Nanase Nishino: "Kotodamasou" drama, episode one recap

 

 Air Dates: October 9th until December 11, 2021 on TV-Asahi, Saturday nights at 11:00 pm

Subs done by arkisubsxx.... shows are 23 minutes in length, total of ten episodes.

Promo video for the drama

Main Cast: The setting is an women's apartment building where #7 has just moved into. After her will be listing the cast by what room number they're in as we discovered in the third show that's key to the story. Of course Nanase has the lead role but every women will have at least one turn in the spotlight save for the female in apartment one which disappointed me a bit. Kind of a large cast and the hardest part in doing a series is writing this opening up! Episodes are a bit short so we didn't see much of a few characters early on and will be updating the bios.

Kotodama- A Japanese word that means that evil powers dwell in words and names, this is the curse our heroine is trying to discover and kill.

Nanase Nishino as Kotaha Utagawa.... Lives in apartment seven and has just moved into the building thanks to the help of her best fiend Sayaka. Kotoha has her own ViewTube show called 'Attraction Channel' and it's not all that popular so where does she get her money? The underlying question for the first four shows is does Kotoha have an odd curse, one that involves her use of words which has a bit to do with the above word Kotodama.

Ayaka Miyoshi as Sayaka Agi.... Apartment one dweller but not for too long so will need to update this for the third episode. Sayaka is Kotoha's best friend and is a budding songwriter who has had little success. That is until the first episode where a song she wrote has become a minor hit and a man performed in on live TV, however he died during his performance!

Yurika Nakamura as Shiori Maruyama.... Lives in the second apartment and is an assistant to a politician. Shiori is not an easy person to get along with and is a bit shady.

 Mayu Hotta as Ayako Komiyama... The woman in apartment #3 and seemed like the nicest female in the small building, that is until the third show. Ayako is a freelance announcer but has obtained a somewhat steady gig which has made her a tad greedy and untrustworthy, still a nice woman but there's something mysterious about her.

Misato Morita as Asami Kikukawa.... A budding doctor who lives in the fourth apartment, don't know too much about her after three shows.

 Anna Ishii as Saki Hayashibara.... Resident of apartment five who is a school teacher, like the above woman we haven't seen too much of her yet so will be updating the characters as time goes on.

 Rio Uchida as Hitomi Watanabe.... Final resident in the building who resides in #6. She's an editor/publisher and the biggest reason for not knowing much about the final three characters is that the stories will go in order from apartment one up until seven.

Kento Nagayama as Reishi Nakame.... He's a sham psychic who doesn't believe he is. In the first show he hooked up with Kotoha to perform an exorcism which proved to be fatal. However he's a major character who eventually formed a partnership with Kotoha to solve this unknown curse/mystery and is a bit of a goofy man.

 Yuki Saito as Shima Iwato.... Final major character and she's the aunt of Reishi. She's the head of a local shrine where Kotoha and Reishi have visited for advice which never seems to work because Shima is more interested in money than helping or at least early on she is.

 Whew, that intro really is the hardest part of recapping a series and glad I only need to do it once. This drama is almost at it's end and wanted to begin on these recaps a month ago. The first three shows were subbed quickly but then there was a gap until the fourth episode was done, none have been subbed since that one. But am starting to forget what took place so needed to write a few of these up, was going to have three recaps for today but will make it just two. This is Nanase's best lead role since leaving Nogi, it's an intense horror/mystery but also a bit comical at times. An episode is 23 minutes in length so the recaps shouldn't be too long though the first ones often are.

UPDATE: Wrote the above up three days ago but am just starting on the recap now and didn't want to edit what was written. The subs are being done but the problem was the videos weren't available. But have finally found them so will be doing posts about every five days which will bring us to the end of the year and also end of the series.

 Nanase has the lead role of Kotoha which is a slight variation of the curse described at the beginning. She has her own ViewTube(!) site named 'Attraction Channel' and it'ss not too popular with only 300 subscribers. Kotoha airs one segment a day where she tries to cheer up and inspire her viewers but those segments are anything but inspirational. She's in need of a new place to live and thanks to her best friend Sayaka has moved into a women's apartment building at the beginning of this episode. There appears to be only seven apartments which are all on the second floor, Kotoha has moved into #7. The numbers are important for as we learn this 'curse' goes in numerical order so her place will be the final destination for the Kotodama.

