"Octo: Kanjou Sousakan Shinno Akari" drama, episode three 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.

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 home intruder, that's when Akari got this odd talent and also when her sister Shiori became bedridden.

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.

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?

Mikoto Hibi as Satoko Kitamura.... Female detective at the station.

Kouki Nishida as Takahiro Nanjo.... Male detective at the station and like the above character didn't see much of him in the first two episodes.

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

Jiei Wakabayashi as Kazuki Torikai.... Man about twenty in age who had been arrested in a road rage incident. He's such an arrogant man who gave Akari and Kazehaya such fits but actually that was part of Torikai's plan as he turned out to be a good guy.

Hitomi Honda as Sumire Hinami.... Friend of Torikai's and some months back Sumire had been stalked and assaulted by a detective. His name will be revealed in this recap and her friend's aim was to help Sumire bring this man down!

Promo video for episode three

Previous recaps

Episode one .... Episode two

 

 For half of the first recap really struggled with it but since then have been zooming through them and also viewing this drama. It's July 30th but you may not see this for five or so days as I'm caught up with the series and the subber. AKB fans will recognize Hitomi who had a smallish guest role in this episode. Will admit she's got quite an attractive face but is she way too thin! The first two shows were solid but we really only saw the characters of Akari and Kazehaya along with the main guest stars. We finally saw more of someone who is the detective Nanjo but not in a good way! You'll see what a devilish person he was and it appears we may not see him again.

 In the last recap began off with some details of Akari's past which explained the murder of her parents and what's been happening with her older sister Shiori. In this post will begin off with some info about Kazehaya but a lot of what he's currently doing and why remains a mystery. He's recently been transferred to the East Kanagawa precinct after being in the elite National Police force, why the demotion? That was revealed in this show or at least to an extent, let's finally get to the recap.

 There was no time mentioned of when Kazehaya went through his ordeal but it was somewhat recent, this drama is taking place in the current time of July so it may have happened in April. While with the National Police, which is an elite organization, Kazehaya had stumbled across a disturbing discovery. His superior was quite corrupt, this unnamed man had been taking the drugs confiscated from criminals and selling them on the black market! Kazehaya had enough evidence to bring his boss down but that idea was squashed by the higherups who look out for their own. Kazehaya was so frustrated with what had taken place he was prepared to reveal all the facts on social media, somehow that was discovered before he could publish anything and all of his evidence was destroyed. Soon after Kazehaya was hauled into a meeting with the top brass where it appeared he would be canned or perhaps something even worse! However he had a friend(?) on the board who is the man in the top two screenshots, he's a director at the National Police named Hirayasu whose has been mentioned before but didn't know his intentions and actually still don't.

 He's recruited Kazehaya to spy on the East Kanagawa precinct and especially Akari, Kazehaya has been sending Hirayasu reports on her but what they contained is unknown. Can't be too negative as he and Akari have bonded quickly and make for an efficient team. Hirayasu has been pleased with the reports and why is not known, in the third screenshot above is Kumokawa. He's the head of Kazehaya's division at the precinct, now the focus of the spying may be on him and yet again why is something we haven't learned. All of that took place during this episode and put everything together to make it easier to understand. That Kumokawa seems like a decent boss and always has Akari's back but will admit there's something slightly suspicious about him, Kazehaya had discovered he had once worked with Akari's father until he was murdered fifteen years ago. On to this episode's case which involved a young man in a road rage incident. Kazehaya has been assigned to lead the case and of course Akari will be by his side. In the fourth screenshot above is the detective Nanjo showing Kazehaya a photo of the assailant. Seems Nanjo knew who this man was as he had been in trouble at his old station, will explain it later on but Nanjo isn't the nice guy he appears to be.

 That screenshot right above doesn't have anything to do with the case but found it rather interesting. If you've read the previous recaps you know that Akari has this unique ability to see a person's emotions.. That's by the colors coming out of their eyes, there's eight main colors/emotions and combined colors can mean many other emotions. Akari had been at a bus stop when one stopped and the passengers got off, that's what happens when she looks into a crowd and she fell to the ground in panic. So that's why in public Akari always wears a hood and tries to never look at someone's eyes. Kazuki is the assailant in this road rage case and he's in a few screenshots above. What an absolute jerk this young man of twenty or so was and Kazehaya really wanted to beat the living daylights out of him. There was a video from the driver's dashboard which showed Kazuki stopping in front of this man's vehicle and then coming up to the driver whose name was Hatozaki. Then the video came from a different camera which was at a nearby bus stop, the same one where Akari had her panic attack.

