"Hiru" drama: Season one, episode one recap

 

 Air Dates: March 4th until April 8, 2022 on WOWOW, Fridays at 11:00 pm

Subs are being done by Irozuku Subs. According to them this first season is adapted from the 'Hiru 2' manga while season two will be based upon the first manga. So don't know if that means season two will be a prequel and we'll just see how things work out.

Main Cast: In Japanese Hiru means leeches but this title doesn't refer to that disgusting small creature. Instead the leeches in this drama refer to people who 'leech' off of others and in this case it's living in their apartment while that person is at work or school. Will be adding to this list as we go on, there's still many key characters we haven't seen after two episodes.

Eiji Akaso as Yuki Shinomiya.... The main 'hero' and what a depressing young man of 21 he is. Yuki works part time as a cleaner at night and is such a quiet man who has no friends or social life. Plus it doesn't appear as though he owns a computer, stereo or TV and seems he spends his days doing nothing. Doing nothing until his identity was stolen by Yobi, now the police are on his tail and Yuki is on the lam with Zoka. Ten years ago Yuki's father killed a teen girl and is currently in prison.

Ai Yoshikawa as Zoka.... Same age as Yuki, she's a Hiru and quite an efficient one as she has a list of seventy apartments she could stay at. Not sure if Zoka is her true name and as a child she was abandoned by her mother. An older man who turned into a Hiru adopted her and treated Zoka as if she was his own daughter, that is until he was killed by Zobi!

Marie Iitoyo as Hako.... Haven't seen her in the first two shows, grrrr....

Shuntaro Yanagi as Yobi.... Another Hiru and as mentioned murdered Zoka's adoptive father. He had been staying at Yuki's apartment while he worked at night, he was discovered by Yuki one morning as Yobi couldn't leave for he had been stabbed(by Zoka)! He claimed to be Yuki at the hospital to the police who bought his story and what a cruel young man he is.

Kentaro Sakaguchi as Kara.... Another person we haven't seen in the first two shows.

Mizuki Itagaki as Tetris.... Yet another character we haven't seen. 

Hirokai Iwanaga as Chiroru.... One of Yobi's ruthless henchmen.

Go Riju as Naoya Murao.... Senior detective at the Shinjuku station, he seems like a decent man who has been assigned to Yuki's case along with his partner.

Manami Konishi as Chika Suzuki.... Murao's partner and she had just gotten divorced at the beginning of this series. She was the first to believe Yuki's story about his identity being stolen. Both work in the Violent Crimes Unit in Shinjuku.

Kotaro Tanaka as Junya Sato.... Detective at the main Suginami station, he appears to be a class one jerk and has a higher rank than the above detectives. 

 It's March 18th and don't know when this post will be published..... or even written up! Have just viewed the first episode but don't want to start on the actual recap until I watch the second show or maybe even the third. In the first episode we only met six of the characters so it's impossible to fill in the bio info at the moment for those we haven't met. Hard to fill in the info for even the characters we did meet so I'd rather wait an extra day or two do get everything correct instead of rushing through this but do have to say what a interesting yet very wacky first episode it was.

 Okay, just viewed the second episode and I'm still at a loss on what to say!!!! So will will write about half of this up and finish when the third show has been subbed, it's not a confusing drama but still unsure about too many points. Plus we haven't seen Marie yet nor 2-3 other characters whose roles are supposed to be important. It's been a decent watch though, middle parts have dragged at times but he opening and closing scenes have been superb. It's now March 23rd, third show hasn't been subbed yet so will finish these first two recaps before viewing it.

 In that top screenshot are the detectives Suzuki on the left and Murao, screenshot after that shows Sato arriving at the crime scene. The crime was that after returning home one night a young woman saw a dead figure on the ledge above her bed! This was the third such dead person discovered in recent weeks and all have the same similarity as they weren't known by the apartment dwellers, were these victims squatters? That's what most Americans may call people like that but in this drama they're referred to as Hirus or leeches. That young man in the middle screenshot is the 'anti hero(!)' Yuki who works a part time job at night as a cleaner. He's such a depressing man and we learned later on the main reason for that is because a decade ago his father, who was a banker, killed a teenage girl. Since then Yuki has walked around in a fog and is using his mother's maiden name Shinomiya.

 One morning coming home from work Yuki noticed a young woman about his age coming down the apartment stairs, second day in a row he had noticed her. She briefly latched on to his wrist but after two seconds released that grip to the bewilderment of Yuki. As mentioned there's nothing in his apartment such as computers or TV's but Yuki had one addition to his place which you can see above. That was of a man slumped down against his bed with a knife thrust into his stomach! Needless to say that shocked Yuki to no end and before long the scene shifted to a hospital where Yuki was explaining to the detectives the unbelievable story of how he found this unnamed man in his apartment. The detectives are the ones we met in the first scene who are Murao and Suzuki, they seem like decent people but in a few seconds that's something Yuki won't be able to believe.

 The male detective went in the room to talk to the stabbing victim, within a matter of seconds he came rushing out to push Yuki into the room to listen to a hard to believe accusation. We didn't know at the time but the stabbing victim was a very evil Hiru named Yobi, we'll be seeing much of him in the next show. He put on a great act while lying in bed, he cowered away and pointed to Yuki saying he was the person that stabbed him! And to top it off Yobi claimed to be the real Yuki Shinomiya, he even had an ID with his picture on it. Needless to say the real Yuki was dumbfounded, what exactly is going on?! So in a matter of seconds he learned his identity was stolen and he's being accused of stabbing this person, Yuki couldn't take it and dived at this Hiru.

 He was quickly stopped by the pair of detectives as Yobi secretly was snickering at the situation Yuki was now in. There was no way he could stick around to face these charges as Yuki himself didn't have an ID and couldn't prove who he really was so fled the hospital. He was chased by Murao and Suzuki to no avail but Yuki did run into someone. That was the mysterious woman he had seen twice in the last two days at his apartment building, she too is a Hiru and knew what Yuki was going through. She introduced herself as Zoka but don't think that's her actual name. Yuki quickly explained what had just taken place and needed to hide, don't worry said Zoka who brought a very confused Yuki to a nearby apartment which you can see above.

 So while Zoka is also a Hiru she's the opposite of Yobi and she seems like a decent young woman. She told Yuki a bit about how Hirus live and she's a master at finding empty apartments as she has a list of seventy of them. If you only spend a day at one place just now again, use just a little bit of shampoo, soap and only have a tiny amount of food the tenant will have no idea that someone had been there. That's what Yobi had been doing at Yuki's apartment and the reason he hadn't left is because Zoka was the person who stabbed him! But for a good reason, we'll learn more on what happened in the next recap but Yobi had killed Zoka's 'adoptive father'. Her intent was to kill him but that didn't work out so both are on the lam, Yuki from the detectives and Zoka from Yobi.

 But it's appearing Yobi's story about being Yuki is wearing a bit thin, the female detective Suzuki is starting to believe that Yobi's identity isn't actually Yuki. While Yuki was working at night Yobi had 'borrowed' some documents and copied them which enabled him to get an ID as Yuki. So for now Zoka and Yuki are holed up at this apartment but not for too much longer as the tenant will be coming back in a few hours. But least Zoka has that large list of other empty apartments, one is where the duo will be heading to but before that there was a ring a the door. Against her better judgment Zoka opened the door as she truly believed it was a city inspector, that wasn't the case as this slimy man pushed his way in and was about to attack the pair as it seems he too is a Hiru. On that note this first episode came to it's conclusion and this final scene will begin off the next recap.