"Video Girl Mai 2019" drama: Episode four recap

 Air Dates: April 11th to June 27, 2019 on TV Tokyo, Thursday's at 1:00 am

Subs by Skeweds

Main Cast:

Mizuki Yamashita as Mai Kamio.... video girl from the 1980's who became 'unlocked' from her VHS and has to serve the person who set her free

Riku Hagiwara as Taketo Kano.... he freed Mai and is now her master though doesn't want to be, lives by himself as his parents are overseas

Rena Takeda as Yuna Asakawa... new girl at the high school and a very popular model who Taketo is head over heels for

Reiya Masaki as Tomonori Yanagi.... first person to free Mai from the VHS tape but she soon returned to it... the first male 'broken' by Mai

Hikari Kuroki as Anna Kawashima....

Nashiko Momotsuki as Sayaka Kato.... student and Tomonori's ex-girlfriend

Yoshinori Okada as Naoto Matsui.... teacher

Masaki Miura as Kazumi Osani.... noted photographer who we met in the third episode, was going to take the pictures for Yuna's photobook but was 'broken' by Mai

Shigeyuki Totsugi as Yota Moteuchi... only returning character from season one and the original creator of Video Girl Ai

 Will be updating the above as the recaps go on, some characters we haven't met yet and a few that we have met are still a bit unknown.

 For the 'Janus' series was able to keep the recaps at 4-5 paragraphs which is my goal for this drama. An episode is 23 minutes in length so seems I should be able to keep these posts shorter than regular dramas without leaving any details out. Plus as usual will have an overabundance of screenshots which will help you follow the story better.

 Let's jump right into the action to make this recap a bit shorter. Like the two males before him the photographer Osani from the previous episode became 'broken' by Mai. She had told him what a lousy photographer he was and that he needed to start again from scratch, being under Mai's complete control had made Osani scrap everything he's done to date. But not with the slew of pics he took of Mai at his villa, she had sent Taketo to pick up the pics from Osani but for some reason he didn't want to take the pics with him. We really didn't see Osani after the first few minutes which has left me wondering what happens to the men Mai has 'broken', there's two others whose lives were destroyed by her and curious what has become of them.
 Back at school Yuna and Taketo are becoming much better friends and she's even thought about joining his new photography club. Yuna moved to the suburbs to get away from the bustle of Tokyo, she's living with her grandparents as her own parents have split up. She's a bit tired of the modeling world and really just wants to become a normal teenager. At first all of the students liked Yuna and would invite her out to a club or cafe. But eventually a group of girls who had wanted to become Yuna's friends turned on her, that group is in the above screenshot. Yuna didn't know it but there was a social media site set up where the other students were really putting her down to no end. Taketo was furious at the person who set up the site but didn't know who it was. Of course he was also more than irate at his fellow classmates who kept saying such cruel things about Yuna who is the love of his life.

 And wouldn't you know it but the site to disparage Yuna had been set up by Mai! She revealed that secret after Yuna had been ostracized by the rest of the students, when Taketo heard what Mai did he went through the roof. 'Calm down' was Mai's reply as it was part of her plan, with the rest of the students shunning Yuna wouldn't this be Taketo's best chance to get closer to her? Taketo did have to agree with that logic and it did work as soon he was best friends with Yuna who did officially join his photography club and for a change wanted to take pics instead of others taking her picture.
 It hasn't been too noticeable but it appears Mai's control over males is also beginning to creep into Taketo. A few times he's had the same facial expressions and talked the same as the three men that Mai has 'broken', it was more noticeable towards the end of this episode. Another fine show but less took place this episode than any other one as we're really at the end of it, only took 29 screenshots when I usually had taken about forty. The final seconds of this show were of Mai about to answer the door to Taketo's apartment, that's the screenshot right above. Waiting at the door was Taketo's teacher Matsui who seemed like he was going to be an important character but up until know really hasn't, perhaps now is when he'll begin playing a major role in the story.

 Slowest episode to date but still an okay show, when there's twelve episodes in a series there's sure to be one or two that aren't as interesting but to date would still recommend it. Have one other mini drama I want to recap first, it should only be 2-3 posts so once that's completed will be back with the next batch of four which should be in about a week.