"Itoshii Uso: Yasashii Yami" drama, episode six recap

 

 Air Dates: January 14th until March 18, 2022 on TV-Asahi, Friday nights at 11:15 pm

Episodes are 48 minutes in length, subs were done by Blitz Subs, their motto is getting subs done quickly and thus far they've lived up to it!

Main Cast: Wrote much of this bio info up after viewing the first episode and will update as we go along. The first six characters are all 29 in age and attended Yamanashi Junior High School. In the first episode they attended their 14th(?) reunion since graduating and all were friends back then.... or were they? A main underlying theme is the fact all of the six, now four, main characters are living their lives as a Lie and are hiding some deep secret from their school days....

Haru as Mio Imai.... The drama seems to revolve around Mio who is a very timid person but has been well liked save for two of the main characters. Her dream was to be a manga artist and she works at the Enami Manga Studio editing stories and books. Three years ago Mio did have her first manga but none since then as that book wasn't too successful. She has an enemy at her office named Rie who appears to have stolen some of Mio's stories. Back in school she also had a severe crush on the next person.

Kento Hayashi as Shuichi Amemiya.... Is the president of a small IT company in Tokyo and he seems to be doing very well. Back in school Amemiya was adored by many of his female classmates and that's continued to the present day, it seems secretly he's also had a crush on Mio which he didn't reveal until the fourth episode. 

Yuika Motokariya as Reiko Honda.... Mio's best friend back in school and like the above two characters has moved to Tokyo while the next three still reside in Yamanashi. Reiko has been very successful as she works as an attorney but is hiding a secret/lie from Mio that happened when they were in junior high but aren't all six hiding some deep secrets? However Reiko did reveal two of those secrets at the end of the fifth show but Mio knew one of them.

Junpei Mizobata as Ryo Fukazawa.... Seems to be the most level headed of the six 'friends' and think he's Mio's mystery fan. Ryo has remained in Yamanashi to work at his family's winery which he will eventually take over, like the others he has a mysterious secret from the past.

Yua Shinkawa as Nanae Iwasaki.... The class 'Princess' but what a cruel and eerie person she was in the first episode.... it was her only appearance before her death! Of all the main characters Nanae's life is the biggest of lies as she has given such a false image of herself on social media but those lies were beginning to crumble around her, especially when she began to stalk Mio! She's was still living in Yamanashi and worked as an OL, none of her dreams worked out.

Tomoka Kurokawa as Yumi Nose.... Final of the six who attended school in Yamanashi and the only person to have gotten married. Yumi is just a housewife with no children and her husband Tadashi is such a strict man, perhaps even a violent person too. However she kept the misery of her marriage hidden until the third show where she met her death....

This picture is from their junior high school reunion that took place early in episode one.

 Rest of the cast who will play a major part in the action.

 Sayuri Matsumura as Rie Okazaki.... She needs no introduction to Nogi fans! Rie works at the same Manga company as Mio and has made life so uncomfortable for her. Rie has stolen at least one of her stories and constantly blames her in front of others for her own mistakes.

Satoshi Tokushige as Tadashi Nose..... Yumi's overbearing and violent(?) husband, a director for the Yamanashi Police. Obsessive would be another apt description for this psycho whose role actually became bigger after Yumi's death in the third episode.

Mari Nishio as Hiroko Enami.... Owner of the manga company Mio and Rie work at. She's been noticing more and more on how badly Rie has been treating Mio but for now has kept quiet about it though is trying to diffuse this potential time bomb.

Ryo Kimura as Kazuya Kobori..... First introduced in the sixth episode and what a mysterious character he already is. The main question is if this man is the group's old classmate Nakano and if so he has his eyes set on them for revenge....

Previous recaps, would definitely help to skim through them as so much has happened.

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

 

 That's so on the money right above as that's when the troubles for this group of six old friends began. Every episode has been solid up until now but this may have been the best of the six shows to date, it had more plot twists than any of the other episodes. That's Amemiya above and what s shady character he's been since the first minute of this show. He comes off as such a humble and caring man but could that be so far from the truth? He's been accused of having a hand in two deaths, having an affair with one of those two women who died, being violent towards an old girlfriend and a few other minor things. But Amemiya has always been able to prove those accusations wrong and has had an ally with his semi new girlfriend Mio but his days of of being the 'nice guy' of the group appear to be ending, what a bombshell was dropped about him in the final minute.

 One positive thing did occur in this episode which is that Mio will finally be getting a new manga series. She had one three years ago which wasn't all that popular but she submitted a new story to a publisher who really has high hopes for it, more about it later on. The last episode ended with the lawyer Reiko learning from a reporter that two years ago Amemiya had been arrested for assaulting his then girlfriend Aki. Shortly after that this woman took her own life, Aki's brother Kobori was going to sue Amemiya for playing a part in the death but the suit was later dropped. Reiko has been the one who has always felt that Amemiya has been fooling his friends all along but why? For about the fifth time she suggested to Mio to stay away from Amemiya but she just can't believe such a man could have some dark secrets and would hurt any of their friends. So the pair of Reiko and Mio paid a visit to Aki's brother Kobori who worked in a small metal factory to find out the truth of what happened, at the end of the mini meeting think they now had more questions than answers!

