Nanase Nishino: "Kotodamasou" drama, episode eight recap

 

 Air Dates: October 9th until December 18, 2021 on TV-Asahi, Saturday nights at 11:00 pm

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

**** The December 4th episode had to be pre-emepted so the series will end on the 18th.

Main Cast: The setting is a 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. Over the course of six shows have learned more about this curse, here's a few more details.

**** The Kotodama curse is awakened when someone raps three times at the caretaker's office door, it's happened twice so far in the series.

**** The curse may also do some nice things for a potential victim such as granting a wish but in the end that wish is why the person died!

**** The Kotodama hates persons that lie, if you say the same one three times you will be possessed by the spirit.

**** However there are still some unanswered questions such as why does the Kotodama only pick out certain wishes and lies?

**** As mentioned the Kotodama has something to do with words and phrases, in the seventh episode we learned the spirit is of the dead author Natsume so guess that makes a bit of sense that the curse is someone who was so adept at words.

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 it 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 which has changed after she was targeted for death by her boss!

 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 at Ashita-TV 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, she was affected by the curse during the fourth episode but managed to live. However against Asami's wishes she donated a liver(!) which went to her ex-boyfriend Suzuki.

 Anna Ishii as Saki Hayashibara.... Resident of apartment five who is a school teacher and had been secretly dating a man named Suzuki, the same man who broke up with Asami! However in the fifth show he broke up with both of them.

 Rio Uchida as Hitomi Watanabe.... Final resident in the building who resides in #6. She's an editor/publisher and through six episodes is the only person in the apartment building not to have been cursed.

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.

Shiro Sano as Hisashi Hatori.... first introduced in the seventh episode, he's been the owner of the Ladies' Court apartment building for over 25 years.

Mina Fujii as Natsume Mitsuba.... We won't see too much of her but she was a writer who lived at the apartment building 25 years ago. At the time the residence was named Kotodamasou and Natsume was killed in the building, is her spirit still haunting the place?

 Previous recaps

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three .... Episode four

Episode five .... Episode six

 Up until now every episode had been a bit better than the previous one. That pattern ended with this show as the first eight or so minutes were a bit slower, however after that the action and intensity picked up so much and the ending was the best of all eight episodes. After this there's two more shows to go and let's hope for a dynamite ending. That's because this has an outside shot of being my #1 series of the year, so surprised how terrific this show is. This has been a very good year for dramas or at least the late night shows but there hasn't been that one standout drama this year.

 In that top screenshot is the local shrine leader Shima, that comment is so true as though we've learned much about the Kotodama curse there's still some lingering mysteries. Surprised we didn't see more of Shima as her nephew had been whisked away by the spirit which I'm about 100% certain is of the writer Natsume who was murdered 25 years before. When the previous show ended Reishi, the nephew, was standing outside of the caretaker's office chanting some spells while waving an amulet. Within a matter of seconds the door flew open, two arms popped out grabbing Reishi and thrust him into the room. In the second screenshot is Kotoha who dashed over to no avail, the other five women residents witnessed this tragedy. We didn't see any more of Rieshi in this episode and there were only a few references to him but of course he'll be a big part of the final two shows.

 Hope you read the previous recap which discussed the writer Natsume and what took place 25 years prior. Her killer was a woman named Sora and it appears she's never been caught for the murder, is this why Natsume's curse still haunts the building? And if so why is she targeting these innocent women who had nothing to do with her death? In room six resides Hitomi who has been a huge fan of Natsume, that's her room in the above bottom screenshot and it's packed with her books. Hitomi has staged an exhibition for the deceased woman who is still popular these days, one reason was that Hitomi thought perhaps Natsume's spirit would be pleased and flee the building. That didn't happen and the building's owner Hatori made an appearance at the exhibition. We just met him in the last episode and he knows much more about Natsume then he's telling Kotoha, for some reason he was furious at what Hitomi was doing and told her to stop the event immediately!

 An episode is 23 minutes in length, it was a decent first half but the second part was the top ten or so minutes of the series to date. Two of the eight residents have been killed by the Kotodama curse and by now they're almost resigned themselves to the fact there's no escape. In the last episode Saki and Shiori tried to move to a different building but were followed by Natsume's spirit so doesn't matter where one goes for the curse will always find them! In the top screenshot is the TV reporter Ayako, nothing has worked so she's said there's two options, maybe only one. Seems the curse hates when people lie or use others, Ayako suggested everyone atone for the mistakes they've made since moving into the building. For her and Shiori it was apologizing to the reporter Shimatani who Ayako lied about on live TV and for Shiori it was for a plot to end his life! 

 In the case of Asami it was trying to make up with her ex-boyfriend Suzuki who she unwillingly gave a liver to three shows ago! He's agreed to meet her but don't think Asami's intentions were of atonement, deep down she wants to start dating him again. That'll never happen for in the second to last screenshot above is what took place after Asami's phone call to her ex-boyfriend. In quite a scary scene two arms slowly inched out of a mirror, grabbed Asami by the throat and dragged her into the mirror! To where is unknown and is there any chance she's still alive? Minutes later the same thing happened to Saki as two hands also dragged her into a mirror, in an odd twist she too was trying to hook back up with Suzuki. But this second incident was seen by Kotoha and the other three women, they tried to pull Saki back into the room with no success and now we're down to four living but for how long?

 For a few seconds the women did see Saki's face in the mirror pleading for help but they were powerless to do anything. So for now the remaining four went around the apartment building covering up all of the mirrors, it may work for a while but sure Natsume has something up her sleeve. Calling the police would have been useless, who would have believed two women were dragged into a mirror?! But there was a potential savior(not!) as Kotoha had a phone call from the shrine leader Shima. She said at this point the best thing to do was to 'purify' themselves and all began to do that in different ways. But none worked for as you can see above someone was in the bathtub. That was Ayako who screamed for help, when Kotoha arrived there was nothing to do as Ayako had been dragged down into an abyss plus the water now had the color and texture of oil!

 Kotoha was furious with Shima's suggestion and contacted her but she was innocent of all charges. Shima had never called Kotoha so it must have been the furious spirit of Natsume who fooled Kotoha with saying the women needed to be purified. So one option that's not working is staying at the building, the trio by now realize it's either leave or be killed but as we've seen the Kotodama can follow you anywhere! In the final seconds as the group were making plans to depart Shiori was standing close to her bed, before she realized it a long strand of hair(!) was dragging her under the bed and probably to her death. Kotoha and Hitomi rushed right over but did they save her? That we don't know yet as the episode ended on that note and what an intense final ten minutes. The last episode airs this Saturday but the subs usually aren't done for a week so expect the final two recaps in about ten days.