"Mystery to Iunakare" drama, episode five recap

 

 Air Dates: January 10th until March 28, 2022 on Fuji-TV, Mondays at 9:00 pm

 Total of twelve episodes, first show was seventy minutes in length but the others will be the usual 46 minutes. Blitz Fansubs is once again doing this drama, they're also doing another current series I'm viewing.

Ratings:

Episode one, 13.6% .... episode two, 12.7%.... Episode three, 13.2 %.... Episode four, 13.3%

Episode five, 10.0%

No doubt the drop in rating was due to the Olympics.

Main Cast: The series takes place in Tokyo and most of the action revolves around cases being investigated by the fictional Otonari police station. However all of the stories and cases will end up involving the 21 year old college student Kunou and unlike other dramas will be using the character's last names as that's all they've been using. A huge plus for this series is that it doesn't star any of my fave actresses or Idols though Mai Shiraishi made a guest appearance. But I've seen all of the cast in many other dramas and they're all superb actors, so far superb describes this drama!

Masaki Suda as Totono Kunou.... In real life Masaki turns 29 in February but plays the 21 year old Kunou who is attending the prestigious Toei university. He's such a loner but doesn't act like a nerd or outcast at all, he makes sure others know he's never had a job, girlfriend, any other friends nor socializes in the least. But somehow Kunou has the intelligence of a Sherlock Holmes and let's others know how to solve their life problems. But not in an egotistical way as he is a down to earth guy though on occasion others have wanted to beat Kunou for telling them how to live properly. The name Totono is a play on words as it means neat and orderly which seems like another apt description for him.

Sairi Ito as Seiko Furomitsu.... The only female detective at the Otonari station and was looked down upon by her male counterparts. So much that Furomitsu had written a letter of resignation up in the first show but after meeting Kunou changed her mind about quitting. She is a dependable person whose confidence is growing with each show.

Matsuya Onoe as Yuto Ikemoto.... Detective at the station and in a way kind of a goofy man. In the first episode his wife had a child though his marriage wasn't going all that smoothly, that is until meeting Kunoe who gave him some solid advice though he himself has never been married nor had a girlfriend. Ikemoto was the only one for a while who treated Furomitsu as somewhat of an equal.

Michitaka Tsutsui as Mariaki Aoto....Inspector at the Otonari station and is kind of a hard man to figure out. Aoto is a bit quiet though there could be some good reasons for that, he was once a Deputy Inspector but got demoted for a case where he targeted the wrong suspect. That happened seven yeas ago but Kunou remembered the case and told Aoto where he may have gone wrong.

 Guest Stars: There's going to be many known actors making some guest appearances, after so many in the last two episodes just one in this show.

 Eita Nagayama as Garo Inudo.... Though we mainly just see him in flashbacks he does play an important part in this series and expect to see a return from him in the final two shows. To learn more about Garo read the second and third recaps, his sister had been murdered and along with his two cousins Garo tried to find the killer. Which did happen and the trio got their revenge but are on now on the run from the law. Kunou and Garo got along so well together and it's possible Garo has a hand in the some of the events that have been taking place.

Fumiyo Kohinata as Goro Ushida.... A retired detective who has the bed next to Kunou's at the hospital. Ushida is suffering from an incurable disease and to make a long story short Kunou was actually taking to his ghost!

Kazuyuki Aijima as Shinji Shimotori.... Ushida's old partner who had to retire 22 years ago due to an injury. His left arm is paralyzed and at the time the pair were working on a serial killer case, to Ushida's shock his partner may have been a killer too!

Previous recaps

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

 The past three years have seen such a huge increase in views, at least 25% And the largest % increase has been for drama recaps which is kind of surprising. At one time used to be happy to get 75-100 views for those posts, now most are getting close to 200 views and sometimes much higher. That's been the case for the two seasons of 'Kimi to Sekai' as the third season will begin on February 26th. Did recap every episode from the first two seasons so bet many are checking out what took place. But the recaps themselves have become much better reads, changed the formatting at the top which makes it so much easier to view. Plus have a system where there will only be four segments that each have two medium sized paragraphs and that too has worked out so well.