 That video showed Kazuki severely beating this man Hatozaki though he denied ever touching the man! Kazuki quickly caught on to what Akari was drawing which were his emotions and he asked her was he lying about not attacking that man? To an extent Kazuki was being honest and what really confused Akari was that his two main emotions were Hate and Trust, you don't see them together that often. The Hate was easy for that's how Kazuki felt about the police but where did Trust come in? Kazehaya is a very diligent detective and he can uncover most things in a case but as we learned in the beginning he may be too good! He does much of the leg work, Akari is usually with him but hiding away in her hooded jacket. Kazuki is a member of a gang and they couldn't believe their mate would have beaten Hatozaki that badly considering the attack took place in their rival gang's territory, Hatozaki is a member of that rival gang. Am not going into every single detail but after a lot of investigating Kazehaya has discovered this is not the open and shut case he thought it would be, the videos did show a fight but was one fake or taped earlier and the other somehow staged?

 One thing I was slightly confused on were the videos of Kazuki attacking Hatozaki. Kazehaya has deduced that the video from Hatozaki's vehicle had actually been taped prior to the attack which the man eventually confessed to. Then through some digging it was revealed that the attack on Hatozaki was staged but it did get out of hand for as you can see above he's lying in the hospital. Kazuki's attack was on the home turf of Hatozaki's gang who were aware of what their leader had planned and stayed away. Kazuki had paid Hatozaki a sum of money to beat him up but as mentioned that got out of hand. The reason the attack was staged at that bus stop is that there were some excellent surveillance cameras and Kazuki wanted the attack to be taped. Needless to say that baffled Kazehaya and though Kazuki hated the police he knew what they would investigate as the attack was a link to an entirely different matter. Kazuki's plan was to hope Akari and Kazehaya would check out old taped footage of that bus stop and he did give the pair some hints on doing that. Kazuki is a class one jerk but deep down he seems like a good person and his motive for getting arrested was actually a good deed, it led to an older case that would never have been solved if not for that attack.

 It had been a few days since Kazuki's arrest, while Akari and Kazehaya now had many leads there wasn't enough to keep holding Kazuki who was released. His victim Hatozaki's father was a politician and he put pressure on the DA to release him to keep his son's name out of the papers. Need to pick the pace up a bit here and to the bus station went Akari and Kazehaya to check on the old taped footage of the bus stop. It took until the middle of the night but Akari finally found some unbelievable footage from a year ago, it stunned her and Kazehaya to no end! In that bottom screenshot above is the detective Nanjo, he's with a young woman of about twenty named Sumire. She's been close fiends with Kazuki since childhood but they're not dating. She was so distraught about Kazuki joining a gang and was worried for his safety. Sumire went to the Katakura precinct where at the time Nanjo was working. She told him everything about the gangs but seemed Nanjo didn't care about that info. From that first meeting he had developed such a crush on Sumire, not just any kind of crush for he soon was stalking her and where could she turn for help?

 Final segment and though I do explain just about everything not all and hope these recaps make you want to check out a series such as this one. So at his old station Nanjo had tried to take advantage of his position and force Sumire to date him which repulsed her to no end. That's when Nanjo began to stalk her and before long Sumire's life became a living hell and Nanjo wouldn't take no for an answer. He started to go over the edge a bit and as you can see in the second screenshot above Nanjo even decked her one night after Sumire once again rebuffed his advances. That location is so KEY as it took place at the same bus stop where Kazuki had beaten up Hatozaki. After Nanjo had hit Sumire she went to his precinct to file a complaint and Nanjo's superior took no action about it. Since then Sumire had been having severe nightmares and flashbacks of the scene which she had told her friend Kazuki about. He realized that if he attacked Hatozaki at the same bus stop the police would check out the videos and they had a two year archive of them at the bus station. So this was all a very ingenious plan by Kazuki as he hinted around that there was some older footage that Akari and Kazehaya should check out, what they saw on the tapes stunned them.

 Secretly the pair interviewed Sumire who told them everything about this dirty and corrupt detective Nanjo. Eventually he was tricked into entering the interrogation room where all the evidence of his dastardly stalking and attack was revealed to him by Akari but more so by Kazehaya. Watching from a different room was their station chief Kumokawa and not sure if he knew about Nanjo's history. After the Sumire incident took place Nanjo had been transferred to the East Kanagawa station. To make a long story shortish Nanjo did confess to everything and it was all Kazehaya could do not to pummel this man, Kazehaya really despises any police corruption. However once again Nanjo was kind of saved for this incident was swept under the rug as the police didn't want the publicity of what a detective did but Nanjo was forced to retire. All charges were then dropped against Kazuki and though his methods were a bit over the top he turned out to be a decent man who truly cared about his friend Sumire whose condition has improved after Nanjo was slightly brought to justice. So ends this recap and the one for the fourth episode is the next post, every show seems to be getting a bit better. Once again recommend viewing the screenshots which help you follow the story better.