"CHEAT" drama: Episode four recap

 

 Air Dates: October 3rd to December 6, 2019   Thursday nights at midnight on N/YTV. There was a total of ten episodes plus a mini five minute 'special' following those shows.

Subs were done by ECOTV, also goes by the name of Trap the Con Man.

Link to the show's site: CHEAT YTV site

 Main Cast: All save for the bottom person are part of the 'CHEAT' team though that person was the one who had created it. The CHEAT team are the top four who get revenge for those who have been swindled.

Tsubasa Honda as Saki Hoshino/Momo Kisaragi.... Two names, Saki is her real one but in her spare time she moonlights as an Idol named Momo. Saki is the leader of the CHEAT team and also a bit of a hothead, she's tried to keep her Idoling passion a secret but it was discovered by Kamo who for now isn't saying anything.

Haruka Fukuhara as Mizuki Maruyama.... Genius hacker and the youngest of the team plus her attractiveness at times can be a bit too overwhelming!

Daichi Kaneko as Yuto Kamo.... Newest person of the team who joined in the first episode. He's an undercover police detective assigned to the team by Anzai, Kamo can be overly naive most of the time.

Shuhei Uesugi as Shun Negishi.... Master of the team at creating and installing surveillance equipment, was once a detective.

Shunsuke Kazama as Kazuki Anzai..... Created the CHEAT team and is Kamo's superior, seems to be quite a dark and ruthless man.

Guest Stars:

Sei Ashina as Maria Todo.... Owner of Marianna Cosmetics and it seems she's swindled hundreds of customers which shoddy products but is actually innocent.

Ryouta Murai as Satoru Mikoshiba.... Maria's assistant at her company and unknown to her has been duping the customers and salespersons.

Links to the previous episodes:

Episode one recap

Episode two recap

 Know I'm a bit late for a date again(!) but the subs for this series weren't completed until July or so, just learned about that recently. This is a drama I had really been itching to see as those top two are such massive faves of mine plus both are superb actresses. On a sad note the main guest star was Sei Ashina who died by suicide back on September 14th which was two months before she was going to turn 37. Her face was so familiar as she had been in so things but still didn't know her all that well. She was quite busy over the years but don't think she had many major roles and perhaps that was a reason for her death and if so that's such a shame.

 As usual a show opened with Saki and Mizuki preventing a person from getting swindled, the scenes only last for about a hundred seconds but are hilarious. Didn't talk about Saki's Idoling in the last recap as there wasn't much to discuss. But there is a bit for this show and will get that out of the way. Her Idol name is Momo who had ben a street Idol which is different from a J-Pop Idol. But her manager Shinji has teamed Momo up with two others to form the trio Jewel ✰ Toriko. They have their first performance lined up at an Idol festival but need to sell a hundred tickets at 5000 yen each to perform, so far the figure hasn't been hit. As you can see above the center for the show if it happens will be Mai who is on the left, Yuna is in the middle and was furious at the selection. But it was a fan vote and to Momo's dismay she finished well behind the other two in the voting. In all honesty what a terrible group they are but can't wait for them to perform at the festival.

 In the bottom screenshot above is Hasumi who we didn't see until the end of the third show. He appears to be Anzai's boss though in a loose way, the pair don't see eye to eye on many things. What Saki did according to Hasumi's fury is unknown for now along with what crimes her father may have committed. But have had that feeling she was caught in some sort of swindling scheme and to remain out of prison Saki has been working with Anzai along with her two CHEAT teammates Mizuki and Shun. Now finally on to this episode's story which revolved around the guest star briefly mentioned above. The character's name is Maria Todo who owns the Marianne Cosmetics company and she's been duping her customers to buy products that aren't what they appeared to be. Won't give the key spoiler but there was an interesting twist in the story at the end and Maria wasn't actually the true criminal.

 Besides selling bad products many women have been duped being sellers for the company, after spending startup money Maria or her male assistant Mikoshiba disappear without a trace. It's actually him that does most of the dirty work but Maria is a tyrant at her office, so much that she can't hold on to staff and needs another worker. Stepping into the picture was Kamo who goes undercover for all of CHEAT's assignments, he went for an interview with Maria posing as Nakazawa and got the job. But of course Kamo's main task was to find out every little secret he could but being so inept that of course didn't work out as planned. But to get the position Nakazawa would have to sell ten cosmetic contracts within a day and he hit the pavement selling them with zero results. As usual Saki was more than furious with Kamo's attempt, why wouldn't he have just created ten bogus contracts to turn in? Of course he hadn't thought of it but naturally Saki knew that in advance and has the ten to give to Maria which has landed Kamo a position at Marianna Cosmetics.

 Also going undercover was Saki as she knew this could be a difficult assignment. She arranged for her and Maria to have a few 'accidental run ins' at the gym and after one the pair went out. Maria told her all about her company and such which excited Saki to no end. But it wasn't Saki who Maria was talking to but Yoriko Ambe who claimed to have a beauty blog and one that's quite popular, that was all set up by Mizuki. Maria was impressed with Yoriko and asked if she would like to try out a new cream she's about to introduce, this was no scam by Maria and she truly thought she was selling a legit item. Saki returned to the CHEAT office after that chat, her team checked out the ingredients and such, it was an honest to goodness real facial cream so where does the swindling come in?

 Have been having four segments for this show, let me try to make it three for this recap as there's two other posts that really need to be be done. Above is Maria's assistant Mikoshiba, unknown to her he's been duping the customers and sellers of Marianna Cosmetics. While undercover Kenta(Kamo) had discovered there was a set of lists, one was for potential customers while another was for the occasional buyer but where was the list for the 'A customers' who were the lifeline of the company? With the help of Shun Kenta had broken into Maria's desk which held a USB chip of the list or so he thought, the main list had been shredded by Mikoshiba. But there still was that 'B list' of occasional customers which the CHEAT team contacted and many arrived for a final showdown at the Marianna office. Arriving before them was Shun who was pretending to be the attorney for a very famous overseas model who went unnamed.

 And that model was played by none other than the alluring Mizuki who claimed using Maria's new cream had marred her face and she wants compensation for her lost wages. Also arriving to this final scene was Saki as Yuriko who was also demanding to know what was up with this fake cream that was unlike the original one Maria had given her. To top it all off also making an appearance were many of the customers that the team had contacted on Maria's lists, she knew who the women were but had no clue that they had such problems with her products. Nor did she know that the new cream she created wasn't the one being sold and she too wants to know who has been duping her for so long? All eyes glared at Mikoshiba who had nowhere to run to though of course he denied everything.

 But the evidence was so overwhelming on how he had duped Maria, her customers, the stores and others in the chain of cosmetic sales. So it was kind of an easy assignment for the team to solve due to Mikoshiba not covering his tracks too well but there were still a few things that could have been tied up better. Can't believe such an astute businesswoman such as Maria could not know what was going on right below her nose, she knew someone was hurting her company's reputation so why didn't she suspect Mikoshiba? Plus where did the money he swindled go to along with why did he do all of this in the first place and not include Maria in his plans? Another fine show but it did wrap up a bit quickly with some unanswered questions.

 Sorry for wrapping things up in a hurry but then again so didn't the events in this episode So far this is turning out to be one of the better 2019 Japanese series and am pleased I've been able to view it as had lost hope it would ever be subbed. Wish we saw a bit more of Haruka, she does have a lot of screen time but just can never get enough of her. Have two other recaps that will be done first so expect the next pair of these to be in about a week.