"Shiyakusho" drama: Episode five recap

 Air Dates: October 16th until December 19, 2019 on TV-Tokyo  Wednesday nights at 12:12 am

Also goes by the title of 'Death Office', subs were done by HPriest

Main Cast: Will be tweaking some of the details as we go on and learn more about the characters. Of these five only Michiru doesn't work at the Death Office or at least for now. The four that do have mysterious pasts where it appears they killed someone, were they sentenced to work at the Death Office as a punishment?

Masahiro Matsuoka as Shimura.... main leader of the Death Office who is very stoic person who only goes by the book and has a dark past which we'll be seeing in drips and drabs

Yuina Kuroshima as Michiru Miki.... newly deceased young woman who claims she was killed but can't prove it, for some reason the Death Office is letting her hang around

Sho Kiyahara as Haruya Hayashi.... clerk at the Death Office who is a minor celeb as he was executed back in 2007 for a murder

Marika Matsumoto as Nishikawa.... clerk in the suicide division at the office, she too was condemned to death but why is unknown for now

Denden as Ishima.... older clerk in the murder division who also was condemned to death

Guest Stars for this episode:

Maya Okana as Maria Toida.... Hayahsi's high school girlfriend, they eventually were married and had a daughter

Shiori Doi as Rika Hayashi.... his sister who was about five years older

Yozaburo Ito as Seizo Hayashi..... his grandfather who was an expert in Kendo, he died while his grandson was in high school and there was more than meets the eye

Kouta Kusano as Yusaku Hayashi.... Haruya's estranged father but was he really?

 It's not an essential thing to do but it would help to read the first trio of recaps if you haven't. All of the main stories are stand alone ones that don't continue into the next episode. But there is an underlying storyline about the staff and why they're working at the office. Only bits and pieces of why that's so have been revealed to date but it could turn into the major story soon.

The action takes place at the 'Death Office' where all of us go when we die(?), all of the 'customers' at the office have recently been killed. Customers is the term used for the deceased who are interviewed by the staff to determine their next stage of afterlife.... Heaven, Hell or Purgatory....

 Bit of a different episode as there were no new dead people who visited the Death Office. Instead most of this episode was devoted to Haruya Hayashi who is one of the staff. He had been executed back in 2007 for a murder but we knew none of the details. We learned everything in this show and actually it wasn't one murder but three! An okay show but think the ones with newly arrived dead people have worked out better.

 When a person goes to Heaven they never age, if you were twenty then you'll be that age a century from now, the same applies to the staff working at the Death Office. Above is Hayashi who as mentioned is the featured person for this episode and would think that'll be the case for Shimura too before this ten show series ends. Hayashi was executed in 2007, this show takes place in 2019 so his age should have been around 35 yet is still over a decade younger. He was sentenced to death for the murder of three people, up until now we didn't know who they were nor did it appear Shimura knew most of the details. But Hayashi had to get that event off his chest and spilled his guts out to him though in the end nothing really changed. Bit of a long opening but this flashback scene to his high school days took up almost half of the episode.

 The story starts out when Hayashi was in high school or around 2002-03. He had been living with his sister who was about five years older, her name was Rika who truly cared for her younger brother and did everything she could do to help him out. Their mother had died and Hayashi was estranged from his father which happened after the mother's death. But the young man did get along extremely well with his grandfather who was more of a father to Hayashi than his real one. The grandfather was a Kendo master who taught Haruya(Hayashi) the ins and outs of the sport, when he hits adulthood Haruya also wanted to follow that path. But a tragedy struck while a senior in high school as the grandfather passed away which was one reason for Hayashi's change in personality.
 The other and more main reason is a little complicated and hope I got the details right. At the small wake for the grandfather Hayashi's father had shown up, he could be a brutal drunk and of course the man proceeded to drink himself into a stupor. So bad that he revealed a lifelong secret to his son who actually wasn't his son.... Hayashi's real father was his grandfather! Of course Hayashi didn't believe it at first but it was the truth which was confirmed by his sister. Sounds strange but the grandfather somehow married his son's wife who actually didn't die but that was the story told to Hayashi. His sister Rika and him share the same mother but not father and how often has an occurrence like that ever happened? Sounded a little more complicated viewing it but all along Hayashi's real father was his grandfather which meant his presumed father was actually his brother!

 Up until then Hayashi had been kind of a quiet young man who was studious and respectful of others. He was also a good looking man who so many female students wanted to date but he rejected all as his eyes were just set on one girl. Her name was Maria and the pair began dating when they were seventeen, she wasn't a popular student nor the most attractive one but Hayashi didn't care. But a trio of other students did who became so jealous of Maria and made her life unbearable with their constant bullying which Hayashi wasn't too aware of.
 But after the grandfather's(his real father) funeral Hayashi became much more sullen and also would fly off the handle much quicker. One day that trio of girls was harassing Maria to no end, mainly the leader Sumiya was as she dragged Maria into the girl's room and was submerging her head into a toilet. When Hayashi discovered what was happening he went into a frenzy and stormed into the bathroom hell bent on revenge. He picked up Sumiya in a rage and brought her to a window where Hayashi dangled the girl outside of it threatening to drop her. That did happen but think it was more of a case of Sumiya struggling to get free than Hayashi dropping her.
 Luckily the injuries weren't too severe but Hayashi was expelled from high school. His plan was to move out of his sister's apartment and had a Kendo instructor's job all lined up. Hayashi's other plan was to eventually marry Maria once she finished college which did happen. In an extremely nice gesture when Hayashi was leaving his sister's place for good Rika had given him a bank book from his grandfather. He had started that account when his son was much younger and Hayashi will have no financial worries for years to come.

 That's Shimura in the top screenshot as all of these events were being related to him by Hayashi at the Death Office. About five years have passed since he was expelled from high school, during that time Hayashi had been teaching Kendo, he got married to Maria who finished college and the pair had a daughter named Ayami. But over the years their relationship had soured and after the birth of their daughter they weren't intimate for months. They didn't fight nor was Hayashi abusive in the least, he couldn't understand why Maria was much colder to him until one evening at home.
 When Hayashi entered his apartment there was a man there named Asai who appeared to be very close to Maria. Too close to Hayashi who asked the man to leave but he wouldn't as he and Maria had a request for Hayashi. That's for him to divorce Maria so she could marry Asai, the pair had met at work and she loved him so much more than Hayashi. He was of course puzzled at first but he still had the mean streak in him which was unleashed. Hayashi wouldn't listen to any of those divorce requests, he calmly went to his Kendo bag, picked out a weapon and proceeded to kill his wife and her lover. But to me by far the most brutal act was killing the young baby who was only about a year old, there was no excuse for that horrendous killing. But all along Hayashi hadn't been aware that the little baby hadn't been his daughter but that was still no need for that brutal killing.
 After the triple murder Hayashi once again became calm, he called the police to confess about the killings and also had a nice long heart to heart talk with his sister. In court there wasn't much Hayashi could do to defend himself as he was sentenced to death, actually he didn't even try to defend himself as Hayashi knew he deserved that punishment. That was the end of his long story which took us close to the conclusion of this episode, very little took place after that long tale but Hayashi did offer to listen to Shimura's story if he ever wanted to get it off his chest which I doubt will happen.

 Will get more into as these recaps go on, there's four more to go. But am realizing why the staff of the Death Office was selected to work there after hearing Hayashi's story. Perhaps Heaven can be a destination for them as the office is a place where killers can reflect on their actions of the past and could they somehow make amends? Sure that theory will be filled out more when we hear Shimura's story and that may not happen until the final show. Recap for episode six is the following post and as usual many screenshots to help you follow the story a bit better.