Ep. 40 Yusaku’s Twilight
Written by Cordelia.
Listen to the full episode :
Hello, my dear listeners. It’s wonderful to have you here again at the Thursday Night Kissaten.
I remember someone once asked me, “Why do humans love to do almost everything with food? Especially Asians?” This question made me think for a while, and I said, maybe it’s because we know that the stomach is the second brain, so we love to take care of it. After all, comforting the stomach will comfort the heart. And perhaps that’s why food-related dramas often give us a healing vibe.
Today, in this episode, we’re going to talk about a TV show from last fall, Yusaku’s Twilight (たそがれ優作). I hope to pass on a sense of comfort to you in the middle of this autumn season.
Story and TV Show
Yusaku’s Twilight aired on TV Tokyo from October to December 2023. This TV show is based on a manga of the same title by Yaro Abe, who is well-known for their work, Late Night Dinner. Not much is widely known about the manga artist Yaro Abe-sensei, except that he graduated from Waseda University, worked at a commercial creation company for about 20 years, and then finally debuted as a manga artist at the age of 41 with his work, Yamamoto Ear Pick Shop in 2003. Abe-sensei loves to illustrate old-fashioned, or let’s say, Showa-style shops, restaurants, bars, streets, and neighborhoods. In his works, we not only see food but also the essence of human kindness—something that is increasingly rare in our current capitalized city life.
The manga, Twilight Dinner, was first released in June 2017. Its real-action TV adaptation, Yusaku’s Twilight, tells the story of Yusaku Kitami, a 52-year-old actor who is somewhat adrift in his fifties. He spends his days acting and his nights enjoying good food and drinks, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, and sometimes with female companions.
It’s a bit dull yet fascinating, and perhaps tragically funny—perfect for a quiet dinner night with a good drink.
Yusaku, our main character, is a professional actor in his midlife. After 20 years of acting, he has only landed countless supporting and villainous roles, never a leading role. To Yusaku, it feels like a reflection of his own life.
Supporting Role and Leading Role
For Yusaku, being an actor is just like any other job. He doesn't carry much pride or ego—he's just a professional. His acting career started on the theater stage, and while he’s never been in a major role, he is somewhat well-known for his craft. He takes his roles seriously and always tries his best to perform. However, as a man, he doesn’t consider himself successful. He lives alone, divorced, and often feels like a supporting character in his own life. Every time he tries to do something significant, someone else comes along and takes away what he wanted.
Interestingly, in the show, regardless of who he is portraying—a worker, a murderer, an elderly master—when Yusaku returns to his real life, he is an ordinary person walking into the twilight. It’s endearing in its own way. What’s more, even though he is a supporting actor, he is irreplaceable in his own life.
The perk of being an actor, as Yusaku sees it, is that if he makes a mistake during shooting, he always has the chance to redo it. He believes life should offer the same.
Food, Drinks, and…
Like many people, after work, Yusaku enjoys some time alone—eating good food freely, quietly, and peacefully to recharge and relax.
An Amazing Life for a Guy in His 50s
In every episode, Yusaku meets someone over food or drinks.
To be honest, this show might be considered plotless. Maybe it’s because it maintains an extremely serene tone with a laid-back point of view. As an audience, it doesn’t feel overly dramatic. The storytelling style is like the peaceful dawn you see from a bus window after work, on your way home—the warm orange light blending with the sky like watercolors, regardless of the season. It warms the heart. I remember seeing that kind of sky during a trip to Kyoto and Nara this past January.
Delicious food, beautiful scenery, and attractive people—what more could one ask for?
In one episode, Yusaku meets a journalist. They talk about the best way to relax after work. Both mention going to an izakaya, ordering a craft beer, looking at the handwritten menu on the wall, and getting a second drink with their food. Good food, good drink, and perhaps, good company. Chatting without a specific purpose, allowing free thoughts to flow in the space—that’s the best kind of relaxation they want to have. And maybe, a listener with an open heart.
I’m sure that somewhere in Yusaku’s heart, he desires companionship; that’s why he finds different people to spend his time with.
In this show, food and drinks also serve as catalysts for intimacy. Yusaku lives alone, divorced, and his son lives with his ex-wife. In most episodes, Yusaku drinks with a woman. There’s an unspoken social norm in many cultures about sharing something personal after a few drinks. It can be a very intimate experience. In the show, many moments of emotional connection or confusion arise after several drinks.
For example, Yusaku drinks with a young actress on a mission to please her mother at a French restaurant. He eats sushi and drinks sake with his ex-wife to ease the tension and talk about their failed marriage. He enjoys drinks with a woman who just broke up with her boyfriend, blurring the lines of romance. He has BBQ and beer with an ex-lover, discussing past passions and encouraging each other to take charge of their lives. He bonds with a young journalist over drinks, becoming friends by the end of the evening. And he reminisces with an old friend, a former actress, over cocktails at a nostalgic bar. Yusaku even celebrates with his high school best friend over horse meat, celebrating the latter’s engagement to the class’s most beautiful girl. He shares a special seafood dish with a bar owner, experiencing a silent moment of forgiveness.
Yusaku eats and drinks, running towards the twilight, embracing life. It’s inspiring to think about—life goes on, and good food and drinks always bring comfort.
What Are You Depressed About?
Beyond all these dinners, Yusaku frequently visits a bar where the owner, Akane, is always ready to listen and comfort him, albeit in a somewhat blunt but caring way.
I would love to be that bar owner because imagine all the stories she hears—stories that could be woven into so many new tales.
Apart from all the female encounters, Yusaku also drinks with his childhood friend, ex-wife, and son.
For Yusaku, only someone in their fifties can understand how quickly time flies. He feels sorrow because what used to be normal family and parent-child relationships have become awkward and distant due to their long separation. After the divorce, he doesn’t know how to connect with his son naturally.
Yusaku is sad because of all the rejections from women, because his son has reached the age to understand why bitter beer tastes good, because he knows he and his wife can never go back, and because he realizes that mere romantic feelings cannot sustain reality. He feels the weight of age, the diminishing passion, the lost appetite, and the sense of not being needed. He feels too young to face death but too old to be a boy. He is sad because he cannot change anything about his past regrets. And yet, despite how plain life might seem, he still holds onto passion and hope.
Ending
Sometimes, we might become obsessed with the idea of having a good time, making it hard to let go. But for Yusaku, it’s the fact that things end that makes them precious. If we hold onto something too long, it becomes dull, plain, even boring, and we are forced to end it. Like any play in the theater, if it runs over ten hours, no matter how good it is, the audience will want it to end eventually. Sitting for too long makes the audience’s back and legs hurt.
That’s how I felt, too. This was such a good TV show that I found it hard to let it end.
There is no party that doesn’t end, but there will always be another party waiting for us somewhere.
Yusaku may not be a star, but he is certainly a great actor. He doesn’t have that special aura to be easily noticed, but he is irreplaceable in his own life.
And you are irreplaceable too. You are the leading character of your own life. You shine in your own way.
Thank you for joining me at Thursday Night Kissaten and listening to Yusaku’s story. I’ll talk to you again in our next episode.
Reference:
Work: たそがれ優作 (Yusaku’s Twilight)
TV Show website in Japanese: https://www.bs-tvtokyo.co.jp/tasogare/
Manga in Japanese: https://amzn.asia/d/bM01fEJ
Background music:
フリーBGM「黄昏Sunset」by yuhei komatsu
https://dova-s.jp/bgm/play19065.html
フリーBGM「Dusty Rain」by のる
https://dova-s.jp/bgm/play20943.html
