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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....Miyuki Watanabe.... 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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Friday, May 12, 2023

"Boderless" drama: Episode four of ten recap

 


 Air Dates: March 7th until May 9, 2021 on dTV/Hikari, Sunday nights at 11:00 pm
Episode are 30-34 minutes in length, subs done by Westillsubbing

Main Cast: There's seven members from the three Sakamichi groups, two each from Hina and Nogi while there's three from Keya(Sakura). There's a new series called "Actress" which began on April 14th and it appears it would help watching this show first as four of the cast make a return and some stories are a continuation from this drama. Everyone does make an appearance in each show but the stories/episodes are centered around two major characters, somehow in the end the stories connect with each other. The first two shows focus on these two gals so will have their names first in the cast list. For now only a little bit is known of the other characters, bio pics are from the drama's dTV site.


 Kyoko Saito(Hina) as Kiri Katayama.... You rarely heard Kiri being used so may refer to her as Katayama. But in the third show she said to use her first name so that's what I'll be doing. Kiri is a very odd high school student, she's not shunned by others though prefers to be alone but was intrigued by Nao and the pair hooked up. It appears Kiri wants to be a mystery or crime writer as she's obsessed with the human body and what it takes to kill someone! Kyoko is listed as being seventeen in age but was 23 when this drama was filmed.


 Hikaru Morita(Keya) as Nao Mori.... Seventeen year old high school student who thinks her life is just so boring and ordinary. Nao is best friends with Saeko who is her complete opposite and she wonders why would such a popular girl like her? Nao's life soon changed drastically when she met Katayama and will that change be for the worse?


 Yui Kobayashi(Keya) as Kotone Ichihara.... Works at her father's cafe and is the older sister of the below character. Kotone is one cheerful and happy go lucky young woman which is the opposite of her sister but not much is known about the pair yet. It was learned in the third episode that Kotone failed twice to get into a musical school, since that happened two years ago she refuses to play the piano.


Seira Hayakawa(Nogi) as Kanon Ichihara.... Younger sister of Kotone and it doesn't appear they get along so well, for now it seems Kanon's dream is to be a rock star. Unlike her sister Kanon has passed an exam to attend a music college which she's kept a secret, she's also been working as a barmaid to save money so she can move to Tokyo,


 Risa Watanabe(Keya) as Haru Yatsuji.... Older sister of the below girl, through the first two shows we've just seen the pair in a forest escaping from a crazed killer! It shows Risa's age as twenty but she was 22 when this series was filmed.


 Hiyori Hamagishi(Hina) as Kei Yatsiji.... Blind younger sister of the above girl, her injury occurred when she was about five in age due to a car accident.


 Sakura Endo(Nogi) as Yuuki Matsumiya.... Know zero about her to date and unsure if I'll be recapping her solo episodes.



Other main cast members, will add to it as we go along.

Ayako Konno as Saeko.... Nao's best friend since they were little girls.

Takayuki Hamatsu as Kozo Katsuji.... Father of Haru and Kei, was he killed by a crazed man?

In this fourth episode we finally got a view of this unnamed city where the action is taking place. It's that tiny as you can see and does anyone know what city it is?



Previous recaps



 Short promo video for episode four


   

 Thought by this episode the two minor stories would be getting much more screen time, it had increased a bit over the last two shows. However they both decreased a bit in this episode as the main story featuring Kyoko as Kiri and Hikaru as Nao had 90% of the screen time. Which is a not a bad thing as this story is getting better with each show, it wasn't an intense cliffhanger but this episode did have a bit of a mysterious ending. The norm has been to begin off discussing those two minor stories and will do the same for this recap, the next pair should be a week from now.









 Will finish the two stories off in one paragraph, hope you've read the previous recaps. The top three feature Risa as Haru, Hiyori as Kei and the pair of sisters have been roaming the woods since the first episode. Their father had been attacked by an unknown man at their home and the pair fled for their safety. At the end of the last show they finally returned home and there was no one there but you can see what was on their front walkway, a trail of blood which probably was from the sister's father! Who would do such a thing and the sisters can't contact the police as Haru's phone that was in the house was stolen. That story was just one scene and so wasn't the other story. In the fourth screenshot is Kanon and she's an aspiring musician but does she want to play rock and roll or attend a music college in Tokyo? She's been working as a barmaid to pay for her move to the big city, for now her older sister Kotone nor her father know of Kanon working at a bar or of her plans to move to Tokyo. Both these stories are interesting and sure we'll be seeing much more of the two sets of sisters in the final six episodes.

