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

 

 Air Dates: January 14th until March 4, 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 15th(?) 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 revolves 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. 

 Kento Hayashi as Miyuki Nakano.... No, that's not a misprint as he is playing two characters. But him also being Nakano wasn't revealed until the seventh show and both characters are still alive, all of the details are in this recap.

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....

Hitomi Takahashi as Sayuri Amemiya.... We didn't see much of her for the first six shows but she did play a key part in the final two. Though she's Shuichi's real mother she thinks of him as the Devil and has kind of 'adopted' Nakano as her true son.

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

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

Episode five .... Episode six

 

 Thanks if you're been reading these recaps for this fine series, so much has taken place in this drama but quite a few mysteries will be cleared up in this show.... but also a few added in! Since the first episode thought this would be a ten episode drama but it's actually eight and were two shows cut out? That I'm not sure about and also not sure if the two extra shows would have helped or not. Am writing this up on March 1st and the final doesn't air for three days but wanted to get this done before I view it. So as mentioned quite a bit took place in this show though many of our questions did get answered but much of what we thought was true wasn't if that makes sense.

 This episode had more flashbacks into the past than any other episode but they did explain some things and we also saw some events from a different perspective. Six previous recaps may be too much to read but it may help if you skim through the one for the sixth episode to see where we stand. Quite a thrilling ending and right above is our main heroine Mio asking her old classmate and new boyfriend Amemiya 'Who are you?'. Mio asked that question as she was drawing a portrait of Amemiya and checked some of her drawings from fifteen years ago of him to see if she's improved. Mio has but there was one major difference between the two drawings, Amemiya's ears were different which they shouldn't be as that's one part of the body that will never change. So Mio realized she was sitting with an imposter but an awful good one as this man looked exactly like Amemiya. This man didn't stick around to answer any questions and fled Mio's apartment, that's where this episode picks up from.

 So for now will continue to use the name Amemiya for that man, will switch when his real name is revealed a few paragraphs down. In that top screenshot is a man we met for the first time in episode six, his name is Kobori and his sister Aki had killed herself after breaking up with Amemiya.... but the real one and that confusion will be cleared up! Kobori is working with this fake Amemiya and he wants revenge for his sister's death but also wants to see Mio killed as she knows a bit too much much about Kobori and possibly Amemiya. We'll see more of that duo later on but meanwhile Mio has met up with her best fiends Reiko and Ryo to tell them of her discovery. If this man is not the real Amemiya who could he be and even more of an enigma was why does he look exactly like Amemiya? The answers to the questions probably lie in their hometown of Yamanashi, Reiko and Ryo travelled back there from Tokyo and unknown to them at the time so didn't Mio return to the smallish city. Didn't realize it until right now but all of the action in this episode takes place in about a seven hour period though there are many flashbacks to old events.

 Had been wondering what ever happened to the deranged husband of the deceased Yumi and my question was answered early on. Upon arriving in Yamanashi who should be trailing the duo of Reiko and Ryo but Tadashi and you can see him above. He's now had the chance to kill four of Yumi's friends, one attempt failed and Tadashi had another chance this time too. But he's still on the hunt for the man who was having an affair with Yumi and Tadashi is still 100% certain it was Amemiya, it was as we'll see but the fake one. So all Tadashi did was put the fright into the pair but also left a valuable item for Reiko and Ryo. It was a USB drive with data from Yumi's computer and many of the files on it were from the original Amemiya's phone from fifteen years ago, how did she get them? The reason Mio also went to Yamanashi is that Amemiya's real mother was living in a nursing home and she's forgotten most of her past but Mio still wanted to get some info from this woman as Mio thought she may be faking her amnesia. On that she was correct but also knowing that fact was Amemiya who appeared at the nursing home a few minutes after Mio, he had a strong inkling she would be there.

 Though Amemiya told Kobori he would make sure Mio was killed there's no way he could do that as he's had a crush on her since junior high. Amemiya told Mio they needed to talk and she wasn't scared of him at all, possibly because she's deduced on who this man was. Back in junior high Mio had drawn a portrait of Miyuki Nakano, the boy whose parents died in a fire and was never heard of again. When Nakano viewed the drawing she made of him he had a comment which is in the second screenshot above. When Mio was doing that new portrait of Amemiya this man said the exact same comment, since then think she was wondering could this man somehow be Nakano? That was her question to this man and for now on will be using the name of Nakano as he confessed that was his name! Obviously there are so many questions on why he assumed Amemiya's identity and why does he look exactly like him? Those questions will be answered as we go along but of course to be the splitting image of Amemiya Nakano needed to have plastic surgery which is what happened.

 Nakano had been abused badly when he was a teen by his parents and he revealed that to Mio. He also revealed that the Amemiya who everyone loved and thought was a terrific guy was actually a Devil, the pair soon went outside where the conversation continued. But first back to Reiko and Ryo who are in the bottom two screenshot above, they're viewing the USB drive that Tadashi had left them. Tadashi had been able to rip all of the files from Yumi's computer which he transferred over to a flash drive. Lot of clues were on these files such as who the man Yumi was having an affair with, she had received over a hundred calls from the same phone number and it belonged to Amemiya who of course is actually Nakano. There were a few other important pieces of info but by far the most important was a short video from fifteen years ago that the real Amemiya had filmed but how did Yumi get the video? While everyone thought Nakano's parents had died in a fire caused by an errant firework shot by Reiko and Ryo this video showed that the actual cause of the fire was of Nakano himself lighting it!!!! Right around now is when we saw many flashbacks which did explain so many unanswered questions.

