Million Yen Women drama: Episodes nine and ten recaps

 Air Dates: April 14 to June 30, 2017 on TV Tokyo, Fridays at 1:00 am

Main Cast:

Yojiro Noda as Shin Michima

Rena Matsui as Hitomi Tsukamoto

Rena Takeda as Midori Suzumura

Rila Fukushima as Minami Shirakawa(murdered in episode nine)

Yuko Araki as Nanaka Seki(murdered in episode seven)

Miwako Wagatsuma as Yuki Kobayashi

Lily Franky as Tatsuyuki Michima

Takashi Yamanaka as Seiji Sakurai

Tomoya Nakamura as Yuzu Hanaki

Tetsuhiro Ikeda as Ryuichi Moriguchi

  Once again a very long stretch that could put you to sleep but the last 25 minutes of these two episodes may have been the best to date and it appears the conclusion could be quite suspenseful. As you can see in the cast list above what started out as a household of five women is now down to three and could it get ever lower?

 Will get to that second murder a bit later in the post as it happened at the tail end of the ninth episode. The household is still reeling over the murder of Nanaka, none of the five are suspects nor have the police found anyone to be remotely suspicious. One other death did occur which was that Shin's father has finally been executed. He had been on death row for three years for a triple murder he had committed in 2012, think Shin is relieved his father is finally gone.
 Shin's latest novel "Drifting Emotions" which became a best seller in the last show has continued to sell like hotcakes. The total sold is now over a million which is not making his rival Hanaki too happy as first Shin beat him out for a major award and now his books sales have eclipsed Hanaki's. There could be a trick up his sleeve as he's trying to set up a live match on TV to humiliate Shin which takes place in the tenth episode.

 With the success of "Drifting Emotions" Shin's editor has been asking for a follow up novel. But with the death of Nanaka and his father Shin just can't get into writing but least for now money is the least of his worries. Shin may be a dour person but that hasn't stopped the five female housemates from wanting to be with him, four of them have come awful close to spending the night but with no success quite yet.
 Above is Minami proposing the pair spend a night together after the killing of Nanaka has been resolved and Shin readily agreed. At this point we're 80% of the way through episode nine, did say it was a rather slow show except for the final few minutes. The four women have asked Shin out to a dinner to cheer him and themselves up. Three are at the restaurant already while Shin is about to leave his house when he has a brief discussion with Minami.

 Those are a few of the questions I and probably other viewers have been wondering. Nanaka was killed in her room yet the front door was locked, how was the killer able to enter and leave? Plus I've been wondering about the actual murder as she was stabbed and you would think it would have caused a commotion which the others would have heard.
 Minami has come to the conclusion that the killer had his own set of keys, he possibly could be involved in the invitations the five women received to live with Shin. Nanaka had told Shin she knew who sent the invitations to them, now Minami has told the others she's learned of the person's identity which is a huge mistake as it will cost Minami her life.

 Shin and his three housemates are gathered at the restaurant waiting for Minami. The quartet is having a fine time and getting to know each other much better. But there's trouble brewing as you can see above at Shin's house as shortly after he left intruders broke in and have tied up Minami.
 It was a huge error on her part not telling the others what info she knew about Nanaka's murder and who sent them the invitations. Two of the five women have said they knew the person who sent the invitations to live at Shin's house, now both are dead due to what they knew. Had they revealed what they knew perhaps the murders wouldn't have happened or at least not yet.
 Yes, Minami is now the second person in less than a week to be killed at Shin's house and she'll be the last one too. The intruders are no doubt behind Nanaka's murder, the invitations and possibly the hate faxes that Shin has been receiving. Minami's death was definitely a painful one as the trio of men who had broken in have set fire to Shin's house with Minami tied up in her room. That's why I said her death would be the last in the house as the whole residence was shortly in flames.

 Minami was a strange woman to understand, while rude towards others she's someone who would be your best friend in your time of trouble. Once again none of the housemates are suspects in the murder but one again the police have no leads to go on. But with no house it's time for the remaining four to go their separate ways. Yuki will return to her house, she's married but her elderly husband is in the hospital possibly not far from death.
 Hitomi also goes back to her house but it's an empty one, her father who was a famous author has been dead for many years now. For now we don't know what's to become of Midori, she's just seventeen and had grown up in an orphanage but won't be returning there. Shin also has nowhere to go so for the time being he's just going to rent out a hotel room.

 Above is Sunako who was Minami's personal assistant and bodyguard. He came to meet Midori who had been sleeping overnight in a manga cafe and he had something very important for her, he knows the whereabouts of everyone. That important object was Minami's will as she's left all of her assets to Midori, she didn't appear so but Minami was a wealthy woman who was sort of a pimp for popular Idols. Also in the will Minami assigned Sunako to be Midori's protector until she turned twenty, perhaps she wanted the pair to find the killers of herself and Nanaka.
 Midori meets with Shin at a cafe along with Sunako as they explain the will to him. Shin brought up a good suggestion to her which was that seeing as how they're not living with each other anymore they don't need to follow any of the five rules in the invitation. One was that Shin wasn't allowed to know about the invitations but now it's time for Midori to come clean about them.

 We don't know what the exact threat was in the invitations but there was one in them for each of the five women. Also in the invitations were their personal history down to the smallest detail, someone had been planning this for many years which was the six of them living together. Whether it was planned that two or more would be killed is unknown but in the invitations it mentioned that living with Shin could be dangerous.
 Shin was able to read the will, he also found out the sender of the invitations also knew every single thing about his life since day one. Shin did end up accepting that request to be on a live show with Hanaki who had set it up with the devious critic Moriguchi to defame Shin. That didn't work out well for them and they tried to end the show rather quickly with Hanaki promoting a TV movie based on his latest novel.
 Shin had this planned out for he strolled in front of the camera and announced that he's ready to face the person who sent the invitations. Minami's will must have had the identity of the person as Shin has invited them over to his hotel room. As the episode ends there's a knock at the door, Shin answers it as we learn the identity of the mastermind behind these devilish crimes is....

 We did see the face of the invitation sender, won't reveal it now as it'll be a nice cliffhanger for the next recap. Slow start to this pair of episodes but the final 2/3 were so dark and intense, never thought the show was going to be like this when I started it. Even with the slow stretches this has turned out to be one fine drama and can't wait to view the final two shows. Will have the final recap for this series within the next day or two and odds are good it'll be tomorrow.