"Octo: Kanjou Sousakan Shinno Akari" drama, episode six recap

 

 Air Dates: July 8th until September 9, 2022 on NTV  Thursdays at midnight

Episodes are 43 minutes in length, subs are being done by Kaizan Subs

Main Cast: Most of the action takes place at the East Kanagawa police station. We really only saw the top two characters in the first show so will be updating these bios.... have been doing that

Marie Iitoyo as Akari Shinno.... 28 year old detective who has been at the station for a year. The recaps will explain it better but Akari has this 'unique ability' to read people's emotions, she can do that by the colors coming out of their eyes which only she can see! Akari does come off as an introvert for outside she wears a hood and inside never looks at someone's eyes, that's because she doesn't want to know what their emotions are. At the age of thirteen her parents were murdered by a intruder at their home, that's when Akari got the ability to read emotions and since then her sister has been in the hospital.

Kodai Asaka as Ryo Kazehaya.... Akari's new partner but isn't what he seems to be. Kazehaya is actually a spy sent by a director named Hirayasu at the National Police, his mission is to spy on Akari and the rest of the staff at the East Kanagawa station. But he has taken a liking towards Akari and think they'll make for a solid team. The 'demotion' was because Kazehaya found his old boss dealing drugs and the upper brass covered it up.

Takashi Yamanaka as Kohei Kumokawa.... Deputy Chief at the station who really believes in Akari's talents which can't be used as evidence in court.

Eiichiro Funakoshi as Mamoru Hirayasu.... A director at the National Police Force and why has he sent Kazehaya to spy on the station? In episode five we may have learned of their relationship, is he the father of Kazehaya?

Mikoto Hibi as Satoko Kitamura.... Female detective at the station, after six shows we really haven't seen enough of her.

Kouki Nishida as Takahiro Nanjo.... Was a male detective at the station but think we may not see him after the third episode. In that show Nanjo was forced to resign because of a stalking incident which took place a year ago at his old precinct.

Asami Usuda as Yuki Komoto.... Akari's psychiatrist and she knows everything about the way you can read emotions from others. Don't think she has this ability though and not sure why Akari has been visiting her for so many years. Could be because of her parents deaths plus to get advice on her unique talent of reading emotions.

Rena Matsui as Shiori Shinno.... Akari's 35 year old sister who we didn't see in this show but know she's in the hospital, has she been there since her parents were murdered? Think so which will be explained in the beginning.

 Guest Stars

Hiroyuki Onoe as Sougo Maruyama.... A man 42 in age and has been an esteemed floral arranger. Three yeas ago he was exposed for having many affairs which resulted in a divorce and losing his job at his family's floral school. Maruyama is being held for the possible murder of the reporter that exposed his affairs but the problem is Maruyama has amnesia!

Yuhito Tsubone as Haruto Misumi.... Maruyama's dedicated young assistant and that dedication may have gone a bit too far....

Hitoshi Katagiri as Daigo Onodera.... Director of a funeral home and we met him in the fifth episode. We really didn't see much of him in this show but his character is important for is he some sort of spy working for Kumokawa and perhaps also Hirayasu? Onodera had worked with Kumokawa at the East Kanagawa station but quit fifteen years ago while he was investigating the murders of Akari's parents.... there's many questions surrounding this man.

Promo video for episode six

Previous recaps

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

 

 This episode's case wasn't as complicated as prior ones so it shouldn't take as long to explain. So let me start off with this potential 'conspiracy storyline' which was introduced in the fifth show. Not much was said about it in this show but hope that story gets expanded as it could be very interesting and would be nice to take a break from the pair of Akari and Kazehaya solving murder cases. At the end of the fifth episode there was something minor that took place and didn't mention it but it was brought up again in this show. After the hostage situation was cleared up Akari had shook hands with the funeral director Onodera, while touching him Akari gasped and and was on the verge of passing out which was noticed by Kazehaya. After that the pair's chief Kumokawa arrived on the scene and began talking to Onodera, the pair had once worked together at the East Kanagawa station but Onodera quit fifteen years ago. Think being a funeral home director is a front as he's secretly been working with Kumokawa, did Onodera ever officially quit the police force?

 The reason Akari came close to passing out was because she could recall who Onodera was by looking at his eyes. The emotion she saw shaking hands was a very dark Black, it was never explained what it meant but it must be Extreme Evil. That's him in the top screenshot above and what stunned Akari is that those were the eyes of the man who murdered her parents fifteen years ago!!!! Supposedly the killer had committed suicide shortly after the crime but there was a photo of the culprit in the third episode and the man looked eerily like a younger Onodera! Her partner hasn't told Akari yet but Kazehaya has learned from Kumokawa that Onodera was the main detective on the murder case fifteen years ago but quit before it was officially solved. So the huge question is who is this man Onodera, is he still working with Kumokawa and more importantly is he also working for Hirayasu who is a director at the National Police? That confrontation with Onodera has really shaken up Akari, mentally she's become a wreck and you can see that above. Seems to me she wants to concentrate more on finding out if Onodera was the true killer and her partner Kazehaya wants to join her in finding out the truth.

