Minami Hamabe: "Providing Alibi Cracking" drama episode one recap

 Air Dates: February 1st until ????, shows are on TV-Asahi Saturday nights at 11:15 pm

Subs by EcoTV, based on a novel by Seiichiro Oyama
Episode rating- 5.2%

Main Cast:

Minami Hamabe as 

Ken Yasuda as 

Ryo Narita as....

 Masanobu Katsumura as.....

Tokio Emoto as....

Shinsho Nakamura as....

 Also....

Hitomi Korenaga as Karen Takasugi

Takuya Mizoguchi as Masato Hori

Leo Morimoto as Tokio Mitani

Yuta Inoue as Atomu Shimogo

 Will be tweaking the above as these posts go on adding in some bio info and perhaps some new characters. The setting is the fictional town of Nishimori which also lies in the fictional prefecture of Nano. The first episode was solid and have a feeling the shows will keep getting better as they go on. These kinds of quirky and intelligent series are the ones I usually enjoy more than most others, wouldn't be surprised if this was one of my top five shows of the year. Will also have a different video at the top, today's is a short promo for this episode.

 It helps immensely that Minami has the lead role in the drama as she's my fave young actress and do recommend any show of hers from the past 2-3 years. The recaps from the past month have been much shorter and to me a lot easier to read. But they've all been for shows that are 25-30 minutes in length, this drama's shows will be about forty minutes. Hopefully can keep them shorter without leaving any details out but the first post for a series is usually longer as the storyline and characters need to be explained, let's go to the first episode which was a solid view.

 As mentioned the setting is a fictional town named Nishimori where our young, somewhat heroine Tokino Mintani resides. She'a a twenty year old woman who is the owner of a Watch and Clock shop, she inherited it from her grandfather who died six months prior. Tokino leads a very quiet life and though such a young person is highly respected for her ability to repair watches, 'keeping time' will become the way she can crack alibis.
 Tokino's one luxury in life is eating korokkes which is a local dish and her neighborhood vendor makes the best ones in the area. Every day after work Tokino heads to his stall to grab a few for her dinner but on this particular day someone else tried to claim her order. That was an older man by the name of Saji, right off the bat Tokino knew he was a detective by the watch he wore. He wouldn't leave without his korokkes as he had called in first to order them but Tokino quickly pointed out that he ordered regular croquettes instead of her fave dish.
 But Saji let bygones be bygones as the two rapidly formed a partial friendship and began heading down the road together. Shortly after a man came running down the road, he tore by them but as you can see above the man was hit by a car even though Tokino and Saji warned him of it. As he lay in pain Saji questioned him and to his surprise the man confessed to murdering his girlfriend who lived in Teshiro, about a thirty minute drive away. The man's name was unknown as he had no wallet but Tokino remembered him, his name was Okuyama who was a semi popular author who had penned the novel 'Breaking Alibi".

 To her slight dismay Tokino was invited to the crime scene as she wasn't an official officer but somehow showed up at the scene anyway. She wasn't let into the apartment as Saji quickly took charge of the murder scene where Okuyama's dead girlfriend Kasumi lay. Okuyama had scratch marks on his face and from the forensic person Kasumi was the person who did the scratching. A few other clues led Saji and his new team to conclude it was an open and shut case as without a doubt Okuyama was the killer, it had also come out the girlfriend had discovered he was cheating on her.
 Later that night Saji once again met up with Tokino and the location was her Watch shop, Saji was quite impressed with it and so shouldn't us viewers. He was shocked to see Tokino there, when she asked Saji why he was there he replied this is where he was told to live! Tokino thought it was a female who would become her new lodger as it was a woman's name on the luggage which actually belongs to Saji's wife. So far no info on his family has been revealed but there should be about least nine more episodes.
 Tokino has never had a male lodger but thought why not as Saji seemed like a decent chap plus having a detective there would make Tokino feel so much safer. She had a small house behind the shop.The following day Saji made his first appearance at the Nishimori Police HQ and he's the new lead detective. He's actually a member of the National Police who had been stationed in Tokyo but was demoted when his attempt to expose corruption at his previous HQ was thwarted. Only a few at the new station knew of the story but by the end of Saji's first morning seemed the whole town knew it. The first case was the killing of Kasumi and like Saji most of the staff thought without a doubt Okuyama was the killer.
 Not so fast though was the response from Yuma, he's a young detective whose father is in the Diet. We'll be seeing much more of him as he has the biggest role of any of the other detectives plus it appears he has a crush on Tokino. The coroner placed the time of death at around 4:00 pm, when Saji saw him get run over by the car it was about 4:25 pm. Before I forget the previous night Okuyama had died from his injuries so no more testimony from him. The more Saji looked at the times the more he became convinced that there was no way for Okuyama to have strangled Kasumi and make it to Nishimori in less than half an hour.

 No matter what Saji and his team did they could come up with no solution on how Okuyama ended up in Nishimori so quickly. Though he was dead the time frame would be his alibi and if that's the case who could the killer be? Saji was informed by his assistant Makimura that there was an 'expert' in town who could crack any alibi and once the department used that person's services. Saji didn't want to resort to such a method but with no other options quietly tracked down the expert alibi cracker who turned out to be of all people.... Tokino!
 Though it wasn't her but her grandfather who could crack alibis. But before his death he had taught Tokino everything he knew and that time was usually the detail to crack an alibi. Tokino offered her services to Saji who was reluctant to have such a rookie help him out but he eventually agreed. Tokino said her fee for being successful was the sum of 5000 yen which is quite cheap as that's only about $45. So the pair started on the case together, first stop was the local hospital as Okuyama had been there often. To their utter surprise the doctor told the pair that Okuyama was deaf and had been that way for over six months. If that was the case Saji wondered how did Okuyama answer his questions about his girlfriend's murder?
 Okuyama didn't answer the questions Tokino surmised, though he could read lips his eyes were closed during the questioning and all he really told Saji was the address of Kasumi. That's the major clue of the case and Saji along with his team are now thinking that Okuyama had an accomplice. There was only one other person who had a key to her apartment which was the superintendent Isoda. We met him briefly when he let the detectives into Kasumi's residence but that was it. But all leads point to him as Saji returned to Teshiro to question the man.
 He was an older gent who at first flatly denied having anything to do with the murder. But Saji cornered Isoda with the evidence and before long he confessed to being the true killer of Kasumi. He had been working in unison with Okuyama and had entered her apartment to steal her new writings. But she had returned home early which shocked Isoda who had no choice but to murder the woman. Okuyama wasn't really off the hook as earlier in the day he tried to strangle Kasumi, he thought the deed was successful but she regained consciousness and returned to her apartment where death awaited. So mark down a victory for Tokino as in her first solo attempt at cracking an alibi she proved to be an expert and sure Saji will soon be so dependent upon her.

 Only complaint about this first case was the culprit. We had barely seen the superintendent so knew nothing about him and it came as a surprise he was the killer. But all in all did enjoy this episode quite a bit and it's always such a joy watching Minami in a drama, though still quite young the list of actresses better than her is very short. As is my norm have plenty of screenshots to follow the story a bit better and hopefully will have the recap for episode two at this time next week.