Shomuni - Story

Story

The stories revolve around the office ladies (OL) of General Administration Section 2 (Shomu ni, or GA-2) in a large multinational company called Manpan Corporation.

GA-2 is called "the graveyard for female office ladies", simply because it is the place where female employees are dumped should they mess up big time elsewhere. Rarely is anyone ever allowed to leave for other more purposeful departments. Jobs include replacing used toilet rolls, changing light bulbs, organizing company outings, and other menial tasks. GA-2 is located in the basement, which is in fact a disused store room.

The purpose of GA-2 is to convince these errant – or simply useless – employees to quit (and typically people last three days at most) due to the monotonous and meaningless nature of the job, just so that the company, headed by sex-crazed executives and a Personnel Section willing to stoop to any means, will save on the costs of firing them.

However, the employees posted to GA-2 exhibit no intention to quit, to the chagrin of the Personnel Section Chief Torao Terasaki (寺崎寅男, Terasaki Torao?) and his assistant Nonomura (野々村?), since the people at Shomuni are happy their menial jobs give them more than enough time to pursue their other interests during office hours.

As the drama series progresses, it is evident that these seemingly lowly employees have their own pride despite them being the most despised employees in the company, and in every episode, they end up saving the company from a potential catastrophe, inadvertently or otherwise.

GA-2 has one male employee, the friendly and affable Section Chief Kōji Inoue (井上洸二, Inoue Kōji?), whose role can at best be described as that of a nominal caretaker. Save for caring for a female tabby cat, he is an old man who appears to be only interested in waiting for his retirement age while idling in the GA-2 office.

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