Miona Hori: "Yo nimo Kimyou na Monogatari: 2021 Fall Special" recap, "Skip" segment....

 

 Air Date: November 6, 2021   Length: 130 minutes, four segments but only one for this post and it aired at 9:00 m on Fuji-TV.

Subs done by Irozuku, they do a solid job with dramas that get overlooked.

 Main Cast: This segment which was named "Skip" ran for 27 minutes, we did see a lot of Miona but her character was secondary to the first one who was in almost every scene. The story began off in October 2021 and by the end it was exactly ten years later.

Eiji Akaso as Mikio Okura.... College student about 22 years in age who with his older brother lives with their grandmother. One evening he found a key that had dropped out of a suicidal man's hand, it worked on a door at his residence and his entire life changed with that key.

Miona Hori as Ayaka Fujino.... Also a college student plus an up and coming fashion model. She eventually ended up dating Mikio who thought she was out of his league.

Ryotaro Sakaguichi as Aitsu.... Miko's 'brother' but in reality wasn't! May sound confusing and slightly was, this character was a Spirit who could take the form of certain people. He did that with Mikio and Kazuki, you'll see why and how in the recap.

Shuntaro Yanagi as Kazuki Okura.... Mikio's true brother who was four years older in real life. It appears Kazuki disappeared ten years before but has now returned, what's his story?

Yuki Tokito as Jun Iwadare.... Mikio's best friend at college.

Yuuki Nomura as Hayato Noshioka.... Captain of the soccer club who used to pick on Mikio, often in a joking way but was severely beaten up one day by Mikio after practice.

Short promo video

 This series has been running since 1990 and usually has 2-4 of these specials a year. I've enjoyed them and have probably seen twenty of them which have four or five segment that last ~25 minutes. There's a few other titles for this long running series such as Miracle World, Tales of the Bizarre and Tales of the Unusual. The emcee has always been Tamori who is quite the character and he's always been a 'cool guy' in a very odd way. He's also been the main host of the 'Music Station' show since 1987.

 Just the first segment titled "Skip" was subbed and seeing as how Miona was in it knew it needed to be viewed. But the other parts have a solid cast plus the stories look interesting so it's a semi shame they weren't done but could be in the future. Miona's role was just a medium sized one but she does look so, so fabulous. We see the main character of Mikio in almost every scene and though her role wasn't too large this still turned out to be a decent segment. The stories have never been truly scary over the years but they're always interesting and often a bit creepy. My top special was when Erika Toda starred in the Spring 2008 edition, that may have been her best role to date. Enough of an intro and let's get to the recap which shouldn't be too long as the length was just 27 minutes however did take 59 screenshots. The title Skip refers to the main character of Mikio skipping ahead into the future.

 Won't call him a 'Hero' and that's the main character Mikio Okuda. He's a 22 year old college senior who along with his older brother lives with their grandmother. What became of their mother was never mentioned and their father died almost a decade earlier, why is something we'll discover right near the end. Mikio is kind of a meek guy but seems to be well liked at school, he attends Meiou University. He's a member of the soccer club which is run by a very good player named Nishioka. That man loves to bully Mikio but kind of got the impression that he was also joking around a lot, that bullying/joking though will come back to haunt Nishioka. One day after practice Mikio was resting up with his best buddy Jun when walking by was the college Queen Ayaka, she had a crowd of admirers around her and that's her in two of the above screenshots and of course it's Miona.

 Ayaka is an up and coming fashion model, she just had a small spread in a magazine which Mikio couldn't stop staring at that night. He's had such a crush on Ayaka but she's way out of his league or at least that's what Mikio thinks, unknown if the pair had ever talked before or were even childhood friends? While Mikio was gaping at that mini spread walking into his room was his older brother Kazuki, I'd say he was 3-4 years older. He gave Mikio a nice ribbing about his 'dream girl' and what an eerie impression we had right off the bat with the brother. Not really a spoiler but it'd help to say this now which is that Kazuki isn't who he appears to be, he's actually a 'spirit' and is the key figure in this story. Speaking of Keys that's Mikio above holding one. On his way home from school one night he came upon a tragic scene, one in which a man jumped from a roof. He's not dead though and as they were wheeling away this man on a stretcher he dropped that key which was picked up by Mikio.

 The design on the key looked so familiar to Mikio, he deduced it was the same design as one outside of a door in his grandmother's house. It was a door he had never entered before, when he was a child his grandmother, in the top screenshot, has warned Mikio never to enter that door for he'll never return. He never could open the door as he had no key, when Mikio tried that key dropped by the suicidal man to his shock the door opened! Mikio began his journey but there wasn't much to see, it was a very long hallway with bordered up rooms and windows. But Mikio tried to see if the Urban Legend of the place was true, that being you can wish yourself to be 'skipped' into the future. So Mikio tried wishing to be whisked 24 hours into the future and it worked. The following day he tried it again but this time Mikio wished to be transported one week into the future. Once again that Urban Legend answered his request as it was a week later, it was October 8th and now it's the 15th. 

