Series / Midnight Diner

Some tales can only be told through drama.

When people finish their day and hurry home, my day starts.
My diner is open from midnight to seven in the morning.
They call it "Midnight Diner."
That's all I have on the menu.
But I make whatever customers request as long as I have ingredients for it. That's my policy.
Do I even have customers? More than you would expect.

— Opening narration

Based on the same-named Manga by Yarō Abe, Midnight Diner (深夜食堂; Shinya Shokudō) is a Japanese Dorama adapted into a television series in 2009 as a 10-episode season. The show was renewed for two more 10-episode seasons in 2011 and 2014, respectively, with a feature film released in January 2015. In October 2016, Netflix released the fourth 10-episode season exclusively on its streaming service for a worldwide audience as Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories; a month later, the second feature film was released. A second season of Tokyo Stories was released on October 31, 2019. As of June 1, 2020, the first three seasons are also available on Netflix internationally as its original title, Midnight Diner.

The "Master" (Kaoru Kobayashi) is the owner of Meshi-ya, a small diner in the back alleys of Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, who has a minimal-sized menu, but will serve any dish his patrons request, provided he has the ingredients. Compassionate and soft-spoken, the Master serves as an ear for his customers, who come from all walks of life, to listen to when their problems and situations come into light as a result of the bustling metropolitan lifestyle that is Tokyo, but will also provide advice for them to consider and heed.

Due to its popularity, a Chinese/Taiwanese (co-production) and South Korean TV remakes were aired in China, South Korea and Taiwan. There was a Chinese movie remake starring Tony Leung.

See Chef wa Meitantei for a similar premise, except that the food served is French cuisine.

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The show has the following tropes:

