"Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe" drama: Episode three of three, 'DNA'

 

 Air Dates: December 28th until December 30, 2020 on NHK at 10:00 pm

Based on the Hirohiko Araki manga, subs were done by Leviathan

Main Cast: Really just only two main characters, the third person we haven't seen much of and the bottom character is the key guest star for the episode.

Issei Takahashi as Rohan Kishibe.... Extremely popular manga artist in his mid thirties and a very eccentric man. He's gone through many editors via his Shumeisha publishing company and has just been assigned a new one who is Kyoka. Besides being so odd Rohan has a special gift which he keeps hidden from others. When he says the words 'Heaven's Door' the person he's talking to will pass out. And somehow a book of their life appears on that person's face and Rohan reads their bio to learn more about them. He can also add in a different event that will change their live which you'll read about.

 Marie Iitoyo as Kyoka Izumi.... Rohan's new 25 year old editor who is not a manga fan but is reading his works. She is a gung-ho woman and though she irritates Rohan to no end we viewers can tell he really likes Kyoka. She's going out with a man named Taro who is unemployed, Rohan wonders if he isn't sponging off Kyoka.

 Tomoya Nakamura as Taro Hirai.... Kyoka's boyfriend but not sure how close they really are as he didn't have much screen time. Taro is unemployed and that was because of a car accident, before that he was an up and coming photographer.

Kumi Takiuchi as Mai Katahira.... Interior designer whose husband had died close to six years ago and at the time she was pregnant with their daughter Mao. Don't know who played the five year old girl who was the focus of this story. She's an extremely odd girl who talks backwards(!) and seems to 'curse' a person when she touches them.

 Two minute promo video of the series which you can view here: Trailer for all three shows

 Know it was only three episodes but I'm going to miss this show. All three stories were so interesting, watched all of them in one day which I seldom do. Once again this is based upon a story that appeared in the 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure' manga, this was a newish story as it came out in 2017 and the first one appeared back in 1997. These stories were so compelling wonder why there wasn't a separate manga series for Rohan?

 This final story began six years ago with a couple talking about their future while sitting in a car. They've been married for two years and the wife Mai is pregnant with their first child. Shortly after that short scene we saw the top screenshot which was of their car in an accident, Mai's husband perished in that incident. Now it's present day and Mai is raising her five year old daughter Mao, much more on them in a bit. The previous episode ended off with Rohan using his special 'gift' of editing a person's memory which he did on his fellow manga artist Juugo. But there was no way Rohan could let his secret get out so he explained to his editor Kyoka that he had used hypnosis on the man.

 So that put in Kyoka's mind that Rohan was also an accomplished hypnotist which is what she needs for her boyfriend. Taro is his name and the pair met a year ago at her place of employment which is Shumeisha Publishing. Six years ago Taro had also been in a car accident and it may have been the same day as Mai's. Taro was a semi popular photographer but after the accident has rarely done any work with his camera and has been in such a funk. In Kyoka's mind what could help Taro is hypnosis to help him overcome the PTSD from the accident, would Rohan be willing to 'cure' Taro? Of course the answer to that was NO as Rohan wasn't a true hypnotist though he did know much about it, his words to Kyoka in the previous show have come back to haunt him.

 Shortly after that meeting Kyoka was with Taro and told him about Rohan's ability, perhaps the two could meet up? That was something Rohan will be trying to avoid but by chance he just happened to encounter the pair as he was heading to his favorite cafe. But before the trio could talk passing by was a mother holding her young daughter, the mother was Mai who will now be a major factor in the story along with her daughter Mao. As they were passing by Taro the small hand of Mao reached out from beneath her blanket and touched him lightly twice. Does Mao have some curse as within a few seconds Taro passed out and hit his head hard against a stone wall. He quickly recovered saying he was fine but Kyoka insisted he go tot he hospital as who knows what could happen after a head injury?