 An episode is only 23 minutes in length so only a few of the seven residents are seen much in each show. Whole array of women reside in the building from a doctor to a teacher and one woman aiming to be a songwriter. That's Kotoha's best friend Sayaka who has had zero success to date and has recently broken up with her boyfriend. She held a mini welcoming party for her mate that was attended by three other gals and it was also a celebration party as Sayaka has finally written a hit song that was performed live on TV which the women all viewed. But in an extremely petrifying incident the man above whose name was Kirishima died on live TV while singing the song!!!! Sayaka confessed to her housemates that she had once dated Kirishima but what a creep he turned out to be. Sayaka began to wonder did she have anything to do with the death for she had silently ripped off the bracelet he had given her and mumbled she wished he was dead!!!! Her wish came true and the Kotodama curse has something to do with there being evil powers in the words someone says.

 Sayaka could also hear the phrase 'You Promised Me' over and over but the other four women in her room couldn't, is she going crazy? No she isn't as it's the curse doing those things and you can see right above what horror was awaiting Sayaka later the next day but no creature was in sight. This Kotodama curse is one I'm not fully sure what it exactly means but it does have to do with words one says coming true. Our heroine Kotoha isn't quite sure what the curse is either but is she a carrier of it(?) for no evil happenings took place until she moved in. Sayaka is so petrified now for thinking she caused Kirishima's death and can only confide those feelings to Kotoha. Two days later the funeral for Sayaka's ex-boyfriend was held, she attended the mourning with Kotoha and upon their return to the apartment building there was a man named Reishi who had been waiting for Sayaka. 

 He claims to be a psychic but really isn't, Reishi follows odd deaths or events in the news and then tries to sell the victims amulets that will rid them of a curse! That's what he tried to do with Sayaka, an amulet for only 200,000 yen(!) but was rebuffed, right on the spot Kotoha called him a sham though Reishi does know quite a bit about curses and the evil ways of the Devil. That's because of his background and his aunt Shima is the head of a local shrine. He's told the two women that the apartment building is cursed which is true but he lucked out with that assessment, perhaps his aunt could help the women? Sayaka was still too upset about the death of Kirishima so Kotoha went with Reishi to the shrine to meet his aunt and was in for a rude surprise. Shima may be the head of a shrine but seems to be much more interested in making a barrel full of yen then helping others. Shima said she could help Kotoha but only for the price of one million yen(!) or about $8,850.  Kotoha was aghast that a shrine leader would demand money to help but Shima did do one good thing for Reishi was her sister's son. She's advised the pair to hold an exorcism for Sayaka and gave them the book below with instructions on how to hold one.

 The first recap for a series is always the longest but this is the final segment, there's about five minutes to go in the episode. Sayaka's mental condition had deteriorated rapidly and the exorcism had to be done that night as it could be a matter of life and death! As mentioned the book in the first screenshot above gave instructions on how to perform an exorcism if it's a Kotodama curse. Certain words/phrases needed to be written all over Sayaka's body which you can see above. The ceremony then begins at midnight and has to last until the first rays of sunshine appear, looking out a window while the ceremony is taking place means an instant death! During that period the trio of Sayaka, Kotoha and Reishi needed to recite chants from the exorcism book, all seemed to be going well.

 Many hours passed and it appeared morning had finally arrived. But none of the three had thought to look at a clock, Sayaka ran to the window where she expected to see sunshine but instead it was still night! That may have been the work of the Kotodama curse and very rapidly Sayaka's life took a turn for the worse. She fell to the ground in agony while Kotoha and Reishi looked on helplessly, is there nothing that can be done for this cursed and dying woman? The answer to that is in the next recap and was very surprised in what happened, next post is for the second episode. There were a lot of question marks about the Kotodama curse and there will be in the next few recaps as it hasn't been fully explained what it is. Kotoha isn't sure what the curse is about either and her 'mission' in life is to find out what it truly is and why it's targeting the women of the apartment building.