"Hiru" drama: Season one, episode five 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 some key characters we haven't seen after three 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.... A year older than Yuki, she's a Hiru and quite an efficient one as she has a list of seventy apartments she could stay at. Zoka is not 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!

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 for a while and what a cruel young man he is.

His real name is Mikaeru Tanaka.

Kentaro Sakaguchi as Kara.... Met him briefly in the third episode when he saved Yuki from certain death and is considered to be a 'Hiru Hunter'.

Mizuki Itagaki as Tetris.... He finally made an appearance in episode three and is also a Hiru but one that's trying to break free from the clutches of Yobi. He was arrested for murder in the fourth show and his real name is Naito Tetsumichi.

Hirokai Iwanaga as Chiroru.... One of Yobi's ruthless henchmen, killed in the third show.

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 was just a thug. Miro works at a realty office which is why he knows where all the empty apartments are.

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 recently got divorced. 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. But he did change his ways as after Murao's murder became Suzuki's partner on the case.

Previous recaps:

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

 Still a bit bummed out there was no Marie in this season. She was the main reason for watching this show and hopefully her role in season two will be a biggish one. But this has been an okay drama up until now, not a must watch but decent enough and this episode was the best to date. The final show aired last night so haven't viewed it yet, the second season begins next weekend. We learned quite a bit in this show about the main Hiru characters and will be adding in their real names. The two main characters have been Yuki and Zoka, hope this doesn't sound odd but the scenes without them have been better! We didn't see as much of them in this show as the other character's roles were a bit larger, is that the reason this episode was the best to date?

 Dressed in red above is the Hiru named Tetris but the detective Murao discovered his real name is Naito Tetsumichi. At the end of the fourth show Yuki pulled a fast one on Tetris saying four million yen was in a locker at Shibuya Station. Upon arriving at the locker Tetris found it empty and what Yuki had done was to call the female detective Suzuki, right above, and tell her all about Tetris. He's a Hiru but one that wanted to break away from the iron grip of Yobi, had he been smart he should have worked with Yuki and Zoka. So at the station Tetris was arrested by Suzuki and her partner Murao who in the first screenshot was giving Tetris the third degree at the police station. Surprisingly Tetris was very open with the detective as he gave him so much info about Yobi, the Hiru people in general and a man dubbed 'The Hiru Hunter'. That's Kara who appeared to be a good man and we do meet him later on but calling him a good man may be a mistake. That masked man in the second to last screenshot is a mystery, is this person a Hiru or just an ordinary killer, think that'll be revealed in season two.

 That scene was the last we saw of Tetris and don't know if we'll be seeing him again. At the end of the last episode it appeared Zoka had seduced Yuki into going to bed with her, no mention was made of it between the two in this show. We learned that Zoka is 22 in age, she had been abandoned at a very young age and was raised by a Hiru named Okara until the age of fifteen. That's when he was sent to prison for 4 1/2 years for breaking into apartments but the pair hooked back up after his release. But three years later is when Yobi killed the man and Zoka's one purpose in life is to avenge her 'adopted' father's murder, Yuki is all in as he also wants revenge against Yobi. The detective team of Suzuki and Murao may not have made huge inroads in the hunt for Yobi and other Hirus but their investigation is progressing well and a scene that shocked me quite a bit took place at the ten minute mark.

 After a grueling day the pair went out for dinner, not a long one as the detectives needed to resume their investigating first thing in the morning as they must work fourteen hour days! Murao excused himself to use the washroom and in there was Yobi's main assistant Miro, to Murao he looked familiar though the pair had never met. Murao was a bit uneasy with this man there but Miro soon left though did return in about a minute. Right after he departed the washroom coming out of a stall was the notorious Hiru Yobi! This was another man Murao had never seen but he quickly deduced this was the man they were looking for as Yobi had asked him how much he knew about him? Before Murao could make a move Yobi spun him around and thrust a knife into his stomach. Miro made his return and the pair soon left with Murao lying there in a pool of blood. When Yobi passed Suzuki's restaurant table he dropped a bloody handkerchief on the table and she quickly figured out this man was Yobi but what could Suzuki do? If she chased after him then her partner Murao may die so Suzuki ran into the washroom, an ambulance was summoned but it was too late as her partner Murao died en route to the hospital.

 That was a shame as Murao was a likable character and one who would admit when he made a mistake. But of course Suzuki was even more broken up than me and with nothing left to do returned back home. Suzuki had gotten divorced before the series began and finally during this episode her husband moved his things out and put the key to the apartment in the mail box. And a key in a mail box is an open invitation to a Hiru as shortly after Suzuki entered her apartment appearing out of the shadows was the above man. His name is Kara and we saw him briefly at the end of the third episode. We don't know much about him but he's considered to be a 'Hiru KIller' and he came to make a deal with Suzuki. Kara will give her Yobi's real name, in exchange he wants info on that mysterious masked man whose screenshot is in the first batch. Suzuki herself has no info on this person but vowed to give anything she finds out to Kara in the future. He pondered that and said Okay to her offer, Kara needed her private number which she wrote on a slip of paper. At the time couldn't believe Kara fell for what Suzuki did which was to put the slip of paper in the clip of a pen and slide it over to him on the floor, Kara picked up the pen, removed the paper with her phone number and left.

 Kara had left his prints on the pen so if he had ever been arrested Suzuki would know he is and guess what, Kara did have his fingerprints on record! But first Kara had told Suzuki Yobi's real name was Mikaeru Tanaka, he's 22 in age and when he was fourteen he had murdered his mother. His father was named Kodama and while he didn't marry the mother they still had a long relationship until her death. Will still refer to him as Yobi who after killing his mother was sent away to a reformatory until the age of eighteen. Shortly after his release Kodama was stabbed to death and it was presumed Yobi had done the act. The police still had the knife and the fingerprints on it matched the ones on Suzuki's pen! So now it appears Kara will soon be hunted down for murder, almost forgot to mention that Suzuki's new partner is Sato who we met briefly in the first show, he usually works at another precinct. 

 Yobi is such an important character though we don't see much of him or his assistant Miro. But they've felt their stay in a ritzy apartment was getting too long so when the show ended they were on the hunt for another place. Also near the end we saw the two 'heroes' Yuki and Zoka who had been squatting in a professor's apartment. The pair also knew they needed a new place to hide out in, Yuki still had Zoka's million yen stored in a locker at Shibuya station so went to get that before their departure. But when he returned there was no Zoka and you can see her message above which aired during the ending credits. For some reason she's given up on killing Yobi(!) and why would that be, Yuki was taken back by her disappearance and that event ended this fifth episode. So if you read the first four recaps you know most were a bit brief. Not this one as much for so many incidents took place and as mentioned this was the best show to date, next post has the recap for the final episode.