Hiragana-Keyakizaka46: "Re:Mind" drama episode two recap

 Not sure if the title is accurate enough, for now will keep it that way as Hiragana does deserve to be in the title. The eleven members, the ones you see above, are the stars of this drama and there will be no Kanji members making an appearance. Glad for that as I'll bet not many of us know these members well enough and after viewing two episodes they're really likable gals. Here's the cast and will keep the beginning like this for a while, they all go by their real first names in the show.
  This is the order of the members in the opening credits, also the order they all woke up in.... you'll learn about that right off the bat. As a bonus also have the member's birthdates included. Number nine on the list is Mao who celebrates her 22 birthday today(least it's still the 10th if you're in North America), most members are older than I had thought.

Mirei Sasaki....  December 17, 1999

 Sarina Ushio.... December 26, 1997

Mei Higashimura.... August 23, 1998

Ayaka Takamoto.... November 2, 1998

Kyoko Saito.... September 5, 1997

 Kumi Sasaki.... January 22, 1996

 Shiho Kato....February 2, 1998

Yuuka Kageyama.... May 8, 2001

Mao Iguchi.... November 10, 1995

Mana Takase.... September 20, 1998

 Memi Kakizaki.... December 2, 2001

 Above are the regular eleven Hiragana members but there needed to be a twelfth person. That ended up being a new second generation gal and her name is Miho Watanabe. There were auditions for the role and she came out on top. Through two shows we haven't seen her yet but at the end the second episode we did learn about her and she plays very important part in the drama, her DOB is
February 24, 2000.

 Let's get right to the action, there hasn't been too much through two shows but it has been a bit suspenseful and thanks to the rats a creepy watch. Previous show ended with the lights in the dining room going out for a minute or perhaps a tad longer, when they were switched back on one of the eleven students was missing, that girl was Mao! Not positive if it'll be a trend but when a student is gone then we don't see them on the screen, happened with Mao and perhaps also the next girl.
 That won't happen until the end, now they're trying to figure out how she could have disappeared. No one heard any shackles being broken as the eleven are locked to the floor in them. Mao didn't scream either, as a matter of fact there was zero sound of her abduction which is a mystery in itself. So far my fave character is Kyoko, she also could be my fave Hiragana member. She plays a Yanki type of student on the show, bit of misfit as the other ten look like upstanding students though we all know appearances can be deceiving.

 There was a glass bottle of water in front of Kyoko, she looked at it closer and noticed a key at the bottom of it. She kept it a secret except for the three students around her, she doesn't care at all for the other girls. Kyoko couldn't get the cap off so she went below the table and smashed it which freed the key. Any person looking at the skeleton key could see it wouldn't fit in the locks but she gave it an effort and needless to say her attempts went for naught. Another gal with her had found a ring of keys(!), none of them would work on the locks but logically the four students thought why would someone would make it so simple to escape?
 They didn't make it easy as the girls were still locked up, they do have some ideas to flee the room but can't reach anywhere such as a window in the roof as they're locked to the floor. Cellphones won't work either and what's worse is that they can't plug them in to keep them charged. It's the worst thing for Shiho as we don't know why yet but she can't speak or perhaps she won't. She has to communicate by writing messages on her phone which is about to run out of battery power.

 The smartest student of the bunch is Mirei who was the first to wake up. What she says above is 'I guess everything reminds me of You', that's the title of a book sitting on a nearby shelf. Mirei had read the book which was written by Hemingway, could the title or topic be a clue to their being locked up? It was a simple story according to Mirei, it was about a father and son with the father teaching him how to shoot. The son was a failure and the title has something to do with their relationship after the failed training.
 The more Mirei talks about the story the more she realizes it's a huge clue to their predicament. But knowing isn't helping the ten for now, they're still all tied to the floor with no ideas on how to escape. Ayaka(?) had pulled a joke on the group by pretending to die after drinking some water, she got them thinking it was poisoned. It wasn't but she did bring up an interesting observation after that prank or at least I thought it was. It's been at least eight hours since any of them have gone to the bathroom, that's an awful long time and now that she blurted out she had to use the bathroom will that lead all of the others to have to do you-know-what also?

 Besides being an enjoyable watch to date am also going to enjoy the length of these recaps as they'll be so much shorter, nice having a mini break now and again as there's going to be a huge amount of longer ones scheduled for two Korean dramas.
 Back to the events and the final scene is coming up, after the credits it's just a 22 minute show. This final scene though has been the most important one so far and will make the explanation more detailed as you need to know all of what was discussed. Once again it's the group's smartest student Mirei who gets to the root of the mystery. As you can see above she's wondering why the seat for Miho is empty.
 There was a photo on Mao's phone from a luncheon the twelve were at many months ago. At the event the girls were seated in the exact order they are now except for the one empty chair. The girls begin talking about Miho with so many details coming out about her and to the dismay of the ten remaining students it looks like she could be behind their abductions.

 Some months before Miho had been in an accident which the details of it haven't been told yet. Because of it she's been in a wheelchair and since that accident happened it appears the girls haven't been as friendly towards her. Mirei told everyone what they all knew and that's that they all bullied Miho, Mirei said she didn't but was just as guilty for not stopping any of it.
 Some of the group were worse than others with the bullying, especially Mao who has disappeared and is that why she's gone? Miho's father was an extremely wealthy man and was also a politician. With the family being so rich it got me thinking this dining room may be in their mansion or perhaps they own a few of them. After the bullying got worse Miho stopped attending school, for now the ten are sitting around the table looking quite ashamed of their actions but a big question they're wondering is if this is Miho's way of revenge?
 It appears so but we or them aren't 100% positive of that yet. But there is one thing the students have learned which is that someone from their group will be disappearing with no warning. Actually there is a warning but the girls are powerless to do anything about it. When a bell starts chiming followed by the lights going out then a girl will be gone and that happened at the end of this show. The group of eleven has now shrunk to nine as next to be whisked away was.... Mei!

  This has been so much better than the 'Zankoku' drama which had some promise but lacked that certain something to make it an interesting watch. When that series ended it had the twelve Hiragana members locked in a classroom and many thought this show would pick up from that point which didn't happen or at least there doesn't appear to be any tie in.
 The subs are completed about three days after a show has aired so Monday the next one will be done. Figure the next two recaps will be on Tuesday with episodes three and four, following Tuesday will have episodes five and six and then will be caught up. After that will let you know the schedule and think there's a total of twelve episodes. Don't know if these two recaps have done this series justice but I really thought these first two shows were quite good and a bit suspenseful, if you're a Keya or Hiragana fan then you definitely need to be viewing this.