Nanase Nishino: "Kotodamasou" drama, episode six 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?

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.

Shiori Akita as Yukino Kinosaki.... New housemate at the apartment building who we will only see in this episode. Yukino is a ~22 year old college student who has moved into Sayaka's old apartment, she's not scared of curses.... not yet at least! She's overly obsessive about money and made the mistake of saying 'I'd rather die than have no money', it's as she signed her own death certificate!

 Previous recaps

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

 Best episode to date and what a fine drama this is turning out to be, granted the Kotodama curse can be a bit confusing at times but it's getting easier to understand as we go on. What I plan on doing once this recap is finished is to add on a the top all about the curse to make it somewhat easy to understand but then again the cast aren't sure of why they're being hunted down, hope I remember to write it up. So after that last episode the apartment building seems safer thanks to it being exorcized but is the Kotodama really gone? That we'll find out and this show revolved around the above woman who you can see is named Yukino. She's just moved into Sayaka's old apartment #1, she didn't believe in such a curse and willfind out the hard way it exists....

 Sayaka died at the beginning of the second episode yet her spirit still seems to be alive. She's visited the dreams of Kotoha a few times as the two were best friends and has warned that she needs to survive, Kotoha doesn't know what her old friend meant by those words. That exorcism in the last show set Kotoha back 2.5 million yen(!) and yet the job may not be finished. The ritual was done by Shima who is the aunt of Kotoha's new 'demon fighting friend' Reishi, unable to pay off the entire tab Kotoha has to work part time at Shima's shrine. That new friend of Kotoha's Reishi is in the second screenshot, he too believes the Kotodama may still be lurking in the building. Now on to our newbie resident who is Yukino, she is so overly obsessed with money and also being popular. She's a college student who is vying for the Campus Queen award but has some serious competition, her first night at the building she wished for her rival to fall ill, the Kotodama heard her and guess what happened!

 When Yukino told her new housemates of the competition they became a bit petrified of what may happen to their new neighbor, the six think the Kotodama has vanished but now they're wondering if it's true. In that bottom screenshot above is something Yukino says often at night as she dreams of striking it rich. Now the housemates are deathly afraid of what's to become of Yukino who doesn't believe in curses and wasn't scared living in the same room as someone who died recently. That night Yukino went on a date with a man named Nanami but don't think they're officially dating. He's the VP of an IT company and during their mini date Yukino kept repeating how nice it would be to have the money Nanami does. The following day it's confirmed to us viewers that the Kotodama has come back to live or at least it's 'partner'. Yukino recieved a package from Nanami, not surprisingly what was in it was too much money to count!!!! Yukino is in seventh heaven and thinks it's her lucky day as she also went out to buy a ticket for the 1.2 billion yen lottery called Loto8.

 Some of what takes place in this drama is hard to describe so it's better to view it. There's a very eerie atmosphere to this show and it's not easy to put into words. So after that sudden windfall from her fiend Nanami Yukino held a mini 'welcoming party' in her room with the other six residents. By now they're all so terrified of what's to become of Yukino who as mentioned didn't believe in curses but is beginning to. Like a few other women infected by the Kotodama she's been seeing such a creepy woman in her dreams, that spirit is only seen by those who have been infected by the curse! But there's not much that can be done now mused the women, nothing bad has happened to Yukino and maybe she's just on a lucky streak. But often the Kotodama will do some nice things for those he's cursed which is a harbinger for tragedy. Yukino's lucky streak continued for as you can see above she's won the 1.2 billion yen jackpot, her greatest dream of being filthy rich has come true but she's going to wish it didn't.

 Sadly the jackpot was never claimed but and you'll see why, now the question that of course has arisen is how did the Kotodama curse come back to life? When Kotoha first moved into the building the curse was still 'asleep' and she thought back on what could have taken place to awaken it. Seems a bit far fetched but when Yukino moved in to the building she knocked three times at the caretaker's door, she did that three times. On the the third round Kotoha had come around the corner to help the newbie and she's suddenly realized she did the same thing when moving into apartment building, knocking with three raps three times at the door. So it may sound unbelievable but that's how the Kotodama curse can be awakened, the exorcism in the last show did work but when Yukino rapped on the door the curse is back to its evil ways! 

 The Japanese equivalent of the FBI is the PSIA aka Public Security Intelligence Agency. In the second screenshot above two officers from the agency have paid a visit to Yukino, after hitting such a high with her money windfalls what a fall she's about to have. It seems her semi boyfriend Nanami may not be all he appears to be, the man isn't an IT executive but a criminal who abducted a young girl the previous month. A high ransom was paid for the girl's return but the heat was now on Nanami who fled the city and the money that he sent to Yukino were the bills from the ransom, hope that made sense. The yen bills were marked and the detectives have Yukino trapped with no escape. She may not have many high morals but Yukino was completely innocent of any kidnapping but her pleas fell on deaf ears. The detectives weren't paying enough attention to Yukino, that she realized quickly as she fled the room and still had her 1.2 billion yen winning lottery ticket.

 In the lobby she ran into Kotoha who said they needed to have a pow-wow, she had no clue the PSIA were in Yukino's room. No time for chit chat as Yukino needed to flee the building quickly, in that fourth screenshot above you can see what took place as she ran into a weather vane(!) in what was the most gruesome incident to date in this drama. That makes two victims of the Kotodama curse and both resided in apartment one. The shrine leader Shima feels another exorcism needs to be done but perhaps there's a bit more to the mystery which Kotoha wants to investigate first. None of the residents has met the owner yet and maybe he has a clue to the mysterious curse. So when the episode ended Kotoha and Reishi were standing outside of the owner's house, he's a man named Hatori who we haven't seen yet in this series but we will beginning in the seventh episode. That ends the pair of recaps for today, what a superb drama this has turned out to be and will be back in about a week with the next pair of posts, there's four more shows to go.