 Unsure if this will be another stand alone post or if there will be another recap following this. Haven't watched the sixth episode yet which I will halfway through this, the way this show ended it was hard to determine whether this was part one of a story or the next episode will be. Will edit this to let you know what's going on. As far as what is going on here at the end of the fourth show Kunou took a tumble down a hill, that was after he solved a serial bomber case. So for this entire show Kunou will be in the hospital but not sure why as he's not hurt in the least but by the end of the recap he's spent two nights at the hospital but his stay there has turned into a somewhat bizarre adventure.

**** This will be another stand alone recap as the next two episodes are one long story. Will have those recaps in a week but first will be doing posts for the fifth and sixth episodes of the "Itoshi Uso" drama and that too is a highly recommended show to view.

 That woman in the top screenshot is the detective Furomitsu and her screen time has been growing with each episode. Not so much for her partner Ikemoto who you'll only see in a few screenshots. But he could be on to something as he's beginning to wonder if Furomitsu may have a crush on Kunou though she's five years older. We also don't see much of their supervisor Aoto who's never liked Kunou all that much but is softening up a bit for the young man who has helped the police solve three cases, he's even offered to pay Kunou's hospital bill. The time period for this show was just a few days before Christmas 2021, somehow someone knew Kunou was lying in the hospital and sent him a small gift. He had a strong feeling it may be from his new 'friend' Garo, Kunou had a streak of fear rush through him as the previous package from Garo had contained the hand of a dead man! No such gift this time but it was from Garo, in this largish package were roses that had a ring lying on top of them. Engraved on the ring was the symbol for the Zodiac sign Sagittarius, doesn't happen often but Kunou was baffled by this present which wasn't mentioned again and will the ring be key in the future?

 Arriving at almost the same time was Furomitsu who was taken back by this early Christmas present, could Kunou possibly have a girlfriend or admirer? That he vehemently denied and told the detective someone must be playing a gag on him but she's not all that convinced, we viewers can see she's developed a minor crush on Kunou. It's night time, Kunou isn't badly hurt but has to remain in the hospital but least he said out loud he had the ward to himself as he can't sleep with others around. But to his shock there was a voice of a man in the next bed and Kunou didn't notice anyone there the whole day? This man was in his sixties, you can see him above and his name is Ushida. He told Kunou he was in the hospital because of an incurable disease but shouldn't be dying soon, what a twist that will occur with this 'dying man'. Ushida was reading a book titled "The Thoughts of the Emperor" by Marcus Aurelius and would Kunou like to have the book? No was Kunou's reply as he already had the book but Ushida told the young man he should take this book for every version was different, we'll soon see what he means. Ushida also mentioned the book was given to him by a younger female patient currently at the hospital, according to him she's memorized every word of the book!

 The conversation soon turned to Ushida's prior career which was of a detective. But it was getting late at night and Kunou mainly just wanted to sleep but Ushida insisted upon telling Kunou about a few of his older cases, could the young man solve any of them? Though Kunou kept saying he just wanted to sleep have a feeling deep down he wanted to hear about these cases as Kunou just may be interested in a  law enforcement career after he graduates from college. This is the fifth episode but we haven't seen Kunou once in class though we do for a few minutes in the next show. So won't go into too much detail about these cases which Kunou was able to solve and that really shocked Ushida as no ordinary person should be able to do that. First case was of a serial killer who really wasn't one but Kunou deduced that the man had killed the others to cover up for the main person he did want to kill. It's the way Kunou was able to break everything down about this and the other case he told Kunou about that really impressed Ushida, 

 So the retired detective said one more story about his days on the force, Ushida said it was about an unsolved case though it wasn't in a way. The unsolved part was did the wrong man get blamed for at least one murder he didn't commit? Will admit think I was slightly confused about a few details on this case but then again perhaps I got everything correct. Back in 1998 there was another serial killer on the prowl who was the above man Hagui, he's been preying on prostitutes and had killed about a dozen.     However Ushida and his partner Shimotori got a tip on who his next victim would be and were going to set a trap for this deranged killer. However Ushida was a bit late to meet his partner, by the time he arrived Hagui was long gone but the prostitute was dead and Shimotori was lying in a pool of blood. It was touch an go during the surgery but Shimototi pulled through though his left arm was paralyzed and he needed a cane to walk. Of course Shimotori had to quit the force but got a nice job working at his father in law's security company. That career was quite successful as he eventually became president and a wealthy man.