 Have seen Kyoko in two other drams, to me she's a superb actress and you need to check her out in the "Re:Mind" series. In this show Kyoko plays the wanna-be detective/novelist Kiri who has been investigating the murder of an unknown man that took place in the first episode. In that show Kiri found a cuff link at the murder scene which she kept and never told anyone about it. That is until the end of the last episode where she showed the cuff link to her new and to date only friend Nao, that's above. The cuff link had an odd insignia on it and what it represented was unknown to both girls. Seems as there's no stopping Kiri when she gets her mind set on doing something, she suggested checking out all of the businesses that produced cuff links in Japan and headed to the library to begin the investigation. In tow was Nao but there was her best friend Saeko who said let's go have some fun with their other classmates. To which Nao said YES and think Kiri was a bit disappointed at being left alone. Nao felt guilty about that so before departing gave Kiri a small box of some sweets called Calorie Charge, that's right below and that box ended up being a clue in this cuff link mystery.









 As mentioned Kiri can be so gung-ho when she's working on a project, in the second screenshot above she created a map of places in their area that sold or could produce cuff links. Quite a large map and where do the girls begin(?), that they'll work out tomorrow. Upon returning home Nao's parents were outside their front door planting Pansies, it was their 20th anniversary and when they first met it was near a garden of those flowers. But what grabbed Nao's attention was the bottle of water her father was drinking. When Nao looked a bit closer at it the bottle had the same insignia that was on the box of Calorie Charge she gave Kiri and also was on the cuff link Kiri found! That was a major break and Nao quickly contacted her new friend, the products were from a company named Matsumiya Pharmaceuticals. Kiri did some checking and last year they had relocated their HQ to the girl's home city which to date has never been revealed.

 So forget about that map Kiri created, without a doubt Matsumiya is the connection in the murder. But what kind of connection, did the victim work there or was the killer an employee who dropped his cuff link at the murder scene? Hmmm, actually odds are very high the killer dropped the cuff link as that's who went to the town pool where he came close to harming Kiri. The girls did go to the company but of course had zero success, the security guards wouldn't let them enter and especially after hearing Kiri's tale about a killer working there! Also hearing that tale was a woman on the next landing and both girls knew she was spying on them. A different plan was needed to enter the Matsumiya HQ so the girls left and rode home on a bus where they both felt they were being spied upon, a bit of paranoia? NO for the next morning at Nao's house someone had trampled those new pansies that were just planted, her parents were of course very upset and didn't notice a small envelope on the stairway. Nao didn't miss it and inside was what is in the bottom screenshot above, a photo of the two girls on the bus so they were right on that feeling about being followed. 








 I always make the first two segments too long for this series and need to pad out the final one once again for by this time there was only about five minutes to go in this half hour episode. Kiri will make for a fine detective and perhaps an excellent novelist too as much of this murder case will be used in her book. Kiri did much checking about Matsumiya and printed out their staff list in hopes of finding out who that mysterious woman was. She hit the jackpot as Kiri has discovered this woman is the personal secretary of the company's president though her name hasn't been revealed yet.

 It's never been fully proven that a man committed that murder, all we and Kiri saw was a dark figure. Guess that figure could belong to that unnamed secretary or perhaps she's somehow working with the killer?! Who knows for now but do know that many of these questions will be answered in the next episode. Know that for when this episode ended the two girls were walking home when a limo passed them and stopped. Opening the door was the woman above who is the secretary to the president, she asked the pair if they would like to take a ride with her? Both of course were  bit leery but Kiri's curiosity was sky high so she said yes to that request, the episode ended on that note. So a mysterious ending to this show and this murder story is becoming so interesting, there could have been a drama just with that story. Once again there was a behind the scenes segment after the show, for the second time it featured Kyoko and Hikaru, those are the bottom thirteen screenshots. 



























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