kaoru (played by Fueki Yuko) and Captain Sakurada (played by Kohinata Fumiyo), tries correcting herself. In fact, later she manages to handle a critical situation, by her keen sense of observation and presence of mind. In her last OJT flight, she handles an unconscious passenger courageously despite being frightened in her mind.

On the final day of her training, both Misaki and the trainer are overwhelmed when Misaki admits that though she hated the trainer, it's because of her that she could attain this height. Also, the training section chief Dazai (played by Inoue Jun) admits that he pleaded with the interviewers for selecting Misaki, as he thought she can become a cabin attendant with a new charm.

"Never give up" attitude of Misaki, patience and strictness of Mikami trainer, section chief Dazai's faith in Misaki and the trainer, Captain Sakurada's well thought advices to Mikami trainer, Nakahara's never ending support to Misaki.... all these help Misaki grow into a professional cabin attendant who adds a special personal touch to the service she offers. We are simply surprised to see this transformation and how a seemingly unimportant job can be challenging as well as critical.

What if,

1. Dazai hadn't thought of selecting someone who is out of the box

2. Misaki had given up at one of the many frustrating moments

3. Mikami trainer had thought even once that Misaki is useless and gave up working on her (She had to put up with the comments from her colleague, students on why Misaki is not being kicked out by her and at the same time she had to listen to the hateful remarks from the hurt Misaki)

4. Sakurada captain hadn't assured Mikami trainer that she is doing her best.

Culmination of the efforts of so many people was a "a great new hire with special charm".

All these people lead by endearing Misaki and patient Mikami tell us, to believe in ourselves and to learn from those around us because, no job is easy and no individual is useless.....