Watching Ikoku Nikki after the parade of premieres this weekend, I’m reminded of just how stark the difference between jousei and shoujo is. “Drama” is the word that keeps popping into my head. Shoujo – especially but not exclusively romance – is addicted to it. Jousei is quite comfortable without it. Something like Uruwashi no Yoi no Tsuki takes what’s essentially a routine situation and manufactures drama to cram into it. Ikoku Nikki takes what’s inherently a dramatic situation and focuses on the routine in it. Which you prefer is a matter of taste, but it’s probably not hard to guess how I lean.

So where am I after two eps of this show, then? I’m intrigued by it, more or less caught up in it. Ikoku Nikki is definitely a vibe sort of series. It draws (lulls) you into its rhythms, with its restrained vocal performances and soft watercolor palette. It’s in no hurry to get anywhere, so it works better if you don’t go in with expectations that it will. The story is playing against a very incomplete backdrop – there’s much more that we don’t know than that we do. At this point we’re watching characters get to know each other as they work through their own hangups in a very realistic way. I wouldn’t call it exciting, but it is involving.

“Routine”, in fact, is a word that comes up in this second episode. Makio has hers – the same foods on the same days every week (hot pot, hot pot, rice bowl, rice bowl, ginger pork, ginger pork, sashimi – and udon for lunch every day). One is inclined to ask – why? Is there some reason Makio eats those specific things in that order? I mean, wouldn’t you split up the items you eat twice rather than eat them back to back, and why would you have udon every day? But we don’t get into that – it’s just a quirk of her personality we (and Asa) have to take as read.

Breaking up the routine is part of the theme here – and of course, Asa herself is the ultimate routine-destroyer for Makio. New players are introduced, first off Daigo Nana (Matsui Eriko). She’s a friend of Makio, which is challenging when Makio is the sort of friend who doesn’t return LINE messages for a week. And here only does so because she sees an unanswered message on Asa’s phone. She blows into the apartment like a typhoon, bringing cake (I think she runs a bakery) and declares that everyone is going to make gyoza. Makio is unenthused – as one suspects she is about everything – but Asa is all-in.

It’s interesting that Asa is so fascinated by the casual banter between those two – certainly implying she never heard it at home. She even blurts out the “Shush!” she was thinking as she listened. As they prepare the gyoza Daigo hints at the backstory behind it, and Asa goes on a trip in her mind (as is her wont), to an exotic foreign land (adulthood) where she doesn’t speak the language. Daigo isn’t the only new player who enters the game this week – it’s at her suggestion that we meet the other, Kasamichi Shingo (Suwabe Junichi). He’s another friend of Makio’s – but at one time, he was clearly something more.

Again, we’re left to fill in the blanks in this relationship. Kasamichi and Makio were clearly lovers. He enjoys her books, and they’ve remained on at least somewhat friendly terms. She contacts him for advice on finances now that Asa is in her life, suggesting his practical knowledge far exceeds hers. Kasamichi-kun (as Makio calls him) admits that he was upset when he heard about Asa, as Makio always told him she never wanted kids. One can imagine that conversation between them. And indeed, that’s much of what Ikoku Nikki is so far – us imagining conversations from the past, based on comments in the present.

Makio admits that she’s terrified of making a remark which will change Asa’s life forever – to which Kasamichi replies that she did that with him, though naturally he doesn’t tell any of us what it was. Makio and Asa are clearly alike in some ways, not least that each of them is emotionally blocked off in a major way. Makio makes it absolutely clear that how one feels is no one else’s business, which is admirable. But in order to help Asa come to terms with what’s happened and moved on from it, Makio is going to have to confront the demons in her own past. One imagines that’s going to be a jagged and painful process for both of them, but that seems to be more or less the point of all this.