"Hiru" drama: Season one, episode two 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. The year hasn't been mentioned but presume it's 2021 and the month is July for certain.

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.

Takumi Matsuzawa as Miro.... He also works with Yobi but in a more important position as he appears to be his assistant unlike the above man who is just a thug.

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 went through a divorce just as this series began. 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 24th, just finished writing the above post up and noticed after that the third episode has been subbed. Had been thinking of watching that first before doing this one but think I understand enough, to me the biggest 'problem' is that the shows aren't long enough. This episode was 26 minutes in length which is usually long enough for me but really think an extra five minutes a show would really help. What would also help is to see Marie which we haven't through two shows nor some of the other characters. This is a drama with two seasons of six episodes so perhaps their roles are geared towards that second season, we'll see how it goes and on to this second episode's recap.

 No need to rehash where we stand as sure you've read the above post. In that top screenshot is our 'heroine' Zoka, that's from the first show and the reason she's so hell bent on killing the Hiru Yobi is that he murdered her 'adoptive father', it wasn't a legal adoption. So as that first episode ended Zoka made a huge mistake in opening an apartment door for a man she thought was a city inspector. Zoka is very cautious so surprised she did something like that, it was no inspector but a Hiru who goes by the name of Miro and don't think most names are their actual ones. Miro is another Hiru and the city of Tokyo seems to have a horde of them, he was sent by Yobi to capture Yuki and Zoka, if that didn't work out then perhaps the pair faced death! Seemed that way at first as Miro had a stun gun and quickly subdued both but he didn't hurt Yuki badly enough as he soon hit the man over the head with a small table. Yuki grabbed the still stunned Zoka and fled the scene but Miro wasn't quite down and out.

 In the second to last screenshot above is the detective Suzuki who is working on Yuki's case with her male partner Murao. She's delved into Yuki's history and found out a decade ago Yuki's father killed a teen girl, he was a banker and it appears he may have been having an affair with the teen. The father is currently in prison and does sent Yuki some letters which his son never answers, Suzuki happened to find one of those letters. She's starting to believe that Yuki Shinomiya is actually who he says he is and that Yobi had stolen his identity, her partner doesn't share the same opinion yet. There's been three recent killings at apartments where the tenant had no clue who the victim was, now it's appearing to Suzuki that this army of Hiru's is no rumor and have they been the ones doing the killings? Meanwhile Yuki and Zoka have eluded Miro and are on the hunt for another apartment to hole up in, shouldn't be a problem for Zoka who has a list of seventy places she can or has stayed at!

 Suzuki and her partner Murao are still working hard on Yuki's case but by the end of the show haven't got any new clues on where he could be. However above is from a video the pair found of Yuki, they became so curious as he was with a woman and who could she be? Of course it was Zoka and the new 'team' traveled to another apartment after escaping from Miro to freshen up and Yuki even got a change of clothes. Zoka does keep an accurate spreadsheet on all these apartments she squats in and wouldn't you get so tired of having to get up and leave every few hours? Next place was much better as the woman who lives there worked until 5:00 am, the pair can even take a nap. But as you can see above Zoka had some other ideas too and she thought it'd be a nice reward for Yuki. He's agreed to help her find Yobi so she can avenge her father's death, if Zoka is successful she promises to take all of the blame for everything that will take place. So that 'reward' was to spend the night with her but Yuki being such a coward refused her, am 100% certain he's never been with a woman or even on a date.

 One minor quibble is with Zoka and other Hirus too. She claims it's so easy to get the keys to an apartment, when the tenant is there Zoka will steal the keys for a few minutes and make a copy of them, so don't other Hirus. But that sounds a bit far fetched on how they can make copies so quickly and also how do they get the security codes to enter a building? Zoka and Yuki have plans to visit the hospital the next morning where Yobi is staying so Zoka can take care of business, unknown to them he escaped and is now wanted by the two detectives. So when the pair left this apartment around 4:00 am they killed a bit of time before the day really began, they didn't know they were being watched.

 Tokyo is a massive city but have the feeling Yobi knows what's going on with every resident and who knows how?! Shortly after daybreak he and his two aides Miro and Chiroru jumped the pair of Zoka and Yuki, threw them in a van and sped off. Miro you met before and though he's a bit of an evil Hiru he also seems to be a bit level headed which is why Yobi listens to him. This other man is named Chiroru and he's nothing but a low down and very cruel thug. He enjoys abusing and beating others which is what he was doing to a tied up and gagged Yuki. But the sight of the very cute Zoka has gotten Chiroru aroused and he pleaded with Yobi to let him have his way with her. Yobi finally agreed and you can see him discussing a little of why he killed Zoka's 'adoptive father', made zero sense and think he was just getting his kicks out of killing someone.

 So eventually Yobi agreed to Chiroru's perverted request and the van stopped at an abandoned warehouse. In another cruel twist this was the place where the father was murdered, while everyone else stayed in the van Chiroru brought Zoka into the building and had his way with her, kind of a sick scene. Chiroru thought he hurt Zoka too badly so he left her there to slowly die but of course we know that won't happen. So as the episode ended the four men in the van drove away, three Hirus and their abductee Yuki. Though we just have seen two of Yobi's gang have a feeling his network could be quite large and we may see that in the next recap, that's the following post.