"Hiru" drama: Season two, episode six(final) recap

 

 Air Dates: April 15th until May 20,2022 on WOWOW, Friday nights at 11:00 pm

Subs were once again done by Irozuku Subs and episodes are 26 minutes in length.

Main Cast: Save for the first character all of the Hirus are different from the first season which also had only six episodes, the two detectives also made a return. Hiru is the name for Leeches in Japanese but it also has a different meaning. It could be for a person who 'leeches' off of others which is the case in this drama. A Hiru may spend the night or day at someone's residence while they're working or at school. A Hiru has no regular place to live so they'll eat, clean and sleep at those residences which are usually apartments and a Hiru could almost be considered a Squatter. 

Kentaro Sakaguchi as Kara.... His real name is Makoto Tsukinuma and is the only returning Hiru from the first season. Kara is known as a 'Hiru Hunter' and he may have killed a few of them for a reason we just learned in the second episode. He's on the hunt for a mysterious masked person who killed his mentor Mishin some years ago and has been seeking revenge since. Kara has this unique ability to suddenly appear and disappear in what seems a blink of an eye!

Marie Iitoyo as Hako.... Her real name is Sakura Yoko, thought Marie would be in season one which didn't happen but least her role in this show is quite large. The Yo in Yoko can also be pronounced Ha which is where Hako comes from. Hako did go to school with Kara a decade ago, she's a Hiru but not a very adept one who has to keep getting bailed out of tense situations.

Yui Sakuma as Robo.... Not much is known of her yet but she's a very curious woman, she's about 23 in age and so aren't the first two characters. She knows Kara well and it appears Robo works part time as a call girl to find out info about Hirus for him.

Masaki Miura as Nanashi.... Close friend of Kara's and both were under the wing of Mishin until her death. Nanashi is currently very sick and in the hospital but what is his illness?

Harumi Shuhama as Mishin.... As mentioned the 'mentor' of both Kara and Nanashi. We met her in the second episode through some flashbacks and that's the only way we'll see Mishin as she was killed by this mysterious masked man, small role but a very important one.

Jiei Wakabayashi as Chikin.... Also a Hiru who we met in the second episode. He's helped out Hako twice but can't quite figure out if he's a good or bad Hiru. He was shot and killed by Yashima at the end of the fifth show.

Mizuki Itagaki as Tetris.... Another character from the first season though we didn't see him until the third show. In that first season Tetris was a Hiru but hated the life and tried to break free from it, we finally learned that he did. However he's working for the below man Yashima so he's now in the underworld plus is he the man who murdered Mishin?

Itsuji Itao as Yashima.... Hadn't seen much of him through three shows but his role has now become much larger. He runs a black market operation which Hirus go to often to sell things or to buy fake ID's.

Takeshi Onishi as Abe.... Manager of the Price King pawn shop which is actually a black market operation owned by Yashima. However he has a criminal record so Abe's name is on the deed and he buys so many stolen things from Hirus. Was killed at the end of the fourth episode butit was made to look like a suicide.

Manami Konishi as Chika Suzuki.... Female detective who was also in season one and she did help out a pair of Hirus as she does fight for justice though her partner was killed by a Hiru.

Kotaro Tanaka as Junya Sato.... Suzuki's new partner who was also in season one, the main case the pair are working on is finding out the mystery of Kara.

Links to the first three episodes and may help to skim through at least the third show:

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

 

 Whew, pics like these were worth the price of admission(!) and where's Marie been as of late?

 As the title says we've hit the final episode for this series and it's one I really enjoyed. The first season was okay and it did get better towards the end but overall this second season was much better. The characters seemed so much more interesting which was also the case with the storylines. If I have any complaints is that at ~25 minutes a show it's hard to get to know some of the characters well enough, would another episode or two have helped? For instance we learned zero about Robo and her relationship with Kara, the way things turned out we never will.

 She was an important character so how did Robo ever meet Kara, plus were they living together and did they have any kind of romantic relationship? Same goes for the character of Tetris, he played a hitman who was once a Hiru but ended up working for the shady Yashima, what was his background? For that first season gave a rating of 8.2/10 which was a sold one, those last two episodes really raised that score. Will give my rating now for this second season which is a 8.7/10, perhaps a few more shows would have raised it to a nine. Won't give away any spoilers but not sure if the ending was an open ended one for another season, the main hero Kara is alive but not many others! Let's get to this final recap and shouldn't have to rehash what's taken place up until now.