 Now on to the main story which dealt with a 42 year old man named Sougo Maruyama, could he have possibly just murdered a man? Two days prior he was involved in an auto accident and was slightly injured as you can see above. At the scene his trunk had popped open and in it was what's in the second screenshot, a bloody shovel and smallish hatchet. So while Maruyama wasn't badly hurt he's suffering from a mild case of amnesia, he can remember most things in his life but not from the past week. He's confused as to what is going on and according to Akari was telling the truth. The Green emotions coming out of his eyes right above mean Anxiety and he truly had no recollection of what he'd done the past few days. At the East Kanagawa station they had received a report about a missing man whose name is Hishida. The police had blood samples of him and wouldn't you know they matched up to the blood found on the instruments found in Maruyama's trunk!

 This man Hishida currently had a video channel called Gossip where he would slam celebs and tell his audience many dirty stories about them, the channel was rather popular. Hishida did that job for he was fired two years ago from his position as being a tabloid writer, one who would find any kind of dirt to smear a person. And one of those persons had been Maruyama who three years ago was married and was the head of his family's Maruyama School which taught floral arranging. Hishida had found out Maruyama had been having several affairs, when he reported them in his magazine Maruyama's wife left him plus he lost his position at his family's school as now his sister is the director there. So obviously Maruyama had a motive for wanting to hurt Hishida but as Akari noted why wait three years for revenge plus how can they get the truth from someone with amnesia? At times Maruyama seemed like a goofball during the interrogations but was always honest with his answers or at least until his amnesia started to clear up.

 In the second screenshot above is Maruyama's sister who now runs the family's esteemed floral school. In case you didn't know the word Misanthropist means someone who avoids people and Maruyama has been like that since the story of his affairs was revealed. After that happened Maruyama had a Ischemic Stroke which is a blood clot in the brain, that's when he really started to avoid others and wouldn't arrange flowers in front of people. When Akari heard that she began to wonder about a few things such as why did Maruyama's floral style change so much after that stroke, is someone else doing his work? If so the only person it could be was a young man named Misumi who has worked with Maruyama for many years and stuck by him after the scandal. When he was interviewed by Kazehaya and Akari she noticed some emotions which we didn't learn about until the end. Maruyama's amnesia isn't a condition that will last long and after a few more questioning sessions most of his memory has come back.

 Above you can see that in a rage he's confessed to killing the slimy reporter Hishida but is his story believable? Yes and no, Maruyama was a bit convincing yet couldn't give too many details of what took place nor could be tell the detectives where he buried the body! During these sessions Akari of course has been keeping track of Maruyama's emotions and there's been many changes, perhaps because of his memory returning? We did learn about what some more colors meant such as that Dark Green means Admiration, Medium Green equals Fear, Light Green means Anxiety and Light Orange is for Caution. After a while Maruyama was getting so fed up with Akari's 'coloring' and flew into a rage. He grabbed the box of colored pencils she uses and attempted to eat one of them which was Red. However Maruyama had yelled out he was eating a Green pencil as that's what he thought Akari was holding and at the time we didn't think much of it. Akari did though which was a major detail in solving the case and there could be only one other person who could have killed Hishida.

 An Ischemic Stroke often isn't life threatening but there are some side affects when you recover. One is that a person can become Color Blind and obviously that's what happened with Maruyama. That condition was the key bit of evidence in this case for unknown to Maruyama shortly after admitting to it his assistant Misumi was brought in for questioning. Not many though as he crumpled like a leaf and confessed to the murder of Hishida and also said where the body was buried. Maruyama didn't know of the confession as he kept trying to take the blame for the murder and that went nowhere as Akari eventually let him know of the his aide's confession. Wasn't much Maruyama could do at this point so he told her and Kazehaya the entire story of what happened on that fateful night. Somehow Hishida had learned of Maruyama being color blind and visited him at his house. There he told Maruyama he would reveal his secret unless a handsome sum of $$ was paid to him, to that Maruyama laughed in his face and walked away but listening in the wings was Misumi.

 He entered the room beyond irate and proceeded to strangle Hishida to death, it was hard to feel sorry for the slimy reporter. Maruyama heard the commotion and rushed in but too late to save Hisihda but he did have a plan. That was to beat the man with a flower hatchet and bury him in the woods which is what took place. Maruyama put the bloody shovel and hatchet in the trunk of his car, he did so to take the blame for the murder if Misumi was ever charged! Few other minor details came out about the killing and why Maruyama was sticking up for his assistant, those you can view in the below screenshots. So that ends this pair of recaps and as usual will be back in two weeks with the next pair. What I'm really hoping for is that those conspiracies become a much bigger part of the story and wouldn't doubt if the final two shows are about that, so many little mysteries are lingering and at least one new one pops up in each episode!