"Hiru" drama: Season two, episode two 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. Writing this intro up after viewing two shows so will need to edit as we go along as there's a few characters we don't know much about after the two shows. So while the two seasons are very different have the link to the final two episodes of season one which explains more of what a Hiru is and there is one minor(important?) ongoing storyline.

Episode five recap .... Episode six recap

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 has 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.

Itsuji Itao as Yashima.... Haven't seen much of him through two shows, he runs a black market operation which Hirus go to often to sell things or to buy fake ID's.

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.

 

  Marie was also in the third season of 'Kimi no Sekai', that series ended over a month ago. The subs were supposed to be done by the person who did the first two seasons but they never came though. So hopefully that'll be a show which will be picked up in the future, skimmed though the first two episodes and it really appeared to be better than the second season. One minor gripe(s) about this show is how characters seem to come and go. Never know if they should be added to the above list, they'll have a lot of screen time in one episode and then we rarely see them again. Plus what happens often is the character's name isn't mentioned for a while, sometimes not for a show or two!

 We met two new characters early on in this episode, the first is in the wheelchair in the top screenshot. His name is Nanashi and don't know what his illness is, he's with the main character Kara who is known as the 'Hiru Killer/Hunter'. Nanashi seems to be a few years older but the pair share quite a past and what it is wasn't revealed until the end of the show. You don't see her face but in the middle two screenshots the female detective Suzuki is still working on three cases from the first season. Those cases are murders and to Suzuki all of the victims seem to have been Hirus, could Kara have had a hand in the deaths? What Suzuki discovered is that one of the victims was using a fake ID but the name had been real at one point as that person died. So how did the maker of the fake ID get that info and trying to find that out is going to lead to a much bigger case for Suzuki and her new partner Sato, their roles really increased in this and the next episode.

 

 We soon met the other new character this episode who will have a big role in this series. This person's name is Chikin which is how the Japanese spell/pronounce Chicken. He's in the bottom screenshot above, Chikin is a smallish man as even the woman Hako is taller than him. Chikin has the nickname because he is a bit of a chicken and a coward but does have some positives about him. He's a very energetic young man and really knows the Hiru world as he is one and has been for several years. In the last show Hako had taken her ring back from her ex-boyfriend's apartment, she had been tossing it in the air not knowing where to sell it. Chikin noticed her and immediately knew Hako was a Hiru, he followed her into a jewelry shop where Hako tried to pawn the ring. The clerk offered her 12,000 yen($100) and Hako jumped at that amount but because of having no ID the sale couldn't be made. Chikin saw the whole ordeal and continued to tail Hako, he eventually introduced himself and said if she wanted to sell the ring he knew just the place.

 Chikin is a huge wimp but also has some connections. He brought Hako to a place called Price King, on the first floor it is a legit pawn shop. But in the basement is where a black market operation is based and it's a growing one. It's run by a man named Abe and will add his name into the cast list for the third episode. On the deed Abe is listed as the owner but the actual owner is a man named Yamashi but has a criminal record so couldn't be listed as being the owner. Chikin knows Abe well and told the man Hako had a nice ring she wanted to sell. While the jewelry store only offered 12,000 yen for the ring Abe offered Hako 20,000($170) so of course she agreed to that. And to top it off Abe will make a fake ID for Hako as long as she does some 'favors' for him, of course they're running scams but with the ID being free Hako also said yes to that. In the first recap said that for a long time Hiru's had this honor about them where they wouldn't steal from the places they were squatting in. But that's changed recently and it's all because of the Price King pawn shop who will take stolen goods off the hands of Hirus and also give them fake IDs which look like the real thing.

 Hako is far from being a good Hiru as with the $170 she plans on spending a few nights at a manga cafe which will leave her broke again in a few days. A true Hiru would make that money last as long as possible and continue to sleep in apartments when the tenant isn't there. Don't know how he does it but Kara pops up out of nowhere at the worst possible times for a Hiru! He did so to Hako as within a few hours he learned about the fake ID and took it from her, wonder if his female friend Robo somehow has some inside connections? We haven't seen much of her but think she is an important character or at least will be soon. Kara also popped up out of thin air an hour later when Chikin was in a home stealing some expensive watches which would have made him a fortune. Kara told him to stop and is getting tired of telling Chikin to cease with his burglaries, seems these two have some sort of past.

 In the second screenshot above is Robo who was complaining about Hako and why does Kara care about her so much? That's because they're old classmates but there's more to the story which comes out in the next episode. Nanashi in the wheelchair enlightened us so much in that scene where he told Robo the history of how Kara became a Hiru. At the age of fifteen Kara, who was then known as Makoto, was about to jump off a bridge as he just couldn't take living as he had no mother and was bullied constantly at school. All of a sudden an older woman appeared out of nowhere, with her was Nanashi. This woman's name was Mishin and she asked Makoto did he really want to die? To that he didn't give an answer but Mishin said if followed her she would show him a new way of living, that of course was as a Hiru. So Makoto's suicide was faked and since that day has gone by the name of Kara, you can see above where that name came from. Mishin is now dead and according to Kara it was because of being murdered by an unknown masked man.

 Kara has been hunting for this mysterious person for years but still has no leads on him, we also learn more about this in the next episode. Kara paid a surprise visit to the Price King pawn shop where he met the owner Yashima, it was mainly to see how the place ran and also to warn him not to use Chikin anymore for burglaries. In the above's first and bottom screenshot is Suzuki who has discovered that Makoto faked his suicide at the age of fifteen and has been going by the name of Kara since then. But to date she's never seen him face to face though the pair do trust each other. In the bottom screenshot Suzuki is talking on the phone to Kara, he had dropped some info in her mail box about the pawn shop's illegal activities and will she take action on it? That we'll see in the next recap which is the following post and so far this is much better than the first season.