 Amemiya had approached Nakano right after he lit the fire telling him this secret will go no further. That is until three years later when Nakano ran into Amemiya who had really changed as a person. You can see above in the second screenshot that Amemiya wanted Nakano to be his 'slave' and for years was blackmailing Nakano or else he would go to the police with the video. However at the time Amemiya didn't have the phone which contained the video as it was buried in a time capsule(!), Nakano had left school before that happened so had no clue about it. This blackmailing went on for over a decade, they met up again at the age of seventeen and seems as though Nakano was Amemiya's slave for another eleven years! But life began to go well for Nakano who graduated from college and ended up opening up his own IT company. But of course Amemiya was still around siphoning off money so what Nakano did was to make Amemiya the president of his IT company! You may think that's an odd thing for Nakano to do but least that way he got to keep an eye on Amemiya while he figured out a plan to stop the blackmailing, it was just a title as Nakano still was the owner and did 100% of the work.

**** The above and below paragraph is what Nakano was telling Mio during that conversation but most of it we saw in flashbacks.

 So while Nakano's life kept improving over the years can't say the same for Amemiya. What a lowlife bum he became as he was a scammer, petty thief, alcoholic and a woman beater. It occurred to me a few minutes ago the whole key to this drama was the Aki's suicide, none of what took place after wouldn't have happened if she didn't die. Amemiya really abused this woman and had nude photos of her which he was going to make public unless there was a nice monetary payoff. Aki wasn't too wealthy so she ended up killing herself, her brother Kobori knew the details and was planning on suing Amemiya as he had plenty of evidence against him. Nakano had also heard the story and met with Kobori, he paid him a large sum of money to drop the lawsuit and also to be his partner in the abduction of Amemiya! The time seems to be December 2021 and no date was mentioned but I'm thinking the two men took Amemiya hostage at least six months ago, he's tied up in a warehouse and have no clue how he's survived that long. 

 Whew, so much took place hope I can get to most of it. It sounds a bit far fetched but as mentioned Nakano had plastic surgery to look like Amemiya which was a success but his ears weren't done and that's how Nakano's ruse was discovered. No date was said when the surgery was done but I'm thinking at least 6-7 months ago and since then Amemiya has been the prisoner of Nakano and Kobori. Hard to say if Nakano is truly a nice guy as he did burn his parents to death(!) but did go around and atone for many of the bad things Amemiya had done such as paying back much of the money he owed. So things are running a bit smoother in Nakano's life but there's still one major thing to do which is to find Amemiya's phone that has the video of Nakano setting his house ablaze. Like his 'friends' Nakano thought the answer would lie in his hometown of Yamanashi and that's where the search for the phone began in earnest. There he hooked up with Yumi who of course thought it was Amemiya and not Nakano, he could tell Yumi was being abused by her husband and the pair started a fling though Yumi ended up just being used.

 Yumi gave a huge hint on what happened to the phone as she asked Nakano what did her bury in the time capsule when they were fourteen? Nothing of course but it was then easy to figure out what Amemiya had done with the phone but where was it buried? So that's the main reason Nakano set up the reunion as to dig up the time capsule but an emergency arose and he had to leave. The phone was in the capsule with Nanae taking it and saying she would return it to Amemiya. She did but first copied all of the data from the phone and what a sly witch she was. This is getting a bit too long so will zip through the final ten minutes. Yumi though discovered that Nanae had copied the data from Nakano's phone on that day she pushed Nanae off that bridge to her death, that was all the way back in the first episode. She told Nakano about it and planned to give him the USB drive at Nanae's memorial which happened but to Yumi's dismay now Nakano wanted their affair to cease. So this is a key bit of info here, at the memorial Yumi may have planned at first on giving the poisoned wine to her husband but after Nakono's bombshell she gave the glass to him! However he could sense something was amiss and switched glasses, soon after sipping the wine Yumi became the second of the group to die. One tidbit I almost forgot to add in was how did Nakano's note get into the time capsule? That was a note saying 'I'll never forget you all!' and by then he was gone from school, how did it get in the capsule?

 So that brings us to the end of Nakono's ultra long story and needless to say Mio couldn't believe her ears. But as Nakano said there's no evidence against him so there's nothing Mio or her two mates can do. But to her there is as the one thing that could prove Nakano isn't really Amemiya is by having a DNA test, to that threat Nakano pulled out a knife but it was more of an act. He knew Reiko and Ryo were rushing to the scene by their screams and it was all an act to make Mio hate him even more, that's the deduction Mio and Reiko came up with. For now that DNA threat won't work as the real Amemiya's mother at the nursing home doesn't want to go through with it. Though she knows Nakano isn't her real son he's treated her better than Amemiya ever did and does care for the woman so she won't do anything to destroy that relationship. The final scene was of Kobori going to the hideout to finally take care of Amemiya once and for all. We only saw the last five seconds of it and looks like Amemiya somehow survived so that's what the next recap will begin off with. And in the final note you can see right below in the screenshot what's happening with Mio. She passed out at the nursing home and to everyone's surprise she's.... pregnant! We know how but that one night stand with Nakano took place about two weeks ago so how is it possible she's carrying his child? Whew, that wraps up this lengthy recap and sorry about that but there's not much I could have done to make it shorter. Even left some details out which didn't help and the next post is for the final episode.