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Hajimemashite minna san....welcome to my site on my fave Japanese Pop Culture likes such as dramas, movies, magazine scans, promo events etc. Mainly concentrate on my faves...Risa Watanabe... Kyoko Saito... Yui Kobayashi....Nana Owada.... Nene Shida.... if you're a fan at all of any of them then you've come to the right place(!) but many others are featured here besides them. Do mainly quick reviews on things I've watched, try to make the reviews brief, quick to read through with not too many spoilers, just whether they're good or bad and why I thought so plus whether you may find them enjoyable. Many, many screenshots are included from everything I've watched plus any video trailers if they're available. Hope you find something that interests you, don't hesitate to comment, arigato gozaimasu!

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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Keyakizaka46: "Tokuyama Daigoro wo Dare ga Koroshita ka?" drama episode nine recap


 Air Dates: July 16 to October 1, 2016 on TV Tokyo, Saturdays at 12:20 am
 Theme song: "Sekai ni wa Ai Shika Nai" by Keyakizaka46

Cast:

 The Adults....

Kyusaku Shimada as Tokuyama, their dead homeroom teacher
Noriko Eguchi as Kanzaki, asst. homeroom teacher
Ryo Iwamatsu as the Principal
Hiroki Konno as the janitor Hashibe
Kazuyuki Aijima as teacher Takemura

 Up until the sixth recap had listed about ten of the members in the above info but now will list all of the Keya members who are in the drama. These are screenshots from the opening credits and in the order the cast is listed, words at the bottom are the drama's theme song. Title of the song is above, it's from the group's second single and it really is one superb tune.







 Like everyone else Keya doesn't have that magic touch to attract drama fans as since day one of this blog they've always been the least viewed posts, even worse than the ones for Juice=Juice. That's okay though as for some reason they do draw more comments plus I enjoy doing recaps for interesting shows like this one. As a matter of fact except for the upcoming third season of "Code Blue" may just only review shorter dramas like this which are 25 minutes an episode.
 This opening scene was rather good but it only lasted for a few minutes. What had happened was that Yurina had fallen asleep at her desk during class and had a nightmare where she was accused of killing their homeroom teacher Tokuyama, some of her dream did happen later on in the show.




 Kind of a creepy beginning and it would have been interesting to see what may have happened if it wasn't a dream. It's now day six of the drama and a full five days since Tokuyama was stabbed to death in the girls classroom. The date is September 26th which is the first time that it's been mentioned, it's a Saturday which means Tokuyama was killed on Monday the 21st.
 At the conclusion of the eighth episode it looked like the school's janitor Hashibe may be the person in charge of the blackmailing. There was a list of the blackmailed people and the mystery of it took up a few episodes so if you're brand new to these recaps may help to read some of the previous recaps. We and the Keya girls thought the principal was the head of the dastardly deeds but it turns out we were all wrong.
 Hashibe must have some pull as the principal was 'fired' overnight or as the new principal Midozono told the class he suddenly 'retired'. She's very suspicious of Tokuyama's disappearance and thinks the girls have a hand in it, she even thinks they may have killed him. A reason for her thoughts is that Midizono told the class that Tokuyama's diary had been found in the staff room, on the morning of his death he was supposed to meet Neru at 7:30 and at 8:00 Yurina.




 Neru had showed up to the meeting though she was a few minutes late, it was her first time at school in months as she once had a bad altercation with Tokuyama. She had been so disappointed in him she had refused to ever go back to school. That meeting only lasted a few minutes and Neru told him she would be returning to school, we're not sure why she changed her mind so quickly. Tokuyama's death took place between 7:50 and 8:10 am, right when Yurina was supposed to meet him.
 Yurina claimed she had no meeting with Tokuyama and she was being set up. Later on in the show she had the evidence for that as the diary was a fake and it wasn't Tokuyama's handwriting in the diary. Not sure why the new principal tried that trick unless she was ordered to by Hashibe but shortly after that we don't see her again.
 One mystery did get cleared up and that was with a second camera. For the last few episodes we've have had the feeling there was one and as usual Yurina's detective skills paid off. She found the first camera that Tokuyama had hidden in the AC unit, now Yurina had found the second one in a clock at the front of the room. She confronted Hashibe with her discovery, he did admit planting it but never truly explained to her what his reasons were though at first it may have been to find the list which was such a key part of this drama.




