"Dead Stock" drama: Episode one recap

 Air Dates: July 21st to September 30th on TV Tokyo, Saturdays at 12:52 am

Main Cast:

Akari Hayami as Saori Nikkaido

Nijiro Murakami as Riku Tsuneta

Tetsusho Tanaka as Satoru Sayama

 Hard to beat these late night Japanese dramas and especially the shows that air on the weekend. While to me the prime time series have gone way downhill the last few years the late night shows seem to get better. Have watched two episodes so far and it looks like I made a wise decision with this drama as both shows have been quite good and will admit I've jumped out of my seat twice.
 The cast list is correct as there's just three characters though there are a few guest stars for each show. Some of this horror drama is actually true such as where it's filmed. TV Tokyo moved their main offices in 2016 and this drama is filmed where their offices used to be which was in Toranomon, they're now in Roppogni. Don't know if the office building looks that abandoned but it does give a creepy atmosphere. Also the site locations are real as the cast traveled to spots where real cursed stories may have happened.

 This drama does follow the actual event of TV Tokyo moving their offices, this show is set in the basement of their old main office. Two new temp employees have been hired as assistant directors, the male is Riku Tsuneta while the woman is Saori Nikaido and he seems to be about twenty in age while she's possibly two years older. Their supervisor is an old TV Tokyo veteran who is Sayama who is in his mid to late forties.
 Sayama has been assigned the task of going through all of the office's video tapes that are stored in the basement to determine which ones should be kept and which should be tossed. There are literally thousands of them and none are labeled properly, it would take years for one person to view each one. So the pair of newcomers have been assigned the task of helping Sayama go through each tape and looks like every episode will be of them viewing a tape that has to do with a curse or tragedy.
 A heads up on all of these screenshots. That is the way they look and it's not because the quality of the shows is bad. The team is viewing old tapes from twenty or more years ago that weren't maintained well so of course they look very rough. That's a plus as looking at these old videos in
so-so shape adds to the eeriness of the show plus so many scenes are in very dark locations.

 Just presuming the video tapes are twenty or so years old as none of them have dates on them. You can tell by the style of clothes or their hairdos that the tapes are very ancient. First tape for Riku and Saori to view was from an old mystery show that had a popular host named Shiho. On the show they were watching she and her crew had gone to an old abandoned highway tunnel in the hills. The rumor was that many years ago a man had tried to commit a double suicide in the tunnel with his wife.
 That failed as his wife woke up in time as the husband was pouring gasoline on her. Seemed she survived but her ghost is still haunting the tunnel, Shiho tells us that plus about a curse that arose after the attempted suicide. When you're in the tunnel honking your car horn three times will summon the curse and lead to your premature death. With the cameras rolling she entered the tunnel to see if it was true, Shiho sat in her car while the cameraman was outside of it filming her. There was another camera outside of the tunnel and it captured the audio of her honking the horn three times.
 Shortly after that we hear some screams and the cameraman that was in the tunnel came rushing out and fled into the woods. That was the last we saw of Shiho and may have been her final time hosting that TV mystery show. Sayama knows about her history after that incident and it wasn't a pleasant one. Shiho quickly became deranged after what happened in the tunnel and it wasn't too long after that she committed suicide. This top screenshot is what deranged her mind, it happened at the 11:13 mark of the episode and have to admit it made me jump.

 No one had ever known what had happened in the tunnel and that's because the video of what happened to Shiho was never viewed. Saori thought of that second video and wondered if anyone else had also thought to view it or whether they decided it's better not to as it may be cursed? The trio rummaged through the thousands of videos and they somehow stumbled across the second video. It had been filmed by the cameraman who had been in the tunnel but fled when the eeriness started.
 Wasn't a long segment on the video but we witnessed what happened to Shiho and it wasn't pleasant, she wasn't attacked but the incident left her quite disturbed. Saori is very ambitious and thinks if she does a superb job as a temp she may get hired full time to work at TV Tokyo. Saori has some grand plans after viewing the videos, what if she was able to return to the tunnel and get footage of whatever the ghost or curse is? Her boss Sayama thinks it's an okay idea but also warned her what happened to Shiho could also happen to her.
 Saori dragged along Riku who was a bit skeptical about her plans and headed off to the abandoned tunnel. The two drove in to it and stopped at the halfway point. The legend is if you stop there and honk your car horn three times then the cursed ghost will appear. That's exactly what they did but after a few minutes nothing was happening, was the rumor just that?

 On their way to the tunnel Riku and Saori had stopped at the residence of the cameraman who had filmed the scene in the tunnel. He's quite mad these days and can't talk about the incident, the pair got nothing out of him and kind of surprised that man hadn't been committed to an institution. Back to where we left off and honking the horn hasn't brought out a ghost. That's what they're thinking, as you can see above something is sitting in the back seat and when the two of them turned around to look at it was also a frightful moment.
 That ghost disappeared from their vehicle rather quickly but bet it's still hovering around the tunnel, we never did find out what the ghost or curse actually was. The pair were too scared to stick around to find those answers and can't blame them, they're lucky to have escaped with their lives. It's back to the station and unfortunately for Saori she wasn't able to get the ghost on film though she thought she had. From what I understand it's not possible to film a ghost, just like the legend of a vampire not seeing their reflection in a mirror.
 That won't stop Saori as her plan is to eventually prove an urban legend is true, one that will land her a TV show of her own. In the final moments of the show Riku had somehow seen Shiho's old cameraman in a stairwell, how he got to the station was a mystery. That man kept blabbering on and on talking about curses and whatever as he wasn't in a sane state. Riku ran back to get his co-workers but when they returned the man was gone. Shortly after Sayama had received a call telling him that the cameraman had died of a heart attack a few hours ago. That leaves us with one possibility on who or what Riku saw, that had to be the ghost of the cameraman. Kind of an abrupt ending which was okay but wish that scene had been explained better along with what's happened to the tunnel ghost.

 It's not a long recap compared to others but considering it's just a 23+ minute show it did end up being longer than I expected. Future ones should be shorter as the first post for a drama always takes longer as there's so much to introduce you to. Nothing wrong with long recaps as I'm getting used to them but think you and me deserve shorter ones for a change.
 Lot of events could have been explained better but all in all I really enjoyed this first show. Naturally it's not as creepy or gory as a cinema horror film but there were many frightening moments in this show. Second episode also had it's share of terror and you can read that recap next.