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

 Air Dates: February 1st until March 14th, shows are on TV-Asahi Saturday nights at 11:15 pm

Subs by EcoTV, based on a novel by Seiichiro Oyama
Episode rating- 4.2%

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.... nicknamed Junior at the police station, father is a high raking member of the Diet and has such a crush on Tokino

 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

 May 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. Actually the two since then have done quite well too, maybe my writing style is improving(no)?

 As was the case for the first three episodes a murder needed to be solved, hope they have at least one case that doesn't involve a dead person. But the location is different as instead of being set in the fictional prefecture of Nishimori it takes place in Yamanashi which also isn't real. The head detective of the Nishimori police force Saji had been on vacation at an inn in Yamanashi, he was supposed to be vacationing with his wife and daughter from Tokyo who cancelled out on him after he had arrived at the inn.
 So Saji was going to return home the following morning, he lives in a small apartment in the back of Tokino's watch/clock shop. But of course that night there was a murder at the inn which has forced Saji to remain there. To him the head of the local force Inaba is quite inept and he has no confidence that the man can solve the crime. Then again Saji was at a loss too even though there appeared to be many clues, when in doubt he turns to his secret ally.
 That's the twenty year old and ultra kawaii watch repairer Tokino who to date has solved three murders for Saji though always in secret. When Saji requested her services at the inn she had no way to travel that far but luckily who should be in her shop at the time than Yuma. He's Saji's underling at the station and has such a crush on Tokino. She persuaded him to drive her to the inn but kept mumm about there being a murder and Saji being there. He wasn't pleased to see Yuma in tow with Tokino as their working relationship is a secret, with Yuma around how can she solve the case?

 Not a long list of suspects, there were five guests at the inn along with the owners who were a married couple. That list is down to six as the guest Kuroiwa had been murdered the previous night, the killing took place between shortly after 11:00 pm and by midnight. At 11:00 pm Saji had noticed Kuroiwa going into the small bell tower shed in the back yard. Also with him was the 13 year old boy Ryuhei who had wanted to be a police officer when he grew up and Saji was giving the lad the lowdown on what it takes to be a success.
 Shortly after Ryuhei returned to his room, he was at the inn alone as his parents were overseas and his school was on vacation that week. After witnessing Kuroiwa enter the shed Saji went down to the inn's small bar, he went down with the guest Nomoto who happened to be leaving his room too. The pair were at the bar from 11:15 until shortly after midnight and in that time is when the murder supposedly took place. Also at the bar enjoying some spirits were the two owners along with a female guest named Chie.
 Times are very important in this show as that's how Tokino has solved all of the murders up until now. So the three guests in the bar along with the owners all had an alibi for each other when the killing occurred, if they're in the clear who is left? According to the local inspector Inaba it's the thirteen year old lad Ryuhei who had been in his room alone and had no alibi. That's hogwash Yuma told the detective, how could such a young boy murder such a big man and if so why would he do it. Kuroiwa's death had been the result of being hit over the head with a metal object.

 Slowly but surely many details become coming out. Above is Yuma whose father is a high raking politician at the Diet. His staff have uncovered some secrets about Kuroiwa which is an alias, his real name is Shirota. Never mind that but the man had plastic surgery to change his looks which worked well as they were completely different. The reason for the surgery was because Shirota had been wanted by the police for committing financial fraud and one of his victims had a major connection to a guest.
 A little sleuthing by inspector's Inaba team had discovered that Ryuhei's grandmother had been one of the victims of Shirota's scams, she lost 30 million yen to him. The shame was so great to the woman that the year prior she had committed suicide. But before that tragedy she had wanted to take Ryuhei to the inn which was a fave getaway for her, his mini vacation there was sort of a tribute to her. But now a motive has been established as Ryuhei was the only person who may have wanted Shirota dead and was going to be taken in for questioning. But something that never arose was how could Ryuhei have discovered Shirota's new name and after the surgery would have no idea what he looked like.
 We're getting close to the end which means it's time for Tokino to jump in and disprove the alibi of the suspect. However Ryuhei didn't have an alibi nor did she and Saji think the boy killed Shirota, if not who could have as everyone else at the inn had an alibi? Tokino's method of finding out the major clues is by 'turning back time' to prove an alibi was a lie. No need to this time so instead Tokino played detective and she may make for a fine one though also used a bit of her 'time talents'.

 The key detail to the brutal murder were the footprints that went out to the clock building. There were two sets and obviously the only footprints heading back to the inn were those of the killer. Those prints measured 26 cm and the only person with boots that huge were of the inn's owner. But of course he was in the clear as he had been in the bar with Saji so someone had used his boots and returned them. Big clue but of what significance did the prints play in the murder? Of course it came down to Tokino's reasoning and somehow she can put herself at the place where the crime occurred but this time around her 'turning back time' talent wasn't needed as much.
 Tokino has deduced that the killer had been in the shed when Kuroiwa had entered it and was waiting to kill him. That was quite true but it's not how things exactly happened. It's true the killer had been waiting in the shed for Kuroiwa but not to kill him, how that happened was just in self defense. In the shed was Nomoto who was an old school chum of Kuroiwa's, because of his surgery he wasn't sure if it was his old mate. But after Nomoto watched Kuroiwa eating dinner he knew it was his friend as he had an annoying habit of scraping his utensils together. After Nomoto approached him to say hello Kuroiwa suggested they meet later in the shed, Nomoto arrived first. When Kuroiwa entered he went straight at his old friend with a metal object with all intentions of killing him but in the struggle it was Kuroiwa who ended up getting killed.
 All of that was admitted by Nomoto who said Kuroiwa had worn the owner's boots going out to the shed but Nomoto wore them back to distort the possible clue. When Saji had seen Nomoto the night of the killing at 11:15 pm Nomoto hadn't been leaving his room but instead entering it which we viewers thought was happening but Saji somehow overlooked the possibility. However Nomoto should be able to get out of the murder charge as he did act in self defense. So that draws this recap to it's conclusion, Tokino still retains her perfection in solving murders for Saji but what we saw in this show was how talented of a detective she could be.

 Whew, kind of rushed though the ending but didn't leave any major details out. Think I've done just as many recaps in the past two months as I usually do in about five months so was getting a bit burnt out towards the ending. Learned that this series has a total of seven episodes which means three more to go, will have the recap for the fifth episode about the same time next week. It's okay that it's a short series as it means there probably won't be any dud shows, can't say this is a must watch drama but I've enjoyed every show plus Minami is such a super actress.