 Good thing I take a lot of screenshots as there was a very important happening I almost forgot to mention. Before the new principal Midozono left the room she started checking a few of the girl's lockers hoping to find anything that pertained to Tokuyama's disappearance. The girls had been perplexed at where the knife had gone to that had been stuck in Tokuyama for five days, few of the girls said with them moving the body around so much it had to have fallen out of him.
 But to the dismay of the students Midozono found the bloody knife in a locker, is this the evidence she needs to pin a crime on the students? One thing the girls are is quick witted, their high school Cultural Festival was coming up, they told the principal they were planning on having a haunted house and needed a bloody knife for a prop.
 Reluctantly the principal bought their excuse and that's when she left the room for good. Lot of characters come and go, most have been important figures in the story and wonder if we'll see any of them again at the show's conclusion. Not quite the conclusion of this show yet as when the principal leaves all the students turn towards Yurina who they don't think is quite as innocent as she looks.




 All of the other girls are getting a bit suspicious of Yurina as certain things just aren't adding up to them. How is it that she's the one who found the two cameras, she's also the one who had found the blackmailing list. But it was more than those things, Yurina has always been the one to make the plans and seems to be able to talk her way out of many potentially troubling events.
 The other girls, led naturally by Risa, begin to suspect that Yurina is using them as pawns to cover up for the killing of Tokuyama, a killing they begin thinking was done by Yurina. Back to the diary and this was the scene where she explained how it was fake, she knew Tokuyama's handwriting and style, there was no way he wrote their names in that diary for any meetings. For now at least the other girls believe her but sooner or later they need to find the real killer, there's been numerous suspects so far but all have been a dead end.
 No cliffhanger to end off this episode, Yurina had confronted Hashibe about the camera he had hidden in the clock. He told her he's not the murderer and also wants to find out who the culprit is. Yurina though didn't bring too much up about if he had watched the camera's videos, someone must have as Tokuyama's body has been moved and someone knows about the secrets going on in the classroom. Hashibe also admitted he wasn't the person who deleted twenty minutes of video off the camera Tokuyama had hidden, during those erased minutes was when the stabbing occurred.




 My brain was a bit scattered for this recap as you may have noticed, seemed to jump around too often between scenes. Probably doesn't matter all that much as all of the major details are there or at least most as I don't want to give away every little thing in case a few are tempted to view it.
 So far would recommend it, if you're debating whether to watch this I would say go for it as it's been a superb view up until the tenth episode. The recap for that episode is the next post and hopefully my brain won't be as scattered but these days that's normal for me.





















Keyakizaka46: "Tokuyama Daigoro wo Dare ga Koroshita ka?" drama episode ten recap


 Air Dates: July 16 to October 1, 2016 on TV Tokyo, Saturdays at 12:20 am
 Theme song: "Sekai ni wa Ai Shika Nai" by Keyakizaka46

Cast:

 The Adults....

Kyusaku Shimada as Tokuyama, their dead homeroom teacher
Noriko Eguchi as Kanzaki, asst. homeroom teacher
Ryo Iwamatsu as the Principal
Hiroki Konno as the janitor Hashibe
Kazuyuki Aijima as teacher Takemura

 Up until the sixth recap had listed about ten of the members in the above info but now will list all of the Keya members who are in the drama. These are screenshots from the opening credits and in the order the cast is listed, words at the bottom are the drama's theme song. Title of the song is above, it's from the group's second single and it really is one superb tune.







