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

 Let's get right to the action as once again so much happened you needed a scorecard to keep track of things. Takechi is now in police custody being charged with being the Hunter villain who had a gangster group create the fake video of Reina. But for now he hasn't been charged with the crime of murder even though his face was in the video that showed him entering a building with Reina. Takechi had come out alone and it was the building she jumped from or was she thrown off the roof? Lot of investigating needs to be done about Takechi's past and with Gunji back on the case he decides to start with questioning Fumika and he's been wanting to do that for a while.
 She's the daughter of Sagara who is the owner of a studio that produces super hero shows and where Hiiragi once worked. But Gunji doesn't care about that for now, he wants to find out what exactly was the relationship between Takechi and Fumika? None she replied and Fumika has resented the teacher for a long, long time. Takechi had tried to bribe Fumika into persuading Reina to attend Gosho University as his own efforts had failed. During their meeting Takechi had slipped Fumika an envelope stuffed with bills which disgusted Fumika to no end. She stormed away saying she would report him to the Board of Education and perhaps even the police.
 'Not so fast' laughed Takechi as he had a backup plan ready. He showed Fumika a fake video that the Berumuzu gang had created of her, not an innocent one either as it showed her taking one of her students to a love hotel! It's a stalemate for now, Fumika won't talk to Reina about attending the college but she also for now won't be reporting Takechi's actions. All that she had told Gunji who is building up a solid case, now it's on to her father's studio to try to find some more evidence but it wasn't anything to do with Takechi.

 Will get to Hiiragi and his students shortly but for now they haven't been doing much. He's given the students a study period as he has no challenges to give them, he's hoping they'll continue trying to come up with evidence on their own. Plus Hiiragi wants the police to continue on with their investigations, though Hiiragi knows what has happened he has no concrete evidence which is why he's putting his faith in the police. And Gunji is a good detective to put your faith in as he's making progress in the case and just needs a bit more to start tying up the loose ends.
 Him and his partner paid the Sagara studios a visit where they met an actor who had worked with Hiiragi often and the two became close friends. This actor whose name I can't recall would play the hero in the Sentai shows while Hiiragi played the villain who would always be defeated. This actor remained friends with Hiiragi and even called him later on in the episode to give him encouragement as he knew Hiiragi wasn't a bad person and was doing everything for the sake of his students, namely the deceased Reina.
 Gunji has also discovered that Hiiragi had obtained his bombs from Sagara who has access to all of those kinds of things through his studio. The pair had a common goal which was to bring Takechi down, Sagara had learned about the fake video he had created of his daughter and wanted revenge on the dastardly teacher. It's also came out that Takechi had a special union with the Gosho University, he would get paid handsomely from them if he could get star athletes to attend there. He often did but usually that student wouldn't be up to snuff and be dropped from the school but it only took a few superb athletes to show a handsome profit for both of them.

 So much happens hope I can keep this at four segments. Back to the school where most of the students just kick back for an afternoon of leisure as there's no impending threat hanging over them. But a pair of students remained on the case and it's a duo we hadn't seen too often until now, with 29 students it means screen time is limited. The main student was the female Runa who is quite the computer expert, she was never quite satisfied with the image of Takechi in the video and worked to determine if that video too wasn't a doctored one.
 That it was as she kept editing in different ways until she finally unlocked the key to the video. Runa's discovery was quite shocking and as you can see above the man in the video wasn't Takechi but instead their teacher.... Hiiragi!!!! That blew her away along with her partner Soma, they were good friends and he was the only person she could reveal her discovery to. She showed him the true video outside of the classroom but to Runa's dismay a student had overheard her conversation with Soma and rushed into the classroom to tell everyone the news. Needless to say every student was stunned at the discovery, while they were staring at Runa's laptop who should speak but Hiiragi.
 No one had noticed he had entered the room and as you can see above he knew a student would be able to see through the fake video but thought it would happen sooner. Hiiragi didn't give any speech nor did he answer any of the many questions but instead left the next course of events up to them. That action is should they upload the video showing Hiiragi with Reina to the SNS site Mind Voice? The students went back and forth on the decision until Soma grabbed the laptop away from Runa and was about to hit the upload button.
 But a half a second before he could hit enter Runa pushed him out of the way and told him to think of the consequences that rash action could do. It had also come out during this scene that the pair, especially Soma, had helped spread the rumors of Reina doping all around the internet until it was proven she was innocent, both have a guilty conscience. For now the students vote to take no action, they decide to discover why Hiiragi had been with Reina that day and is there anything else the video may reveal?

 And that video did reveal such a huge discovery which is the middle screenshot above. Whew, these new twists just never stop and what was discovered is that the girl in the video with Hiiragi wasn't Reina! The students couldn't see the person's face but the bag she was carrying wasn't the one Reina had brought to school that day. Who is this girl and exactly what was the purpose behind the video? The mysteries are once again piling up, once something is solved a new one is there to take it's place and the new one has to deal with Hiiragi's ally Iragashi.
 In that bottom screenshot he's talking with his subordinate Gunji but it wasn't just the two of them conversing. Before the meeting began Iragashi called Hiiragi and told him to listen in as he put his phone in his pocket. That bottom screenshot is of Gunji showing Iragashi a birth certificate, not just any one but of his daughter. That should be something that wouldn't shock Iragashi but it did as the daughter's name on the document was .... Fumika? Shortly after her birth Igarashi's wife had left him for Sagara, this entire time Fumika thought he was her real father and why wouldn't she think that way? It's getting close to the end so how this will play out is something we'll discover in the next show which I haven't viewed yet.
 One major incident also took place during that meeting besides the discovery of who Fumika's real father was. Gunji's partner knew about Iragashi working with Hiiragi which he had told another higher up about. That man's name is Honjo who is now Gunji's superior as he has.... taken Iragashi into custody for working with Hiiragi and that may have been a huge mistake on Gunji's partner part as Irtagashi was a link to Hiiragi.
 On to the final scene which was quite action packed and set up a thrilling beginning for the next episode. With Honjo in charge there will be no more fooling around, he's ordered the SIT unit to invade Kaio high school immediately which they are about to do. The students are still trapped in the classroom but have access to the school's security monitors, they can see the SIT squad about to invade but can't warn Hiiragi and they don't know where he is.
 Gunji knew where to find him as was aware of Honjo's plan and wanted to get to Hiiragi first. He somehow entered the main lobby where Hiiragi was waiting for him, almost seemed he knew the detective would show up. Both drew their guns on each other which made it a stalemate but neither wanted to hurt each other. But the situation is much more dire for Hiiragi who knew he couldn't stay in the lobby for too long with the SIT team coming. So he ended up shooting Gunji but in the leg just to injure him, he was hurt but not too much as both wrestled on the floor. Seemed Hiiragi had the upper hand and just wanted to escape to return to the safety of the classroom. As he was about to flee a figure walked down the hallway, not just any figure but the super hero Garm Phoenix and it was probably Hiiragi's close friend in the uniform as we finally came to this show's end, whewwww!

 Whewww is right as that was one dramatic ending, the end of the recap was a bit long but there was no way to describe all that happened in just a few sentences. Two more shows to go and haven't viewed either one yet but know they will both be just as good as the first eight if not better. Going to be hard for any series to top this drama which just may be my #1 of the year, will have the final two recaps in about a week. As usual have many screenshots and though I tried to cover everything they do help to fill in any missing pieces.