"3 Nen A Kumi: Ima kara Mina-san wa, Hitojichi Desu" drama, episode seven recap

 Air Dates: January 6th to March 10, 2019  Sundays at 10:30 pm on NTV   

Average rating: 11.5%

Director: Naoko Komuro and Yuma Suzuki    Writer: Shogo Muto

Also goes by the title of 'Mr Hiiragi's Homeroom'

Main Cast:

Masaki Suda as Ibuki Hiiragi.... the slightly warped homeroom teacher

The Students, thirty in all so just listing a few of them

Mei Nagano as Sakura Kayano.... homeroom class president

Moka Kamishiraishi as Reina Kageyama.... committed suicide in September

Rina Kawaei as Kaho Usumi

Haruka Fukuhara as Suzune Minakoshi

Mio Imada as Yuzuki Suwa

Ryota Katayose as Hayato Kai

Jin Suzuki as Kaito Satomi

Tsuyoshi Furukawa as Ken Sunaga

Kaito Mifune as Ren Nakao.... Hiiragi's first victim

The rest:

Kippei Shiina as Makoto Gunji.... detective who is leading the case

Yoshihiko Hosoda as Ryoichi Miyagi.... Gunji's partner

Kohei Otomo as Toru Igarashi.... superior of the two above detectives

Bengal as Koichi Ichimura.... principal of Kaio high school

Akane Hotte as Mizuki Morisaki.... teacher who had a crush on Hiiragi

Seiichi Tanabe as Yamato Takechi... annoying teacher who is also an author

Kenichi Yajima as Takahiko Sagara

 Whew, this may be the biggest cast ever for a regular drama as there's twenty more students and a few other teachers. The show began on the date of March 1st and by what was told to us in the first episode the events take place until March 10th, the day the students were(are?) supposed to graduate....

 No sense rehashing anything that took place in the previous episode as you five viewers have hopefully already read it. But in the final minute Hiiragi set off another bomb though it was a small one which caused minimal damage to the school. But the huge send off was a video that has been posted on SNS which is a Japanese forum(?), whatever it may be it's quite popular with 50 million viewers. They've been following the developments of the 'hostage' situation and are about to watch the video which took place on the previous September 25, that was the day that Reina died and it's now March 7th.

 The mystery of who Hunter is still hasn't been solved, supposedly it's a teacher at Kaio high school and that was the name the person gave to Kishi to make the fake video of Reina doping. The last episode everyone worked hard in finding out the identity of the person but to no avail but during this whole time seemed Hiiragi had known who the person is, think he was hoping someone could figure out the mystery. That didn't happen so shortly after the bomb went off Hiirgai went on the school's intercom to talk to the crowd of teachers and police gathered around the high school.
 The middle screenshot shows who the accused is, that person is the teacher Takechi who I haven't talked about too much though he's been in plenty of screenshots. This guy is one creep and his fellow teachers have that same feeling also. He's been using this hostage crisis for his own personal gain as he's been making the rounds on talk shows and newscasts to promote himself. Takechi has become a popular figure as he does present himself well on TV where he's been selling everything imaginable about himself including a book he wrote, clothes, pictures and even a photobook that just came out.
 Takechi naturally denied Hiiragi's claim that he had anything to do with Reina's death, for now most believe him but many are a bit leery including the police. That above screenshot is from the video and though you can't see the face(for now) it does appear it could be Takechi as that man is almost the same build as him. That unknown person entered the building with Reina but came out alone, that's because she had jumped to her death during that time span but the question is did she jump? Odds are saying no to that assumption and now it's a matter of finding out who that unknown person is.

 Hiiragi once again has sent out another challenge and it was directly to Takechi. This time there was no threat of killing any students but unless Takechi confesses to being Hunter and having the fake video created of Reina Hiiragi will destroy the thing(s) that matter to him most. What that could wasn't revealed for a while but we viewers and sure many of the public knew that FAME was the most important thing in Takechi's life. He has until 8:00 to make his confession so for a good chunk of the episode we see all of the main characters doing something else to solve the case.
 That's because even if Takechi confesses to being Hunter that doesn't mean he's the person in the video. Now that Hiiragi has given the students their phones back and allowed them access to a laptop they're investigating the video intensely trying to find out who the man with Reina was. Haven't seen too much of Gunji for the past few shows as he had been taken off the case. Officially that is as he's still working on it and he's about to become a huge presence in the show. Gunji and his partner are trying to figure out the mystery of Fumika who we do see often but hasn't played a major part in the plot yet.
 It was assumed she was once Hiiragi's girlfriend but that's not 100% certain yet, she had also been a teacher at Kaio high school but had left because of an illness, one caused by Hiiragi? But it's her father who Gunji has become interested in, hope I'm not adding in any facts from the next episode but it seems Hiiragi and the father Sagara have a past intertwined. Sagara is the owner of a studio that produces super hero series, being an actor on those shows is what Hiiragi's profession was before he became a teacher, once again hope I'm not jumping ahead. Gunji has discovered that fact, now him and his partner are trying to break yet another mystery but that and almost everything else will be put on the back burner for the rest of the episode.

