"Nanji no Na" drama, episode four of eight recap

 

 Air Dates: April 6th until May 25, 2022 on TV-Tokyo, Wednesday nights at 12:30 am

Subs were done by GEO9875 at DA, also has the title of Your Name.

Main Cast: Wrote this up after viewing two episodes and know there will be many edits to the character's bios, what a confusing drama it was at first.

Hirona Yamazaki as Toko Aso.... Her real name is Riyako Mikami and is using the identity of another character in this show which will be explained in the recaps. She works as the president of the ETS agency which is a front as it's not a dispatching company but one that destroys people's lives! Riyako is such a stuck up person and we'll be learning what her background was before the name change as I'm very curious about it.

Kii Kitano as Hisae Aso.... The real sister of Toko though her last name isn't Aso but Mikami too. Hisae is a bit of a shut-in and has been that way for three years since breaking up with her boyfriend. At the time Hisae was working at a pharmaceutical company and seems to know every kind of medicine created. She takes care of the household for 'Toko' but her sister has a love/hate relationship with her and constantly berates her.

Mijika Nagai as The Mysterious Woman.... But she does have a name and she's the real Toko Aso! Years before she had fallen heavily into debt and 'thanks' to Kawashima's company they were all paid off. But the price was that Riyako would be allowed to assume her identity for five years and these days the real Toko is a drug addict and very down on her luck.

Hidekazu Mashima as Koji Kawashima....Owns the ETS agency which says it's a dispatching company but that's a front. Their main objective is to bring down an individual such as someone who owes money, is gong through a divorce and such, will explain it better as time goes on.

Waku Kyoten as Kyohei Ito... Only saw him in the first show and he's a whiz at computers who just won a prestigious web designer award. He seems to love Toko but those feelings will never be returned.

Naoto Kataoka as Ryosuke Iki.... Is a manager at the esteemed Crown Hotel who has had his eye on Toko for a while, we didn't meet him until the end of the second episode.

ETS.... In the third episode we did learn more about this company though much of it was lies Toko was telling Iki. It stands for Extra Talent Staff and Toko told him the agency hires actors to help others in their lives. For instance if someone needed an escort, a grandmother wanted a grandson for a party, etc. In other words to bring some joy to a person's life but in reality ETS brings havoc to a person's life such as a vengeful wife wanting to disgrace her husband and other things along that line, we've seen one life destroyed already by Toko.

Previous recaps

Episode one .... Episode two

 Picking right up from where we left off and it was an attacker waiting in the shadows for Toko! Had a feeling we'd be seeing this man Iba seeking revenge and it was him who pounced on Toko. Her ETS agency had destroyed this man's life, his wife had hired Toko for she was divorcing Iba. So first there were some fake photos Toko had of Iba with another woman and he had no idea at the time there was even a woman next to him! Then Toko hired a man to offer Iba a dream job, he then quit his solid position but within a week this 'dream job' had disappeared and Iba was now out of work! So you can see why he wanted to get revenge on Toko for ruining his life but was wondering how did he ever learn of her ETS agency?

 It's too early in the series for disaster to strike the main character so appearing out of nowhere was Iki who had made a return to Toko's house. He was able to frighten off Iba who fled but screamed back it won't be the last Toko hears of him! The pair then went into Toko's grand house where Iki said to notify the police, Toko told him she did that later on which was false as she needs to keep her life as secret as possible. Iki had said he returned to pick up his scarf which he left in the house but how was that possible when this was his first time ever there?!?! Arriving on the scene shortly after was Toko's sister Hisae and Iki had no idea who she was. To Toko's dismay Hisae did introduce herself as Toko's younger sister which would soon send Toko into a rage, soon after Iki took his leave which is when Toko for the millionth time abused her 'sister'.

 Toko has no qualms about being violent with Hisae as she slapped her hard enough to send her sprawling to the ground. Hisae being Toko's sister was supposed to remain a secret to Iki though Hisae had no idea about that, Toko is so irate she's ready to send Hisae packing. This was a very informative scene as we did learn one very, very important fact. Which is that the pair aren't sisters(!) and have to admit I kind of had an inkling about that as they never discussed their past or family. The two have known each other since high school and back then Hisae was so in awe of Toko who was the school Queen. She was the captain of the track team and had the lead role in that year's school play, Hisae used to do anything at the time to be close to Toko who of course was known as Riyako back then. So that was a bombshell and guess that's something we'll be learning about in future episodes which is why have these two been together for about fifteen years?

 The following day the 'sister's did make up to an extent, Hisae does play a semi important role in Toko's (Riyako) life taking care of her house. Can see why Hisae has had to cling to Toko for all these years as she is kind of a gloomy woman but why has Toko allowed her to stick around for so long and how long have they been 'sisters'? There was a second date a few nights later with Iki and really thought Toko was going to spend the night with him but it never panned out. Toko had promised Hisae she would start revealing some of her lies to Iki that night but that too didn't work out, maybe it never will as Toko is over her head now with this fake life and perhaps there's no escape? That attack by Iba in the beginning makes me wonder if there aren't more like him out there, Toko does have a new 'victim' lined up but don't think she's started her attack on him quite yet.

 An episode is only 23 minutes in length so time flies right by, you may notice how fewer screenshots there are in these recaps. We're down to the final five minutes which just featured Hisae, in the middle screenshot above she was mumbling to herself  'if Toko were to find out'. Besides her apartment Hisae is hiding another secret from her 'sister' and the impression we got was that it involved drugs and don't know where that will lead to. So in the final scene Hisae had once again paid a visit to an older woman named Mamako who you can see above. Two episodes ago the woman had passed out in the street and Hisae had helped her home. Since then she's been advising the woman about the medicines she's been taking and also running errands as Mamako's condition is still weak. During their first meeting at the woman's house Hisae had noticed three bankbooks, with her needing money to rent that apartment we all knew it was just a matter of time before Hisae began to raid those accounts.

 Which started in this episode as Mamako trusted Hisae enough to take out money for her while doing those errands. Don't know the $$ totals but don't think Hisae has been taking out all that much. In a conversation a while ago Toko had told Hisae the best way to skim money from an account is to just take the interest made from each month and think that's what Hisae has been doing. If so that's probably not much and is she waiting for the day to clean one or all of the accounts out? But at the end Mamako seemed to become a bit suspicious of Hisae as she was wondering about those accounts. So Mamako has requested that Hisae join her on a trip to her banks to discuss the matter and Hisae is beside herself with worry. Mamako knows virtually nothing about Hisae so she could withdraw some vast amounts of cash and get away easily, perhaps she likes the woman too much to do that? So that wrapped up this episode and no cliffhangers this time around but there's still many questions that need to be answered. Even after viewing four shows I still have no clue how this drama is supposed to end, the next pair of recaps should be in five days.