 Up until May had never done a post for Keya or any of it's members, bet I did a total of thirty of them this month. That could be more than Nogi which hasn't happened in years and if you're a fan the posts will keep on coming. Currently playing their "Fukyouwaon" single as I've really been getting into their music lately, off the new single "Warete Smartphone" is the best tune so far for this year.
 Not as many happenings this episode until the final few minutes, no cliffhanger from the previous episode as that ended with Yurina confronting the janitor Hashibe about the camera he planted in their classroom. He admitted to that but says he's innocent of killing Tokuyama, time is running out to catch the murderer as there's only two more shows after this one. It hasn't taken place yet but during much of this episode the Keya girls were getting ready for the school's Cultural Festival.




 There was also a class reunion that was going to take place, the three gals above had graduated four years prior and Tokuyama was their teacher. They came to meet him but the girls told them he was absent but to their dismay the trio told them they had received a message from Tokuyama earlier in the day. Someone is still playing tricks with the girls and we still don't know who it could be but that trickster seems to know their every move, even after the second camera was found. Just popped in my head, the students have Tokuyama's phone so who could have called those alumni?
 The alumni had an older yearbook which Yurina glanced through, too quickly for us as barely see a potentially very important clue. That clue was four years ago the school janitor Hashibe had been some sort of administrator, what could have happened that he got demoted? He may have been demoted but he still has a lot of pull as he got the principal fired the previous day.




 As you can see in those bottom screenshots the atmosphere in the classroom is getting very tense, the girls are starting to get on each other's nerves. It's the sixth day Tokuyama's body has been hidden in a locker and he's starting to reek. The girls keep buying air freshener but after a while that's no longer going to have enough of an effect. Where to hide the body is the question, two days ago they buried his body on the school grounds but now now there's construction going on and they had to dig it up.
 That wouldn't have been too safe of a place for too long though and as of right now there's no other alternative. As mentioned the tenseness in between the girls is sky high, they begin arguing with each other and even come close to brawling. Bit of a slower episode as not much happened for the first half of the show but it was still just as good as the previous nine episodes. The final scene was quite explosive and it lasted a while.




 In the hallway Neru and Risa were walking together, we're finally going to learn if there is a relationship between the pair. But during their walk Nijika suddenly appears with a knife and lunges to stab Neru. Risa jumps in front of Neru and ends up being the person to be stabbed. Wasn't a serious injury as Risa was only stabbed on her arm and wrist but with her actions does this mean Nijika is now a prime suspect for the murder of Tokuyama?
 There was a long, long heated discussion in the classroom between all of the girls who surprisingly didn't think Nijika had anything to do with Tokuyama's murder. This is when Risa tells everyone her true feelings about Neru which was this....


.... which truly shocked Neru. Sadly for Risa it doesn't seem as Neru feels the same way towards her or at least for now as this part of the story may not be finished. She doesn't come out and admit fully but to me it seemed Nijika had those feelings towards Risa, she said that she wanted to stab Neru to protect Risa from her as she thinks Neru is still the killer.
 Neru plays along for a while with her accusation, bad mistake as many of the girls start to believe her. Perhaps none of the Keya girls is an accomplished actress but to date Neru may be the best one from the group. She's quite a mysterious girl and most of her classmates don't know what to think of her which has made her suspect #1 in the killing until Neru drops a bombshell on them.



 Took a while but Neru was able to convince everyone she had nothing to do with the murder. But it's what her next comments were which is the bombshell leading into the next episode. After convincing her fellow classmates she's innocent of the murder she begins to tell them that she knows who the real murderer is!
 Neru slowly turns and points her finger at Nanami, that's a name which hasn't been mentioned yet. Nanami is one of the better students and a very trustworthy girl too, what possible evidence does Neru have to accuse her of killing Tokuyama?




 No answers to that question yet as the episode ended with that line, real nice cliffhanger to begin the next show off with. Only two episodes to go, wonder if Neru really knows who the killer is or is this some sort of trap to draw out the real killer? Above Yone is short for Yonetani.
 Everything will be explained in the next two recaps which will be the final ones for this twelve episode series. Will be doing the recaps for those final two shows beginning of next week and I'm looking forward to see how this ends. After that will be starting soon on their new drama "Zankokuna Kankyakutachi" which began on May 18th, first night had two episodes. The fourth one airs tomorrow and the series is getting subbed.