 At the hospital Taro seemed to be in fine shape but more tests needed to be done because of his past. Slowly the facts about his car accident six years ago came out during the show. Back then an emergency operation needed to be done to save Taro's life, he received an organ transplant but the details about that won't be revealed until later. Mai had gone to the hospital too with Mao to make sure Taro was fine which he was but during Mao's time there Rohan noticed many odd things about the pair. The main thing was that Rohan seemed to feel that Mai was extremely frightened of her daughter, possibly because she's cursed? He had noticed Mao touching Taro but it was so light how could he have crashed against a wall? Plus why was a five year old still being carried around by her mother and why was the daughter hidden in a blanket?

 Mao is a very, very odd five year old girl and at first didn't pick up on the way she was talking. Thought it was just gibberish and you can see the girl above in the middle screenshot. What it was is that Mao talks backwards(!) and what she was telling her mother was 'Go over there'. Mao is five years old but still doesn't attend school and spends most of her day in that little hideaway you can see just above. Rohan was so curious about the girl he went with Kyoka over to their house as she had told the mother Mai about him being a hypnotist which actually wasn't true. But it didn't take an expert to know something srange is going on in the household, yes the girl Mao is a bit zany but to Rohan the blame for that lies with her mother who won't let the girl lead a normal life.

 Rohan even attempted his 'Heaven's Door' spell on Mao to find out about her past. He found nothing that would have led Mao to becoming such a recluse so of course to him the mother was mainly to blame. So Mai told a bit about her past and the fact that her husband died in a car accident prior to Mao's birth. Is it possible for her husband's DNA or genes to affect a little girl? How else could Mao talk backwards plus the mother Mai also feels her daughter could be cursed, especially after what happened to Taro. Another oddity is that Mao has one green eye while the other is brown. During this chat Mao ran from her room and dashed down the stairs, to everyone's disbelief the girl vanished right in front of their eyes!!!! All three saw that vanishing act but could Mao actually be invisible as they heard the front door open and close.

 So quickly the trio dashed outside but Mao was nowhere to be found. While searching the neighborhood Mai told Rohan and Kyoka a bit more about her husband's accident. At the time of their marriage they had registered as organ donors, so of course after her husband was killed the doctors removed some organs for needy patients. That rang a bell in Kyoka's mind and you can see what she was thinking above. She told Mai and Rohan that Taro's accident was also six years ago, could it be possible that one of the husband's organs is now in Taro? To Rohan that made perfect sense so he's surmised Mao is on her way to the hospital to see Taro, could this little girl possibly have sensed that Taro has a part of her father in him?

 That will be the case but what organ? As they were dashing to the hospital they saw Mao in a park going down a slide, she was laughing too which are a pair of things she's never done. With her was Taro who had ben released from the hospital as he had recovered fully from his head injury. He had encountered Mao shortly after his discharge and the two hit it off immediately. The trio watched from a distance amazed at Mao's transformation as she was acting like any normal five year old. They eventually sauntered over and also hitting it off were Mai and Taro. He revealed that the organ he had received was a heart and though donor identities aren't allowed to be disclosed there was little doubt that it came from Mai's husband. Is it possible for someone receiving a new heart can also have the same traits as the the person who donated it?

 Taro said so many things that Mai's husband used to say plus he had so many of the same mannerisms. There was little doubt to Mai that Taro has her husband's heart and she was overcome with glee though she couldn't reveal the secret to Taro. The pair seemingly became a couple right off the bat and seeing that also made Mao beam with joy. The last we saw of the trio was them walking hand in hand down the road as if they were already a family, plus in a shock Mao began to speak like a normal person instead of backwards. Few other minor events took place which you can see in the screenshots but it was a happy ending though was it one for Kyoka? Yes it was as she wasn't too dejected about losing her boyfriend as Taro is finally back to being his old self. The final scene at Rohan's mansion ended the series off though he still couldn't answer most of Kyoka's enigmas such as how did the little girl vanish? Plus can a person acquire the same traits as the previous owner of an organ?

 That was one enjoyable show and my only complaint was that there were only three episodes. Will give this an impressive rating of 9.1/10 which is the highest I've given out in over a year, would like to find a few other series in this vein. Up next for recaps will be the second season of 'Kimi to Sekai' but unsure how I'll be doing them. Took so long for the second episode to be available, two days after the third aired. So don't don't know whether to do a pair of trios or stick to doing three sets of two recaps, guess we'll find out soon enough and Marie is in that series too.