• Adaptational Alternate Ending: The "Egg Sandwiches" episode. In the show, Lisa and Nakajima don't end up together, and Nakajima stops eating his usual sandwiches at the diner. In the manga though, Lisa ends up getting a divorce and she returns with Nakajima to the diner, asking for their usual.
• Adaptation Expansion: Certain episodes are lifted straight from chapters of the manga, but they provide greater detail on recurring patrons, their lifestyles and origins.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: The Master tries to avert this by limiting each customer to a maximum of three servings of alcohol.
• Alliterative Title: The Japanese one, Shin'ya Shokudou.
• Ascended Extra: Some patrons who are there for one episode return for additional scenes in the later seasons and movies.
• Blood from the Mouth: Season 1 Episode 2 has this happen to Miyuki while on a tour. She soon dies of cancer.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • The end of each episode features the point-of-view character for the episode looking straight at the audience, advising them on how to make the highlighting dish in the episode effectively.
  • The end of each season (except both seasons of Tokyo Stories) has the Master reiterate his business philosophy to the audience by also looking directly at viewers.
• Cultural Translation: The Netflix subtitles once substituted (what is spoken in Japanese as) praying to Kannon with praying to the Virgin Mary, while leaving out who the Master offers to at the local shrine (the Japanese spoken states it to be Inari, the Shinto god of foxes, rice, sake, and many other things, as well as the namesake of the offering itself, inari age, or fried tofu pouch).
  • Many puns are also translated into English puns. For example, Gen is said to like stir-fried burdock (kinpira gobo) because he's a small-fry yakuza (chinpira).
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: "Chicken Fried Rice" focuses on a man searching for the mother who left him as a baby. When he finally meets her, she explains she had no one to support her or the child or the time, so she left him behind at the amusement park.
• Decomposite Character: The Nikujaga (Meat and Potato Stew) episode focuses on a pair of sisters who are actually a pair of con women. In the original manga though, they were originally just one character.
• Downer Ending: Not all customers have a happy ending. One good example is with the "Cold Noodles" episode, where Hashimoto ultimately stops running and allows himself to be arrested, leaving Hitomi back at the dinner alone eating her chilled noodles in tears.
• Food Porn: The dishes are gorgeously made, despite being common, simple ones. Their preparations are shown in great detail.
• Idol Singer: Rinko Kazami was this in her youth by the name "Rinrin," with her hit song being "Pesky Boys Go Away."
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories 2nd season, Fried Chicken Breast with Cheese, middle-aged writer Mr. Yada has a side-gig as a famous newspaper horoscope writer. Lately he's got a crush on a girl Hikari, who's deeply into horoscopes. So he tries manipulating her by writing horoscope messages towards her, based on info she unwittingly gives him. The Master advises Yada-san to stop writing these suspiciously accurate predictions aimed at her and just let things happen. Yada ignores it and writes that Aquarius people will encounter love with someone wearing a striped shirt, and then he puts on a striped shirt that day. Just as he's about to declare his love to Hikari, a stranger with a striped shirt enters the diner and Hikari falls for that guy instead.
• Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: Two of the diner's regulars are Yakuza members Ryu Kenzaki and his underling Gen, and they're treated equally in the diner as everybody else. The regulars even address them with the -chan diminutive, despite their stern demeanor. Two episodes are based around Ryu's stabbing by a rival gang.
• New Year Has Come: Each season finale takes place on New Year's Eve.
• Once per Episode: Almost all episodes, including the movies, follow a particular format.
  • The Master begins with the opening narration seen at the top of this page; each episode (or one of the three parts in the movies) are named after a Japanese dish, to which the episode/part will focus on it.
  • A patron, be they a recurring customer or newcomer to the diner, will order the dish, reminiscing about how it has or how it is an influence in their life.
  • The patron undergoes a conflict/event(s) currently happening in their life, with the Master and fellow patrons advising and commenting on what the person should do about their situation. Whether the patron resolves their problem or not depends on the episode/part.
  • Prior to the episode credits, a brief epilogue is showcased where the patron for the episode gives a "one-point advice" to the audience regarding the dish and how to effectively make it themselves. The episode ends with the patron(s) saying "Good night".
• Punny Name: Meshi-ya means "restaurant" in Japanese; the Master's diner is called "Restaurant".
• Real Life Writes the Plot
  • The 2015 movie uses the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami and subsequent Fukushima disaster as the backdrop for the last third of the film.
  • The backdrop of episode 9 in Tokyo Stories is an old man being forced out of a municipally-owned apartment in order for the government to demolish it and build a new stadium for the 2020 Olympic Games in the city.
• Ship Tease: There is something going between the Master and Chieko.
• Smoking Is Cool: The Master and some non-regular diners smoke, and they lament the increasing prohibition of indoor smoking in Japan.
• Starving Artist: The struggling mangaka Hashimoto in Season 3 Episode 3.
• Supreme Chef: Almost all of the Master's cooking receive great praise. He also makes a point of making anything his customers request as long as he has the ingredients, and they sometimes bring their own ingredients to ensure this.
• Surprise Incest: This almost happens a few times, such as when a call girl turns out to be her customer's estranged daughter and a businessman seduces a young girl only for her to inform him that she's his daughter from an old fling.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Almost happens to one couple's relationship in the episode "Salmon and Mushrooms". The wife in a married couple that co-own a barber shop, is going to Shanghai for a few days leaving the husband on his own. One day, a woman in a kimono from a previous episode brings an old friend along. The first woman notices that one of the office lady regulars is looking younger and so the OL proudly mentions she's been getting facial shavings at the barber shop and the barber has really soft, skilled hands. Mention of this piques the interest of the friend, who's a widow, so this friend goes to the barbershop and starts an affair. Luckily the relationship between the barber and his wife survive and the affair ends, helped by the barber discovering the woman is the widow of a gangster.
• Wuxia: The 2nd last episode of the series Rolled Omelet involved the director of a wuxia movie coming to Japan to look for the Japanese man who was the main actor for his father's own failed wuxia movie. The final few minutes actually has the shooting of this movie with the extras playing evil eunuchs wearing ancient Chinese garb and waving daos (Chinese cleaver-like sabres).

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People finish their day and hurry home.
But sometimes, they don't want to go straight back home,
So they drop in somewhere on their way home.