 In that top screenshot is the detective team of Suzuki on the right with her partner Sato. If you've read all twelve recaps you know how hard she's worked at tracking down Yashima and trying to find out why so many Hirus have been killed. She did find out about the killings as their bodies were used for organ transplants(!) thanks to the evil doings of Yashima's gang. But in the end run Suzuki's efforts went for naught and as her partner said at the end they were just there to clean up the mess. The key story carrying over from the last episode is of Kara travelling to an abandoned factory in the Kawazaki district of Tokyo. In the fourth screenshot down is Yashima's hitman Tetris who had called Kara saying the two people he cared about most were being held hostage, if he didn't appear at the factory they wouldn't go on living for much longer.

 Of course Kara wanted to save his two friends(?) Robo and Hako who are in the second screenshot above. As you can see both are tied up and were watching the action with Yashima on security cameras set up around the building. But more than just saving his friends Kara wanted the answers to who killed his mentor Mishin and this person had worn a mask during the killing, the most obvious person to have done the killing would be the hitman Tetris. His mission is to eliminate Kara and while he may have killed possibly forty Hirus he's not that adept at fighting, Kara is and did have his way with Tetris. But he was able to wrap a wire around the neck of Kara so it was a stalemate for a while but eventually the 'hero' Kara got the upper hand and easily could have strangled Tetris to death. But Kara first wants some answers, why did he kill his believed mentor Mishin? Tetris kept pleading over and over that he didn't, it got to the point where Kara and us viewers believed him.

 Just as it appeared Tetris was about to reveal the identity of the true killer and some other sordid details a shot rang out, it hit Tetris square in the head ending his life! Kara was stunned at what happened, could the police have arrived so quickly? No, for as you can see in the above top screenshot it was Yashima who fired the killing shot and he's holding Hako still as a hostage. Yashima did say he would let the women go if Kara would come and work for him but that was something Kara would never do. Right after that refusal Yashima revealed to Kara this drama's longest running mystery. There was no masked man who killed Mishin nor was the murderer Tetris. Instead the killer was Kara's closest friend Nanashi(!) and what a bombshell that was for Kara who didn't want to believe such a tale from a man such as Yashima but sadly it turned out to be true.

 This location is an old factory and Yashima was on a walkway just above Kara. With his refusal to work with Yashima the man said he had no alternative but to kill Kara as he aimed the pistol at him. But escaping from the clutches of one of Yashima's henchmen was Robo who flung herself at Yashima to allow Kara to escape but that was the last act for Robo who was shot in the struggle. She hung on for a few minutes but eventually died in the arms of Kara with a weeping Hako looking on. The detective Suzuki and her troops eventually made the scene but really too late to do anything, Yashima was dragged away and by the end of the show still wouldn't confess to any crimes. Suzuki did see Kara and Hako fleeing the scene and that's her above aiming her pistol at him but she just couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger. Good for her as Kara really didn't commit any sort of crime and if it wasn't for him there's no way Yashima would have been brought to justice. 

 So here we are at the end and everything has been cleared up save for one major event, was Nanashi the person that murdered Mishin? That's Kara's final goal for this series as he paid a visit to his friend at the hospital, we never did learn what his illness was. Nanashi knew this day was coming and confessed to Kara that it was true about him being the killer! It was three years ago when the murder took place, Kara and Nanashi were still living with Mishin. But Nanashi was so tired of the Hiru life and also that she paid do much more attention to Kara, he told Mishin he was leaving to work with the slimeball Yashima. The two argued and during that scene Nanashi ended up strangling her to death, when Kara ran into the room seeing his dead mentor on the floor Nanashi said a masked man had done the deed and had run off. So for three years Kara's mission had been to avenge Mishin's murder, unknown to him until now the killer was always so close to him.

 Kara did pull a small knife from his pocket and had ideas about ending the life of his once close friend. But with him was Hako who talked some sense into Kara, Nanashi did want Kara to kill him to ease his guilt so why fulfill this killer's wish? Hako's pleas worked as Kara put the knife away, the pair left the hospital roof with Nanashi sobbing in his wheelchair. In the final minute Hako met up again with her old classmate Kara and told him the Hiru life wasn't one for her as Hako will try to live as a normal person. But wonder what could become of a person such as Kara? Since the age of fourteen the only life he has known is living as a Hiru so think it would be so difficult for a person such as him to fit into society, the show ended with him wandering the streets of Tokyo. So that ends the recaps for this series and thanks if you've been reading these, no clue if the ending may be a set up a third season. As is my norm plenty of screenshots to help you follow the action a bit better.