Air Dates: January 10th until March 28, 2022 on Fuji-TV, Mondays at 9:00 pm
Total of twelve episodes, first show was seventy minutes in length but the others will be the usual 46 minutes. Blitz Fansubs is once again doing this drama, they're also doing another current series I'm viewing and recapping.
Ratings:
Episode one, 13.6% .... episode two, 12.7%.... Episode three, 13.2 %.... Episode four, 13.3%
Episode five, 10.0% .... Episode six, 10.2% .... Episode seven, 12.3% .... Episode eight 10.6%
Episode nine, 11.6% ... Episode ten, 12.0% ... Episode eleven, 11.1% .... Episode twelve, 11.2%
No doubt the drop in ratings for two shows was due to the Olympics.
Main Cast: The series takes place in Tokyo and most of the action revolves around cases being investigated by the fictional Otonari police station. However all of the stories and cases will end up involving the 21 year old college student Kunou and unlike other dramas will be using the character's last names as that's all they've been using. A huge plus for this series is that it doesn't star any of my fave actresses or Idols. But I've seen all of the cast in many other dramas and they're all superb actors, so far superb describes this drama!
Masaki Suda as Totono Kunou.... In real life Masaki turned 29 in February but plays the 21 year old Kunou who is attending the prestigious Toei university. He's such a loner but doesn't act like a nerd or outcast at all, he makes sure others know he's never had a job, girlfriend, any other friends nor socializes in the least. But somehow Kunou has the intelligence of a Sherlock Holmes and let's others know how to solve their life problems. But not in an egotistical way as he is a down to earth guy though on occasion others have wanted to beat Kunou for telling them how to live properly. The name Totono is a play on words as it means neat and orderly which seems like another apt description for him.
Sairi Ito as Seiko Furomitsu.... The only female detective at the Otonari station and was looked down upon by her male counterparts. So much that Furomitsu had written a letter of resignation up in the first show but after meeting Kunou changed her mind about quitting. She is a dependable person whose confidence is growing with each show.
Matsuya Onoe as Yuto Ikemoto.... Detective at the station and in a way kind of a goofy man. In the first episode his wife had a child though his marriage wasn't going all that smoothly, that is until meeting Kunoe who gave him some solid advice though he himself has never been married nor had a girlfriend. Ikemoto was the only one for a while who treated Furomitsu as somewhat of an equal.
Michitaka Tsutsui as Mariaki Aoto....Inspector at the Otonari station and is kind of a hard man to figure out. Aoto is a bit quiet though there could be some good reasons for that, he was once a Deputy Inspector but got demoted for a case where he targeted the wrong suspect. That happened seven yeas ago but Kunou remembered the case and told Aoto where he may have gone wrong.
Guest Stars: There's been many known actors making some guest appearances.
Eita Nagayama as Garo Inudo.... To learn more about Garo read the second and third recaps, his sister had been murdered and along with his two cousins Garo tried to find the killer. Which did happen and the trio got their revenge but are on now on the run from the law. Kunou and Garo got along so well together and it's possible Garo has a hand in the some of the events that took place after his disappearance. Him and his two cousins have made a return for the final two episodes, his sister's murderer was nabbed and eventually killed(!) but there was much more to the story than her actual death. But the police are on Garo's tail for the murder of his sister's killer so with his two cousins has been on a yacht somewhere near Tokyo.
Yukin Kunota as Haya Inudo.... Garo's cousin and the older brother of the next man. The two brothers had helped Garo with the investigation into Anju's death and were the two main men in the episode two's bus hijacking. Haya is a very intelligent man and at first had been using the alias name of Sakimoto.
Ryohei Abe as Otoya Inudo.... Younger brother of the above man but not nearly as smart and actually seems more like a thug but is still an important ally of Garo's.
Junior Chihara as Gento Hagui.... We didn't see him 'live' in these final two shows but his story from the fifth show plays a vital part in this last mystery. He had been a serial killer twenty years ago who had been killed by a detective but doesn't seem many know that last fact.
Takumi Kitamura as Hiromasa Tsuji.... Curator of a Wooden Puzzle Box museum who had known Garo's sister until her death. He claimed at the end of the eleventh show to be the son of the above serial killer but is that really true? He goes by the nickname of Koma and also Jute which is hard to explain but both have the same Kanji symbol, will give more details about that in the recaps. Tsuji appeared to be a nice man at first but was he taking his father's place being a serial killer?
Mai Shiraishi as Anju Inudo.... Garo's sister who had been murdered three months earlier, we just saw flashbacks of her in these two episodes.
Eiichiro Funakoshi as Misao Bizenjima.... Older inspector at the Shibahama Police HQ and is leading the investigation for this new rash of serial killings.
Wakana Matsumoto as Toa Nekota.... Female at the Shibahama station and her boss considers her to be an ace detective, she became Furomitsu's partner for the eleventh show.
The above were all in the last two shows, these were new for the final episode.
Megumi Seki as Hiroko Mikutani.... Woman who Kunou met on the bullet train going back to Tokyo though she was just going to Nagoya. Hiroko is engaged to a man and was travelling to Nagoya to meet her father who she had once presumed was dead. She had some cryptic letters which Kunou noticed and between them the pair decoded them.