 This Kobori was quite suspicious during that mini chat to Mio but she just couldn't put her finger on what it was, will have mine own thought about that later. Kobori had all intentions of suing Amemiya for the part he played in his sister's suicide but in the end run it appeared he had the whole story wrong. He admitted to the two women that Aki may have been stalking Amemiya who really had done nothing wrong, the assault was in self defense when she attacked him. So once again Amemiya was able to wiggle out of a jam as he appeared to be innocent.... or was he? Kobori will be popping up again and he could be very key character in the final four episodes. Mio and Reiko weren't the only ones checking on Amemiya's past, so wasn't Ryo and he too found some unsettling news about his old friend. Amemiya hasn't always been successful and at one time had about five girlfriends at once who he often borrowed money from without paying hem back. He also took money from a few others and those old girlfriends thought Amemiya was a bottom of the barrel man.

 Amemiya has more lives than a cat but his ninth will be used up by the end of this recap. Playing detective Ryo did discover that Amemiya had paid most of the people back who he borrowed money from but all in all Amemiya's past is looking shadier with each passing episode. He did tell Mio most of the story about the woman Aki who killed herself, Mio wants to believe in Amemiya so badly and will her growing love of the man blind her to the kind of person he really is? Another pow-wow was on tap and once again it was set up by Reiko who is just above. If you recall in the last recap a hooded figure entered her apartment building, that man left a note saying 'I'll never forget you all' and it was signed by the mysterious Nakano. But Reiko's building has security cameras and she viewed the tape of that night but it was almost impossible to make out who the hooded man was. 

 But there was a moment when that hood slipped off and you can see who that person was in the above middle screenshot. It was the dead Aki's brother Kobori(!) and why would he be targeting Reiko? Her possible answer was that this man is actually their old classmate Nakano and he wants revenge on Reiko for playing a part in his parent's death. That took place when they were fourteen but how would this man named Kobori or perhaps Nakano know exactly what happened fifteen years ago? To top it off Mio recognized the man's ringtone, it was the same one she heard in the second episode when she was pushed in front of a truck but escaped safely. So of course there's now many more questions than answers, the main ones being did he play a role in the deaths of Nanae and/or Yumi? So though we didn't see this man named Kobori again in the episode he should be a very key figure in the story, the reason was didn't see him is that he's quit his job and gone into hiding.

 Will explain a bit about how the group knew Kobori disappeared but it still doesn't answer any questions. Later that night the four friends had a very enjoyable dinner at Amemiya's ritzy apartment and seems like the suspicions about Amemiya are now a thing of the past. They told him all about the doings of Kobori, the next day the plan was for Ryo and Amemiya to confront this possible killer. Though I'm wondering if this man really was a killer, to me the deaths of Nanae and Yumi have been solved and Kobori was nowhere near those scenes. One person we didn't see this show but sure we will again is Yumi's deranged husband Tadashi. He felt that Amemiya had been having an affair with his wife and two episodes ago stabbed Amemiya who of course recovered. Tadashi too is on the lam so there's another character the group needs to watch out for.

 So it's the following day, Ryo and Amemiya entered the metal shop Kobori worked at but the manager said the man never showed up and could be long gone. There was something very fishy about Kobori suddenly leaving to Ryo, he's still so leery about Amemiya and to Ryo his 'friend' had tipped off Kobori. Plus Ryo told Amemya about a few other things he's learned about his past, to Ryo this man doesn't deserve a woman like Mio and decked him.... not once but twice! Mio and Reiko rushed quickly to the scene to break up this one sided skirmish and it seems there now could be a pair of two person groups to solve the mysteries. Ryo of course wants nothing more to do with Amemiya and Reiko still has her doubts about the man too. They'll be working on solving the deaths of their two friends together and on who Kobori really is, does that mean they won't be seeing their good friend Mio as often? She's still under the influence of Amemiya but that will only be lasting a few more hours.

 At the top is a character we hadn't seen for two episodes, it's Rie who is Mio's co-worker at the Manga studio. Rie is such a slimy woman who had stolen a story of Mio's and had it published, she's now so furious that Mio may be getting her own series. Amemiya was able to diffuse this situation and while not a long scene does Mio have one more person she needs to worry about? Amemiya wasn't hurt badly from that fracas with Ryo and Mio wanted to continue drawing a portrait of him which she began in the third episode. It was almost complete so it didn't take long to finish, how about a second drawing Mio asked and this time it would be from Amemiya's side. Back in their school days Mio had sat slightly behind Amemiya so she was used to drawing him at such an angle, Mio had saved all those drawings from so many years ago and wanted to see how much she had improved. Can't recall the title but have read an old Sherlock Holmes story when he said the most recognizable part of the human body are the ears, seems Mio read that story too. 

 After completing most of the second drawing Mio compared it to her older ones, to her shock the ears were different and she asked the man in front of her.... 'You're not Amemiya so who are you?!'. With that this man went into such a panic and fled out of Mio's apartment which ended this sixth episode. But what an ending and there so many new developments in this story! So who is this person claiming to be Amemiya, could it be their old classmate Nakano but also could Kobori possibly be Nakano? Then again perhaps neither are! What's slightly odd is that no one recognized that Amemiya's looks had changed so much in fifteen years? It's true we all change as the years pass but we don't look like different people, am going to be curious on how that gets explained. So the next pair of recaps will be in less than two weeks, four more shows to go in this highly recommended drama.