"Tantei☆Hoshikamo" drama: Episode one recap

 

 Air Dates: April 26th until June 28, 2021 on NTV, Tuesdays at 1:00 am

 Subs were done by Jumping Storm/hsjhoshi at LJ

Main Cast: Very small one, really just the top two characters get much screen time though the third person does to an extent and so don't each episode's 'victims'.

Daiki Arioka as Hoshi(kamo).... His full name is Hoishikamo but is always called Hoshi in this show so will refer to him by that name. Hoshi is a private detective whose office is in a second hand goods store that was left to him when his parents died, he's close to thirty in age. He's quite frightened of women and has rules set up to how close they can get to him. Hoshi doesn't appear to need money that badly and is extremely frustrated that most cases he gets are cheating ones between spouses.

Yuki Katayama as Tsugumi Karato.... Hoshi's new assistant at the store and also for his detective cases. She hired herself for those positions and also had hired Hoshi as an investigator in the first show.

Yoshinori Okada as Detective Soda.... Local detective for the police force and such a bumbler you wonder how he ever got that position. 

Keisuke Horibe as Joe.... Hoshi's sensei/mentor but have only seen him for a minute in the first two shows.

 This should be the easiest and shortest drama I'll ever recap but sure I'll find a way to screw it up! Just watched the first two episodes and they're only 23 minutes in length. It's an extremely odd drama and can't decide yet whether it's been good or not but it does have some enjoyable things about it. Odds are I will probably only recap half of the ten episode by then again if it turns out to be a decent show may do all. Main reason for viewing this is for Yuki who I've recently discovered via the 2020 drama "Kyoufu Shinbun". She has the main female role in this drama and I think she looks mighty darn good so wanted to see more of her. She really reminds me of another actress but can't think of who.... yet.

 As mentioned Hoshi's detective office is located at a second hand goods store which he also runs but by himself, the place is extremely cluttered from floor to ceiling. Hoshi gets a fair amount of cases but all of them have to do with cheating spouses, he's so tired of working on them he even put a sign in his store's window saying 'NO MORE CHEATING CASES!'. One day he was watching the news and the details of a murder was the main story, the incident happened in his neighborhood. Hoshi has always dreamed to work on a big case like that but has never gotten the chance. The police are stumped about what could have taken place and while no ongoing storyline perhaps by the end of the drama this will be Hoshi's claim to fame if he can solve the case. One major piece of evidence was a red high heel shoe which the police missed but Hoshi noticed on the newscast.

 As Hoshi was viewing the story walking into the shop was the above woman Tsugumi who wants to hire him for a stalking case, finally a non-cheating one! For a few weeks some mysterious man has been staring at Tsugumi's apartment and she has no clue who his man could be. He's been leaving her gifts most days such as flowers, candy, other food, etc. and to top it off there was even a Drone outside her window! Hoshi will accept the case but had to let Tsugumi know he has certain 'limits' with woman and is he scared to death of them? For instance they always must remain 30 cm from and not look at his face for more than five seconds, Tsugumi thought he was a goofball(he is!) but Hoshi is on the case. So a quick trip was taken to her apartment to wait for this male to arrive, While there Tsugumi told him of her job which was working at a call center. However she doesn't speak with callers but voices those annoying robotic messages which we all hate. The man appeared so Hoshi rushed outside to grab the person but in the process was bonked over the head and the man escaped.

 Hoshi grabbed the first 'weapon' he laid his hands on in he apartment and ran back outside to find this culprit, the 'weapon' happened to be a scrubbing brush! While outside Hoshi was detained by his nemesis, detective Soda is that person and as time goes on we'll probably learn why he doesn't like Hoshi all that much. Soda is on that murder case and you can see in the top screenshot what he's called it, naturally when he saw Hoshi with a brush he thought he was the culprit! Of course Soda was way off with his assumption but still dragged Hoshi to the local police station where they had a discussion about the case. Hoshi seems more up on it than Soda is and he's the one who gave the detective the clue about the red high heel shoe, odds are good the killer was a woman. 

 As mentioned in the beginning Soda is quite a bumbler but is kind of a funny character, we'll see him more in the next show where he once again interferes with a case Hoshi is working on. As a matter of fact that murder case has been going nowhere for two episodes so wouldn't be surprised if Hoshi ends up helping Soda solve it. Besides his 'female problem' there's a few other odd quirks about Hoshi. When he needs inspiration for a case he goes off into kind of a 'mind galaxy' with stars all around him, Hoshi means star in Japanese. When he comes out of that trance he often has an inkling on what the next step should be on a case and it appears he's solved Tsgumi's stalking problem.

 The pair set a trap for the stalker and were successful in catching this man. However it wasn't an adult but a fourteen year old boy, should Tsugumi feel good about him stalking her? But this boy Yuma wasn't actually stalking Tsugumi but had thought his mother was spending her nights there with another man and to Hoshi's dismay it turned out to be another cheating case. Yuma had been leaving those gifts at Tsugumi's door as they were his mother's fave things and mistakenly thought she was having her affairs there. Somehow Hoshi was able to deduce by looking at a poster for a dance studio that his mother may be there and he got that deduction correct. The trio went to the above studio where they found Yuma's mother learning dance steps. There was no affair and what his mother was doing was learning to be a better dancer as that seemed to be Yuma's passion.

 So a happy ending took place as Hoshi and Tsugumi watched the pair dance across the floor many times though it wasn't much of a case to solve. A show being only 23 minutes in length meant we've hit the end but not before Tsugumi dropped a bombshell on Hoshi, she would be quitting her call center job to become his new assistant! For someone who can't stand being around women that was quite a shock to Hoshi though he does get along with her to his amazement. Recap for episode two is the next post and while a slow start to this series the second episode is much better.