Minami Hamabe: "Providing Alibi Cracking" drama episode two 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- 4.4%

Main Cast:

Minami Hamabe as Tokino Mitani.... twenty year old woman who is the owner of a watch and clock repair shop her grandfather left her and an expert at cracking alibis

Ken Yasuda as Saji Yoshiyuki.... new head detective at the Nishimori police station after being 'demoted' from the Tokyo branch, secretly relies on Tokino to break alibis

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 two episodes have been 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. Don't know why but the first post for the series may have set a record for most views for a recap, perhaps Minami has many fans out there and why not as she's one fine young actress.

 Episode title: 'Alibi of the Stalker'

 Not quite Valentine's Day as this episode aired on February 8th, should have saved the sweets for the following show. But it was another fine episode involving a murder which once again could only be solved by the talents of the twenty year old watch repairer Tokino, the above two screenshots were from the opening scene.The woman's name is Kyoko who was stabbed by her ex-husband Goro, we knew what happened but not the exact details. The police for now only have their sights set on the husband being the murderer but as usual he had an iron clad alibi.
 Kyoko was a professor of pathology at a local university and was very respected at her job. Earlier on the day she was killed she was visited at her laboratory by Goro which ended with him leaving in an angry huff which was witnessed by Kyoko's colleagues. Goro has a respectable position at the a management company but according to Kyoko's brother Hamazawa Goro has a serious gambling addiction and had been hounding his ex-wife for the funds to pay off his debts. That was enough to make Goro the one and only suspect in her death which appeared to them to be a fairly easy open and shut case.

 TIME.... want to bring that word up to emphasize it's importance. It appears all of these cases will revolve around time as when events happened or the time span between them is what Tokino relies on to solve her cases. That would make sense as she does run a watch repair shop though doesn't seem to be too much of a 'time' fanatic' or at least not yet.

 Back to the case and the coroner has estimated the murder of Kyoko occurring around 7:35 pm. The key evidence was of the food in her stomach which was cake from a shop she stopped at around three in the afternoon. Kyoko had an SNS site where she posted pics of what she had for her meals or snacks, she posted a pic of the cake at a little after 3:00 pm which led the team of detectives, led by Saji, to arrive at that 7:35 estimated time.
 But what that did was to clear her ex-husband Goro of being at her apartment to kill Kyoko. From 6:00 pm until midnight he was at a bar with a group of friends from work, they verified that he was there the entire time and so didn't the bartender. Goro did step outside for five minutes at 7:30 pm to make a call but even though Kyoko's apartment was in the vicinity it would have taken Goro at least twenty minutes to rush there, kill he ex-wife and return to the bar so for now his alibi is solid.

 Now that the ex-husband for now isn't the prime suspect who else could there be? It had to be someone Kyoko knew well as there wasn't a struggle at her apartment nor was the place broken into. That left just one person who was her brother Hanazawa though he too had an iron tight alibi as he was working from 2:00 pm until 10:00 pm which was verified by his manager. Though in the clear for murdering his sister Hanazawa isn't quite innocent as we'll soon find out. But now Saji and his mates are at a dead end, though he said he didn't want to resort to going to Tokino for help again there were no other options left for Saji.
 Tokino knew it was just a matter of time until the detective asked for her assistance. If you didn't read the first recap he rents a room at her watch repair shop which has made his underling Yuma quite jealous as he has quite a crush on her which seems to be growing. As mentioned above TIME will be the clues Tokino uses to solve the case, to her the most obvious things were what Kyoko ate that day and at what time. Kyoko did post pics of her meals but by investigating a bit further the 'team' of Tokino and Saji learned what food pictures she posted at a certain time wasn't what Kyoko may have been eating then. It's not just the clues of time but overall Tokino just knows these little tidbits that only famous fictional detectives could have come up with, perhaps a future series with Minami as a private detective would make for another interesting show.

 Final segment and as you can see above Tokino has solved the mystery of Kyoko's eating times. What Kyoko had done was to eat her lunch for breakfast and the cake three hours earlier than she said she did, being a doctor Kyoko knew how long certain foods would remain in one's stomach. Now the estimated time of death has been pushed back to ~4:30 pm which makes ex-husband Goro once again the prime suspect. Also coming to light was the fact Kyoko's brother Hanazawa was in debt for 30 million yen which was from a loan he co-signed for, that's the exact amount of her death policy. The police quickly arrived on the scene at the funeral home where Goro was but first Saji had a mini interrogation with the man who eventually confessed the truth.
 Yes, he did kill his ex-wife but it was all because of her wishes! Kyoko had pancreatic cancer and only had a limited time to live, had she killed herself Hanazawa wouldn't get her insurance money so she talked Goro into killing her though he still did love his ex-wife. This whole elaborate scam and murder had been arranged by Kyoko who thought posting pictures of what she ate at certain times would be enough to clear Goro of killing her but she hadn't heard of the young alibi cracker Tokino. Seems she's the only person who could have solved the enigma and she did, notch up another solved case for her and Goro was naturally charged with Kyoko's murder. Saji once again took the credit for solving the case though it was almost all of Tokino's doing. However one person is a bit leery on what's going on and that's the young detective Yuma. He feels Saji must be getting outside help and as the show came to it's end he called Tokino to let her know of his suspicions.

 You wouldn't notice if you've never read my recaps but did this one a bit differently. Instead of having three paragraphs a segment just had two which for some reason made it quicker to write up and have a feeling it'll make for an easier read too. Two episodes into this series and this is shaping up to be one of the top shows of the year. Was a bit late with this recap but with any luck may have the next one by the end of the week. As usual have an avalanche of screenshots to end off with, do recommend viewing them as it helps you understand the story a bit better.