"Hiru" drama: Season one, episode six(final) 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. Sadly he was stabbed to death by Yobi in the fifth episode.

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

 Season two begins this weekend and will be recapping that series. Also on tap is "Shouijki Fudousan" and will have the first two recaps in about a week, that's a drama I'm really going to enjoy. There's three others that have just begin which I will view but won't be doing posts for all of them as doing recaps for five series at once is just a bit too much. Marie wasn't in this season which disappointed me but at the end of this episode was a minute preview for the second season and it appears she has the main role in it, only a few characters are in both seasons.

 There's one important detail I had left out because it wasn't key at the time and wasn't until this final episode. At the end of the third show Tetris had killed Majime who worked for Yobi and Miro, his mission was to kill Yuki but at the last minute was saved by Tetris who snatched up the man's smartphone. On the phone was an app called 'Friends' and if both people were on their phone at the same time they could see the other's location. Majime's phone was connected to Miro's and to make a long story short Zoka had taken the phone when she escaped from the apartment she was held captive. Zoka knew how the phone worked so didn't turn it on even once as not to give her location away. But she did at the beginning of this episode and that led her to finally meeting up with Miro but more importantly he could lead her to Yobi.

 At the end of the fifth episode Zoka had left Yuki a note telling him to keep the million yen for himself and to disappear. To disappear is what Zoka had in mind too as she said killing Yobi for revenge was no longer her dream. Well of course Yuki didn't believe a word of that and though he had been able to contact her via e-mail how could he find Zoka? A lucky break happened for him as he was able to read through her mail and the messages Miro had sent her. That's him above and until now we never learned he had worked at a real estate office so it had been easy for him to find empty apartments for him and Yobi to live in. You can see above that Zoka is willing to trade Yuki's life for her safety, of course we knew Zoka wouldn't do that and her goal at the moment was to finally meet up with Yobi. But hot on their trail is the detective Suzuki whose partner Murao was killed in the last show by Yobi. She's found Zoka's list of empty apartments which had seventy on it but more importantly that she was using Majime's smartphone and Suzuki was tracing her movements but not the conversations.

 So now the hunt is on for Zoka who Yuki and Suzuki know will lead them to Yobi and this was one of those head scratching scenes many dramas have. By looking at Zoka's e-mails he felt sure she would be having that meeting in an abandoned apartment which Suzuki herself has circled above. But when Yuki arrived there wasn't a soul around save for two detectives who noticed him and are on the chase! The head scratching is how an out of shape person such as Yuki could outrun two detectives also manage to cover three miles in less than two minutes! Plus what I didn't understand was how Yuki knew Zoka would be at this different location, it was an abandoned warehouse but not the one where her father was killed at. Perhaps we viewers didn't see all of the e-mails that Zoka and Miro had written. Suzuki and her team knew the location of Zoka via tracking the smartphone, it's just hard to believe that Yuki could run three miles and beat the speeding police cars by over five minutes. Then again if it wasn't for events like that dramas may not be as suspenseful and Yuki made it to this warehouse in the nick of time... maybe...

 This building was at one time a place for artists and Yobi's father Kodama had an atelier there. Before Zoka could run into a trap Yuki hauled her back and said wait for the right opening to stab Yobi, Yuki himself has revenge on his mind for Yobi did steal his identity and for the most part destroyed his life. But as we've seen a few other times before Yuki in a fight is so outmatched and though he had a knife Yobi was able to pry it away from him easily. In an bizarre confession Yobi told Yuki that he actually felt sorry for him, while he was squatting in his apartment Yobi learned is father was a murderer and because of that was bullied endlessly, couldn't go to college nor get a decent job. Yobi said he had plans to avenge those people who made Yuki's life so miserable which seemed like a decent act but Yobi's plan was to kill many of these people! Yuki was distraught at those plans and told Yobi to stay out of his life forever which was a huge mistake. After hearing that threat Yobi gave him yet another beating and was all prepared to stab Yuki to death until his savior arrived for the second time.

 That savior is the 'Hiru Hunter' Kara and he's right above, in the third episode he saved Yuki from a certain death by one of Yobi's henchmen. Kara seems to be a decent person so you have to wonder how did he ever become a Hiru? Not positive but fairly sure that'll be one of the stories in season two. So Kara has once again saved Yuki from a certain death and we learned a little bit of Kara's relationship with Yobi though not enough. At the age of eighteen or four years ago Yobi had killed his father Kodama at the man's ritzy manor. Out of nowhere coming down the stairs was Kara who took the knife away, wiped Yobi's prints off and handled the knife himself which would make the police think he killed the father! We didn't see any of what took place after but it appears for a while Kara taught Yobi the fine art of being a Hiru which was successful. However Kara was so disappointed in himself for not teaching Yobi more such as how to be a better person and to live peacefully with other Hiru's, upon hearing those words Yobi rushed him and stabbed his mentor with Yuki's knife!

 The stab was a severe one with Kara bleeding heavily, he heard the police arriving and somehow was able to slither away unnoticed, no one could follow his trail of blood? During this time Zoka wasn't a factor at all as she was held at bay by Yobi's assistant Miro. He was a smart man with a steady job so how did he fall under the influence of Yobi? Well finally Suzuki and her team arrived at the scene and luckily there were no deaths but had Yobi been killed it would have been no loss. He was arrested for the murder of the detective Murao plus if the police investigate further they'll find he's committed several more. Yobi was quite open during his interrogation and spilled the beans about Kara but for some reason still insisted Kara killed his father and not him. You can see Suzuki above and that'll be another storyline for the next season which is finding out who this mysterious masked man is.

 Zoka is also in prison though don't think she'll be serving a long stretch. The charges weren't revealed but would have to think they'd be of her using people's apartments and stealing almost a million yen. Her new 'lover' Yuki will be waiting for her and that wraps up this first season. This turned out to be better than expected, at the halfway point gave it a rating of 7.8/10. But the final two episodes were the best of the bunch which raised my final rating to 8.1/10 which to me is a decent number. Of course will be viewing season two which begins this weekend, it's also a six episode series. So when three shows are subbed will be back with the recaps for them.