Jurina Matsui: "Death Cash" drama episode one recap and screenshots

 Start Date: July 13, 2016.... aired Wednesday nights at 24:10 on TBS

Main Cast:

Jurina Matsui as Yuka Minami

Shigeyuki Totsugi as Takeshi Wakamoto

Rina Kawaei as Erina Hayashi

Kaya Kiyohara as Koyume Minami

Riho Yoshioka as Kazue Hagninomo

Yurika Nakamura as Mari Ueno

Toshio Kakei as Taichiro Zaitsu

.... plus many others who have or will get killed off after one episode....

 This and the next recap post were originally done at the end of July, deleted those and reposted them so you can start from the beginning. Ceased the recaps at that time as the first subber stopped doing them, thought I wouldn't get the chance to view the series with them. However the folks at SKEvolution have just finished subbing all ten episodes to my delight and sure many other Jurina fans. So as mentioned have reposted those first two recaps so you'll know what's going on and after them are recaps for the third and fourth episodes.

 Have been a bit negative on J-dramas lately, mainly because their Korean counterparts have zoomed past them as far as the quality of series goes. However that comparison is really just for the prime time shows, to me these last night dramas are still quite good though they don;t seem to have as many these last few years. One thing which helps is the length of an episode, a late night show like this one lasts around 23 minutes. Meanwhile prime time shows still last 45-50 minutes, why is it written in stone that a drama airing between 8-11:00 pm have to be so long?
 Will cut that off there, one of these days I'm planning on having a post or two looking at the state of Japanese dramas, perhaps I'm no expert but after watching over 400 of them think I may have an opinion or ten and would think many of you would agree with them.
 On to this drama which pleasantly is now subbed, third episode just aired last night. Am planning on doing future recaps this way, will do posts for two episodes so hopefully in two weeks will be looking at the third and fourth episodes.
 This is Jurina's first lead role in a drama, really her first major role in anything though season two of "Majisula Gakuen" her role was somewhat big. She plays a freshman at a yet to be revealed college, name of her character is Yuka. She lives alone with her sister Koyume who is still in high school, their mother is in Africa while the father is dead(?).

 Wanted to keep this short but that long intro didn't help matters. Yuka seems to be a popular student at college with many friends, appears though as at least one will be killed off every show due to the curse of 'Death Cash'. So far in these two episodes I've viewed when one of Yuka's friends has been desperate for money an endless supply all of a sudden appears out of nowhere for them.
 In this show Yuka hadn't been able to get in touch with her best friend Ikumi who suddenly stopped going to school. Unknown to Yuka Ikumi was smitten by the 'Death Cash', hordes of money had appeared before her one night at her apartment. She had just broken up with her boyfriend, she thought it was perhaps because she wasn't beautiful enough. With this sudden windfall of cash she spent too much to count on beauty products to make herself more attractive, she had kept this a secret from everyone.
 The curse of the cash is when the bills start to stain, then the curse rises which leads to a gruesome death for whoever had received the money. That's what happened to Ikumi who hung herself in her apartment. Yuka had been a bit tardy in saving her, she had a premonition that Ikumi was in trouble but arrived too late to save her. Because of her showing up at the apartment Yuka was the prime suspect in the death along with all of her other friends.

 Yuka has a special gift which is being able to see a tragic event that is about to happen, The fact that she can see it has prevented two of her friends from being killed as she was able to pull them back from certain death such as gardener's shears embedding themselves in her friend's head. But that talent was unable to save Ikumi's life nor the life of another friend named Miura.
 Miura was a senior at the college but was unable to get a job nor start a company like the rest of his classmates. Main reason for that as he was considered too soft, companies hiring felt there was no way he would be of any value profit wise to them. Miura wished for some money and just like that millions of yen appeared in his apartment. He couldn't spend it fast enough as when he did spend it more would appear.
 He opened a small company called Knight Will and invited Yuka over to see it one evening. Once again Yuka saw a premonition and was able to save Miura's life. But it appears Yuka can only save a life once as shortly after some strange events occurred at the company's office with Miura being stabbed to death, most of these deaths appear to be accidental, However they're not as some unknown force/curse is behind these strange killings, after two episodes we have no clue on what it could be.
 Shortly after Miura was killed out of the shadows jumped detective Wakamoto, he feels as though Yuka is behind these deaths. To him she's still the prime suspect in Ikumi's death and now he wants to blame Miura's death on her which brings us to the end of this first episode.

 For a short episode, 23 minutes, quite a bit happened. True much happened but we still don;t have a clue on anything about what the curse of 'Death Cash' is nor do we after the second episode, recap of that is the next post. As mentioned above these late night dramas are so much more interesting and fast paced than prime time shows, sure this beats most of those dramas right now.
 Don;t get me wring as this series isn't going to be a classic not probably a must watch but it started off quite well and does show much promise. Noticed when an Idol has a huge role in a drama it's usually these late night shows, though AKB and their 48 families are hugely popular don't think any of them can bring in big ratings for the prime time shows. That's been proven so many times in the past, some Idols are okay actresses but most are anything but good. Jurina did fine in this episode, though she's never had huge roles in the past she always seems to do a solid job in them.
 Had wanted to keep this brief, turned out to be one of the longer recaps I've done recently but the recap for episode two should(will) be much shorter. Few more screenshots for you to enjoy, don't think it'll help you understand any more as don't think I left anything(too much) out.