"Kyoufu Shinbun" drama: Episode one recap

 

 Air Dates: August 29th until October October 10, 2020 Saturday nights at 11:40 pm on Fuji-TV

This series also goes by the name of Terror Newspaper and subs were done by HPriest

Main Characters: Setting is the city of Kyoto. Shizuku receives the haunted newspaper every day at midnight and their tragic stories always come true. She's not the only one though to get this Terror Bulletin paper but only the person that receives it can read the stories.

Sei Shiraishi as Shizuru Onoda.... Second year student at Chuo University in Kyoto. She's lived in the city with her parents but moved out to her own apartment at the beginning of the first episode. After Shizuru's first night at the apartment she began to receive a 'Terror Newspaper' at midnight each night and quickly her life turned upside down.

Hitomi Kuroki as Utako Onoda.... Shizuru's mother

Eiji Yokota as Kuranosuke Onoda.... The father of Shizuru who ran a coffee shop/mini restaurant but he was killed at the end of the first episode!

Taiki Sato as Yusuke Matsuda.... Shizuru's new friend and he works at Hannari Delivery as a bike courier which is how he met Shizuru.

Yuki Katayama as Momoka Miyazawa.... Shizuru's best friend

Taro Suruga as Rintaro Shinozaki.... Detective for the East Kyoto police department.

Ryotaro Sakaguchi as Tomowo Katagiri.... Young man who is Shizuru's neighbor. He lives with his mother and is quite odd but not sure to what extent yet.

 The 'Terror Newspaper' theme is quite a popular genre in Japan. There's been a few books about it plus a manga along with at least two other dramas. There's also been a few films, one I viewed was "Premonition" that came out in 2004. I've probably viewed that ten times and what a terrific film that is, it starred Maki Horikita and how so many of us miss her. After watching "Girl Gun Lady" that had Sei as the leading gun girl thought I really needed to watch another of her shows.

 Have seen four of her previous dramas and all have been solid watches. She has the lead role in this series too and there's not enough Japanese horror dramas, used to be but not nearly as many these days. This is a seven episode series so think what I'll do is have a pair of recaps for today, then another pair in about a week and then the final three a week to ten days after that. Seeing as how this did air last year could do all seven in a few days but have watched so many dramas this year want to make sure I don't get burnt out on them as I'm also recapping a Hina drama that's currently airing, just finished a mini Korean show and am about to start on another so hope I don't get too tired of watching dramas.

 Sei plays the main character of Shizuru in this series, she's a twenty year old sophomore at Chuo University in Kyoto. For her entire life Shizuru had lived with her parents in the same city, they operate a small coffee shop/deli. But Shizuru thought it was time to finally move on with her life and the first major step was getting her own apartment which infuriated her father. He's a very strict man and another reason for Shizuru wanting to move away from home is that she's always felt her father Onoda despised her. Shizuru's mother was behind her decision to move out but insisted her father has always loved her dearly, Shizuru did then believe that for a while but by the end of this first episode seems she was correct with her initial assumption. The father is in the top screenshot and in the bottom one is a young lad named Yusuke who is about Shizuru's age, perhaps a year or two older.

 Shizuru needed more $$ to support herself now that she's on her own, she's gotten a part time job at Hanneri Delivery as a bicycle delivery person, Yuzuke also works there and think full time. The pair hit it off immediately, after two shows their relationship is still a platonic one but think he wants it to go much further. Shizuru moved into her apartment on June 13th, at midnight on that first night there was an eerie noise coming from right outside her front door and it wouldn't cease. Shizuru ran to the door and screamed for that person(?) to stop, they did but as they left a mini newspaper was shoved through the mail slot. What an odd paper it was as it was only two pages plus the pictures were just some strange drawings and the text was scribbled everywhere on that front page. As you can see above the title of the paper is Terror Bulletin and at first Shizuru didn't pay much attention to the stories but did notice they were dated for the following day, was it someone's idea of a joke?