 Before I get to to the final scene which will take up the rest of the recap there were two other developments. One was that though Takechi looked to be guilty of having Reina's fake video created he does have quite a few students that are supporting him. Takechi has some special connections with Gosho University and has been able to get many students into it even tough they may not be qualified. Two of those students are in Hiiragi's class and revolt at the fact that their mentor could be guilty of anything. As you can see above the students raided Hiiragi's mini headquarters and it finally looked as though the students have the upper hand against him.
 Not for too long as the Takechi haters are greater in numbers and proceed to take Hiiragi's side. They managed to thwart the raid and helped Hiiragi remain in control, that's when he gave another of his lengthy speeches to his students about what's right and wrong. Especially about all of the evidence built up against Takechi whose supporters have dwindled to almost zero. One other thing that I'm definitely jumping ahead on is that bottom screenshot but didn't want to mix it in with the ending. The students did quite a thorough job on the video and as you can see they've discovered the identity of the culprit. That person was Takechi and they got his image from a mirror that was near the building's entrance, their discovery was uploaded to the SNS. Now the entire country is against Takechi and want to see him receive the death penalty. It's approaching 8:00 pm, that's the deadline Hiiragi gave him to confess to being Hunter and whatever else that he may have contributed to the death of Reina.

 Final segment, think 45 minute shows only need four of them and have been able to accomplish that with the past few recaps. No need to tell you what the confrontation was to end the show off was as Takechi has secretly met Hiiragi near the school's main lobby. During this whole scene Takechi had thought it was a secret meeting with just the two but it was anything but that as Hiiragi had set up a camera that filmed the action and it was shown live on SNS. Most of Takechi's sordid past came out during this encounter and he didn't have much choice but to confess to many of the accusations.   That's because Hiiragi had tapped his phone, he replayed a few conversations such as when he tried to bribe Reina to attend Gosho, more about that situation is explained in the next episode. At the time Hiiragi didn't know that the unknown person had been identified in the video but he thought he had enough evidence to make Takechi confess it was him escorting Reina to the building where she met her fatal end. Takechi had worn his regular clothes and shoes in the video, when the police heard that they immediately checked the video and Hiiragi was right on the money.
 Takechi confessed to many things with the main one being paying Kishi to creating Reina's fake doping video. However Takechi until the end insisted it wasn't him in the video, he too doesn't know about the discovery the students have made. But Takechi laughed that everything he said won't be repeated to the police plus none of the evidence could stand up in court and there's nothing Hiiragi can do about it. But Hiiragi had the last laugh as he pointed to a corner of a wall, there he had installed a camera which was filming live on Mind Voice and Takechi has signed his own death warrant with his confessions which brings us to the final two minutes.
 Upon seeing the camera Takechi sagged to the floor as he knew he was defeated. But what may be worse than being defeated is a sentence of death as Hiiragi has pulled out the pistol Iragashi gave to him at the beginning of the third episode. But would Hiiragi really pull the trigger? That we may never know as with Hiiragi occupied the police thought it'd be the right time to charge the school and capture Hiiragi. Which almost happened but upon hearing the doors opening Hiiragi dashed off in the nick of time leaving Takechi whimpering on the floor. He was arrested and dragged away by the police with Gunji and Iragashi watching him being taken to the station. On the absolute final note Gunji had looked suspiciously at Iragashi and asked him a question, don't know where he got any evidence from but he asked 'Are you Hiiragi's secret ally?'.

 Tad longer than I was hoping hut just so much happens in this series and the plot has more twists than a bag of pretzels! But it does keep things interesting and there's never been a dull moment yet. Mentioned in the first post that there would be three recaps today, two are down and the third one follows this post which turned out to be yet another intense show.