Atsuko Takahata as Saki Mikutani.... Hiroko's adoptive mother who snuck on the train to follow her daughter, she has some dark secrets about Hiroko's past.
Ryu Morioka as Katsura Tsukioka.... Craftsman who built the wooden puzzle boxes that Anju had bought at the museum. The pair were actually in love though no true relationship had begun, we just saw him in the final five minutes of this show.
Previous recaps
So that last episode ended with the detective Nekota lying on the ground severely wounded after being stabbed by Tsuji. Forgot to mention in the last recap that Furomitsu too was lying on the ground behind the museum, she had tried to save her partner but was quickly subdued by Tsuji but she had called the Shibahama station before that took place.. But prior to the police arriving Garo popped onto the scene, Tsuji aka Jute was a man he had been on the hunt for as he may have had something to to with his sister Anju's death. But with sirens rapidly approaching Garo couldn't stick around for too long so he was able to talk Tsuji into leaving peacefully with him. The story of those two comprises almost the entire second half of this final show. The police arrived in time to save Nekota who is now in the hospital, there was really nothing wrong with Furmoitsu who was just knocked out and that was really all that happened in this show with the serial killer case or as far as the police involvement went.
Wanted to get the above out of the way as this final episode mainly just had two long parts to it. The second deals with Garo's capture of Tsuji and after not seeing much of Kunou in the previous show he was the focus of this episode's first half hour. But we never did see him reunite with his detective friends back in Tokyo so he had no involvement with Tsuji's serial killing case. This show was ten minutes longer than the other episodes but will still try to keep the recap at four segments, have to realize not everything needs to be explained. So will give my final grade on this series now and will give it a very impressive rating of 9.1/10 which is the highest in over a year. Every case/episode was a winner and actually that grade could be a smidgen higher. My only minor beef is that we didn't know Kunou's thoughts on things until after the fact so we didn't often know what clues and such he was focusing on. But all in all this was a fine drama which may be my #1 for the year, no dates have been announced but there will be a second season later on this year.
That woman above was the main guest star for this first half of the show and her name is Megumi Seki. She looked so darn attractive in this show and have seen her before but hadn't paid enough attention to her. She's kind of older but I may try to do a post or two for her.
So it's the return of Kunou who in the last show had been at an art exhibit in Osaka, he's now on the bullet train back to Tokyo. Not that it matters too much but the events in this show took place between the fifth and sixth episodes. Sitting next to him was the above woman Hiroko who sat silently and was reading a letter. Kunou is one nosy man and and couldn't help not to notice the letter, not the words written but the images on the paper. Hiroko told him she was travelling back to her hometown of Nagoya which she hadn't been to in decades. For so many years she presumed her parents were dead and had been adopted by her mother's best friend but months ago started receiving letters from her now undead father! Hiroko will be getting married shortly and was going to Nagoya to visit her father, if all goes well she wants him to give her away at Hiroko's wedding. But to Kunou the letter from her father was much more than the words as the images on the paper spelled out a message. He deduced that if you took the first two letters from each symbol then they would would form a secret message.
Hiroko had many other recent letters from this man claiming to be her father. So the pair went through all of them and on each letter were drawn images but different on each letter. How it worked was if you took the first two letters from the images you would have for example the letters HAYUITER and they had to be unscrambled to get the message. Codes such as that is what Kunou is a whiz at and before long all of the letters were decrypted. They all had a similar message which was for Hiroko not to travel to Nagoya as only danger may await her there and to stay away!!!! That certainly baffled Hiroko who soon showed Kunou some more letters from her father but these were written years ago and sent to her adoptive mother Saki. The theme of those letters was so different as they had often thanked Saki for taking care of Hiroko and to continue to do so.
What Kunou noticed on the letters is that the images weren't drawn by the same person who wrote the words. After a bit of thinking about the warnings in the letters Kunou had deduced the drawings were done by someone in trouble. Such as Hiroko's mother who may have been abused by her husband and couldn't write the warnings in words. So the mother used the symbols to convey messages to Hiroko who had also thought her mother was dead, how sitting next to Kunou on a simple train ride can change one's life! Very little escapes Kunou and he had noticed a person on the train who kept changing seats to get closer to Hiroko. Kunou pointed out that the person is now in the seat behind them and when Hiroko stood up to see who it was it was none other than her adoptive mother Saki! So the mother joined the pair and told them most of the story which Kunou had partially got right. Yes, Hiroko's parents were alive when Saki adopted her but it was mainly because Hiroko's true mother felt her daughter's life was in danger because of her abusive husband and sent Hiroko away to save her life.