 Think I'll try a different format for this drama. Instead of three segments with nine or ten paragraphs will just have two to a segment which means there's more screenshots at the top to follow the story better. The following day Shizuru was at her delivery job, she's a student yet haven't seen her in class through two episodes. While delivering a package to a school a horrific scene took place as a teen girl was on the roof and a crowd below was pleading for her not to jump. With no warning or screams the female did jump and plummeted to her death landing near Shizuru who was splashed with her blood. What made it even more eerie was the girl seemed to smile just before her head smashed into the ground while having eye contact with Shizuku which left naturally left her quite disturbed. 

 Yuzuke has quickly become a close friend, later on he was there to comfort her and even spent the night at her apartment to make sure nothing happened. But seemed the main reason Yuzuke was there was because he was hoping something would happen though it didn't between the pair. But an event did take place shortly after midnight which was that another edition of the Terror Bulletin was delivered to Shizuku's apartment, it was on her bed and how could it have gotten there? Her screaming woke Yuzuke up from his slumber and he was positive no one had entered her place. Like the previous newspaper this was filled with creepy stories of tragedies that would take place the following day. A very key note is that only Shizuku can see the writing on the paper, when she showed it to Yuzuke he saw nothing but blank paper. Same thing happened when she showed it to her best friend Momoka who saw nothing also and this just adds to the mystery.

 Above in the top screenshot is Shizuku's best friend Momoka who has heard of the Terror Bulletin paper but told her it's just an urban legend. We didn't see much of her in this first show but she does play a pivotal role in the next episode. Below that screenshot is Shizuku's neighbor Tomowo who is about her age and lives with his mother. This guy is a bit off the wall and quite creepy, he hasn't been a factor yet but have a feeling we'll be hearing more about him. One last character to introduce is also above and that's Shinozaki who is a detective for the East Kyoto police force. He's investigating the suicide of that girl who landed right in front of Shizuku and while he appears to be a tough man Shinozaki is kind of a bumbler though not in any kind of comedic way.

 He showed Shizuru a photo of a man who was at the scene and also at a few other tragedies. At first she didn't recognize the man but eventually did later and he worked for the delivery company that moved Shizuku into her apartment. Shinozaki did find and corner this currently unnamed man at his company but he was able to elude the detective who as mentioned is kind of a bumbler. This mysterious man is a character we'll learn much about in the next recap, he's ben tailing Shizuru but only to help her. Meanwhile Shizuru had been reading those Terror Bulletin papers again and to her shock all of those tragic stories had come true, it even predicted that girl's suicide. So obviously it's not an urban legend but how is it possible such a paper can predict the future and of only tragedies? The worst tragedy is about to take place and that's in the next edition which she received that night at the usual midnight hour.

 Quite a horrifying story in that newspaper which was of.... Shizuku's father dying!!!! The following morning she rushed to her parent's cafe with the paper but as was the case with her friends Shizuku's parents only saw a blank piece of paper. It being a slow stretch at the cafe the father took a walk to get some smokes and visit the local shrine where he's been praying for over twenty years. Shizuku truly didn't want her father being on his own after what the paper said but seeing as how she couldn't prove anything he went on his merry way. Meanwhile Shizuku and her mother Utako had a talk which is when she confessed she's always thought her father has despised her.

 'That's hogwash!' her mother explained to Shizuku, her father loves her more than he can show and even went to the shrine to pray every day while Utako was pregnant twenty years ago. The father Onoda's dream was to be an actor but Utako said he really didn't have much talent but to this day he felt he could have made it big. Shizuku was still a bit worried about the article with the story of her father dying so went out to hunt for him and that article was right on the money. She first found him leaving the shrine where if it wasn't for her warning Shizuku's father would have ben hit by a van. This 'curse' won't quit and the pair went walking home after that near miss. During that time Onoda gave his daughter an amulet and said he had been praying with it for twenty years. It didn't come out until the next episode what the amulet really was so will discuss it then.

 In the finale you can see what took place to the father right above and what a gruesome way to die. As they were passing a construction site that pole came tumbling down and for some reason Onoda didn't make much of an attempt to dodge it and what a way to be killed. But he was somehow still living and was rushed to the hospital where Onoda died during an operation. But before that when he was being wheeled into the operating room his final words ever were to his daughter and they were 'I wish you had never been born!'. Whew, so Shizuku was right with her assumption all along and will talk about it more in the recap for episode two which is the next post. Bit of a longer recap than I was expecting but the first ones are for most dramas as the characters and storylines need to be introduced.