 At first those wishes were like a gift from God for Mikio who still lived for a week but he can't remember anything her did, may sound confusing but more details on what really happened coming up. There was a test be took in a tough class, Mikio didn't recall taking it but scored an 88 on it! But that wasn't the best event to happen and you can see what that was above. In that missing week Mikio went out on a pair of dates with his dream girl Ayaka who really wants him to be her boyfriend!!!! Mikio is in seventh heaven now but there is a drawback to these recent strokes of luck which is that he can't remember what took place. Yes, it's nice to be dating Ayaka but what good is it if he can't recall anything about their time together? But that can also be a good thing if there are events Mikio would rather not know about such as the soccer club. So twice more he entered that mysterious hallway and both times asked to whisked another week into the future, quickly the date is now October 25th. 

 Those good times for Mikio came crashing down when her reappeared on October 25th, now for the rest of the show his life will be a nightmare! In that top screenshot above is Nishioka who is the soccer club captain and also the person that had been slightly bullying Mikio. As mentioned when he 'skips' into the future Mikio can't remember one thing, during this last week he had badly beaten up Nishioka on the final day of soccer camp and he was almost on the verge of killing him! That reappearance took place in the hospital where Nishioka was, as Mikio was leaving he passed by the room where that suicidal man was laying unconscious, more on him coming up. Little while later Mikio hooked up with his new girlfriend Ayaka and what an event he missed! That's of the two spending a night together and Mikio is getting frustrated with what he's supposedly been doing with Ayaka as he can't remember one thing, can't blame him for that! So he figured Ayaka would want to spend another evening with him but she refused his offer, better not to rush things she said to Mikio's quiet fury.

 Things only got worse for Mikio as shortly after that encounter he was roughed up by a pair of Yakuza who claimed he extorted 100,000 yen from them! How could such a meek person like Mikio take down two hefty men as he claimed no knowledge of it which was true as he never can recall any incidents when he 'time travels'. But these hooligans had a picture of his shakedown and that's the bottom screenshot above, Mikio couldn't believe what he was looking at. That's not him but his older brother Kazuki, why are they confusing Mikio with him? Arriving on the scene shortly after the Yakuza left was Ayaka and here's when the mystery begins to be revealed. She too has pictures on her phone of Mikio from the previous week but once again it wasn't him but his brother Kazuki, what is going on and was it him who slept with his new girlfriend?! Mikio is so confused and rightly so, he rushed home as he had an inkling of something. He skimmed through the family's photo albums and was looking at pics of his 'brother' Kazuki however the pics in the album showed a different person! That face looks familiar he thought and Mikio dashed off to the hospital to see if his assumption was correct.

 Will try to zip through this final segment, it's been a bit too long for a 27 minute show. Mikio had deduced that the man that had attempted suicide by jumping from a roof early in the show was his real brother Kazuki. He's slightly recovered and Mikio was able to have a mini talk with him, mini for his older brother died after about five minutes of talking. Kazuki too had used that key ten years ago, he couldn't take the bullying during his high school days and after a while found himself ten years in the future. But he never did explain what had been taking place with him after the time travel nor why he didn't try to contact Mikio. It seems like it's a family tradition as their father also had entered the cursed door, that led to his death. So what I worked out was this as far as the curse goes. When a person travels into the future this 'spirit(s)' Aitsu takes their identity and lives their life in that time, for Mikio it's been seven day periods. However all others think it's Mikio they're with as somehow Aitsu can create the illusion he's another person which you can see a few examples of above.

 After his brother Kazuki passed away at the end of their talk Mikio rushed back home with the intention of finding out more clues, actually the main intention may have been to somehow destroy this hallway. For the first time when Mikio entered the door and then hallway there was someone else there, his fake brother Aitsu who was stabbing to death everyone close to him! This had to be a nightmare screamed Mikio who tried to dash away but was caught quickly by Aitsu and the pair grappled in that hallway. Mikio was able to escape and when he did he wished he was ten years into the future, may not have been the wisest of wishes. For when Mikio arose he was surrounded by two people, a much older Ayaka and a nine year old girl. The time has zoomed forward from October 2021 to October 2031 and guess what.... he's married to Ayaka and the girl s their nine year old daughter!!!!

 Mikio had been shocked by all of the events up until now but this was the biggest shock of all. He didn't remember one thing from the previous decade and as mentioned that's been the drawback of doing that time travel. During that ten year stretch it was the spirit of Aitsu who took Mikio's place in life and this daughter was actually the spirit's!!!! You can see two screenshots of the little girl above and she does look so much like her real father Aitsu. That brings this mini show's recap to an end but the recap itself wasn't all that mini. As I said in the beginning this has been one fine series for over thirty years and the stories are always so interesting plus a bit creepy. Too short to give it a rating but would recommend it and while Miona didn't have an overabundance of screen time she did look quite superb. She will be in a new drama that begins on January 8th titled "Mattari! Akado Suzunosuke" which is a series I'll be checking out and will have more info in her next post. Did take a huge amount of screenshots, another 34 here to perhaps help you follow this interesting story a bit better.