 Ushida told Kunou a few other details about this serial killer case and once again was amazed that this college student was able to solve the crime. Ushida has kept the secret of what really happened 22 years ago to himself and never told his superiors what his partner Shimotori had done. However Kunou with his unique ability at looking at the evidence and other details has deduced the killer of this final prostitute was of all people.... Shimotori! Though startled at first think Ushida was so happy his secret was finally revealed before his death but there was a question I had about this case. That's of who stabbed Shimotori so violently, it couldn't have been the killer Hagui or was it? Don't think the man could have stabbed himself as the wounds were quite deep but guess it could have happened. Shimotori had been having a relationship with a prostitute but was worried his secret would be discovered by his wife which was why he set this elaborate scheme up. The day Ushida was late for the trap Shimotori had sent him back to his apartment to change clothes, upon arriving there he found his apartment had been ransacked and by the time Ushida arrived at the crime scene his partner was badly hurt and the prostitute dead. There's no doubt that was all set up by Shimotori so he had time to kill the woman before Ushida arrived.

 Days later the body of Hagui was found near some woods, he had been tied to his vehicle and stabbed to death. When Ushida checked out the inside of the vehicle he noticed a unique pen only his partner Shimotori used, he soon put all of the details about the latest killing together and knew Shimotori was the killer though Hagui had killed all of the prostitutes up until then. So all these years Ushida had kept that secret and there's no way he could rat out his partner even though it was a brutal murder. Shimotori did pay a visit to Ushida in the hospital and offered to pay the expenses which infuriated Ushida. So Ushida still has that pen along with a notebook full of all the evidence about Shimotori's killing, he's hoping Kunou will see that justice is served after his death. But that request was refused by Kunou who felt Ushida should contact the police himself, we'll soon see that he did.... right before his death!!!!

 Before his death because the following morning the nurse had told Kunou that Ushida had died the previous day! So that means Kunou was talking with his ghost, one that wanted justice done and also to give Kunou that book? Not much was said about a ghost nor was Kunou all that shocked he spent night chatting with a spirit, shortly after that who should walk in the room but Ushida's old partner Shimotori. He was probably glad his old friend had passed away as that means his secret will be safe but arriving on the scene then were two detectives. Seems Ushida had notified them the day before he died and sent them the evidence of the brutal murder Shimotori committed and was led away to the station. So justice was finally served, what an eerie and odd story compared to the first three cases Kunou was involved in but this episode did show he has a bit of a humanly side. Kunou seems to be doing well but he still needs to spend at least one more day at the hospital, being bored he wandered around. Kunou stopped in front of a bulletin board and was reading some flyers, he was soon joined by his possible crush Furomitsu who was there paying Kunou's bill.

 On so many flyers there were words that were wrong and if you know Kanji you know that often a character can mean different words. So when Kunou put the wrong words together it was a message to meet at the hospital's greenhouse at 3:00 pm. Furomitsu urged Kunou to go and would be with him which he didn't want, to him the only person capable of such an odd message was Garo who is still wanted by the police. But with no choice Kunou had to bring her along and at the greenhouse there was no one there. But there was another coded message on the floor which you can see above and it contained just numbers, what could they mean? Kunou eventually figured it out and it referred to pages, paragraphs and words from a book.... the one Ushida gave him titled "The Thoughts of the Emperor"? He told Kunou every version is different and what he meant is that while the words are the same if the font is larger/smaller, there's a forward to the book or pictures then the pages will all be different. 

 So with Furomitu's help Kunou checked the version that Ushida had given him, the message was to check a certain page, line and words which left another message for Kunou. This was to be at the greenhouse that night at 3:00 am, could it be a secret meeting with Garo? No it wasn't and when the episode ended appearing out of the shadows was the above woman named Raika, she'll be a key figure in the next two shows. So while many events do play a part in the next two episodes it's a different story which is why I'll keep those two recaps separate. Will have those recaps within the week and have really zoomed through this drama as I'm already caught up with the subbing team. Plenty of screenshots to view and once again do highly recommend this series.