Not going to go into the entire story as not to make this recap a tome but eventually Hiroko's father had died of a heart attack. Though an abusive man Hiroko's real mother still loved him and since that death was in a hospital as she couldn't bear living without him. That was the story Saki told the pair but Kunou knew there were some missing details. It's getting close to the train arriving at the Nagoya station and Hiroko did have one letter she couldn't decode. Saki looked at it and said it was from her mother who had wished her happiness, Kunou objected then at what Saki had said but to Hiroko a positive message was good enough for her. One other note is that the new letters had different handwriting than the old letters, when Kunou got Saki alone he asked her about that. These new letters were written by the mother from the hospital who knew her husband was dead yet still sent Hiroko warnings, the mother is not quite sane since his death. And that's what Kunou pressed Saki further, letters can be arranged different ways and to him the letter Hiroko couldn't decode was actually a message to Saki talking about how they killed Hiroko's father! I take his deduction to be true but Saki angerly waved that idea away and told Kunou to mind his own business, the train soon arrived at Nagoya so it was the last we saw of the two women in this show and also of Kunou.
**** There was a slight change in a line said at the end of this scene. While Kunou was talking to Saki it seemed he uttered the line 'I have birth parents myself' but it was pointed out that the true line was 'I have adoptive parents myself' which came out of nowhere. Saki never made a comment about that and will this be something we'll be hearing about in the second season?
Now on to the second story which dealt with Garo trying to find out the true details of his sister Anju's life. While he loved her so much and they did live in the same mansion Anju's life was a mystery to Garo, that's the main reason he 'saved' Tsuji from being arrested by the police. This scene took place on Garo's yacht which is off the coast of Tokyo and still can't believe it's been allowed to stay in the bay. This conversation was quite informative for Garo and to us viewers too. Tsuji spilled the beans on practically his whole life, he is the real son of the serial killer Hagui who murdered eighteen women twenty years prior though the count is one too high. Hagui didn't live with Tsuji or his mother but brought his son often to his residence which was not a place for a young boy or anyone for that matter. On the walls of Hagui's place were pictures of his dead victims and he didn't hide what he did from his son nor his mother who was Hagui's girlfriend. Didn't quite understand why but Hagui had really wanted a daughter which he told his son Tsuji so at a young age the boy began to dress as a girl.
So dressing like that carried on to this day and it helped Tsuji as no one was able to recognize him dressed as a woman and he was able to carry out those four murders. Hagui had told his son about his love of the symbol JU and Tsuji's victims have all had the symbol in their names. JU can mean many things in Japanese but the most common may refer to the number ten, it's symbol looks like the plus sign +. So Tsuji would leave his victims at an intersection because they do look like a + symbol and also would leave their bodies in the same shape. In the fifth episode explained how Hagui was killed and it's too long to go into now. But the killing was by a corrupt detective and after twenty years of searching Tsuji was able to find his father's remains on the detective's estate, his name was Shimotori. Tsuji went to the police several times with the info but they wouldn't listen to him, that infuriated Tsuji so much he began to follow the footsteps of his father and became a serial killer! But his first killing was at the age of eight(!) when he killed his mother who was so distraught that Hagui had left her which the police didn't know and they said the mother was his 18th victim. The knife from that crime was never found and it's the one Tsuji has been using on his victims.
Final two paragraphs for this series, if a few minor details need to be left out so be it. So everything Tsuji said was informative but Garo wanted to know more on what was taking place between his sister Anju and Tsuji. According to this new serial killer Anju did truly want to die and the plan was for it to happen on the same day that the bus driver killed Anju! Over the three months prior to her death Anju's mental health condition had worsened rapidly, a main reason for that is she had stopped taking her medicines which Garo had discovered. There was this mysterious counselor who Anju had been seeing and also Tsuji but he couldn't give a name or description of this man who it seemed Anju slightly admired. So if there is a second season wonder if Garo will make an appearance to look for this person, for the most part there is closure on his sister's death but it's not quite 100%. So while Tsuji didn't kill Anju it was only because of bad timing, to Garo this serial killer was still a bottom of the barrel person who didn't deserve to live. So he had drugged Tsuji's drink to make him pass out, Garo and his cousins brought Tsuji back ashore where he was soon found by the police.
And in an odd twist Tsuji told his story once again about his father Hagui being buried in the yard of the retired detective Shimotori. This time the police did investigate and the body was found, had they checked before perhaps no killings would have taken place! In the final few minutes Garo and his cousins paid a visit to the creator of the wooden puzzle box that couldn't be opened. This man's name was Tsukioka and least this series ended with a smile on Garo's face. That's because he learned Tsukioka was a man who truly loved Anju and her happiest times before her tragic death were when she spent the day with this man making boxes. So while a true relationship never happened it was only a matter of time before it did and who knows how things would have turned out if Anju could have only lived another week or so. Tsukioka was able to open the box and in it was a ring, one very similar to a ring Tsuji had which he said was given to him by that unnamed counselor. Garo had no use for the ring so that was the one Kunou had received in the mail while he was at the hospital in the fifth episode. Whew, that finally wraps up this series and there was no way to make these recaps brief as so much took place but that's a positive. Did give my rating at the beginning which was a 9.1/10 and do highly recommend viewing this drama which you can get at Blitz Subs. Plenty of screenshots to end off with as they do help you follow the story a bit better.
Who is the counselor
ReplyDeleteThe counselor's name was never revealed but know it was a man who had been seeing Anju and Jute but obviously not to help them.
ReplyDelete