"Abunai Deka" drama: Episode twelve of 51(!!!!) recap

 

 Air Dates: October 5, 1986 until September 27,1987 on NTV, Sunday nights at 9:00 pm

Director: Toru Murakawa, this episode's rating was 13.8%

Subs were one again done by GEO9875, this was one huge project to do so will give a huge thumbs up for doing the subs and hope the recaps gives the series it's proper justice. 

Main Cast: Wrote much of this up after viewing the first two shows and know there will be a lot of editing to the bios as we have so much to learn about the characters. The first two get the most screen time by far but the other four main characters are also very key to this drama. The setting is the Minato Police Station in the Naka ward of Yokohama and the station is part of the Kanagawa prefectural police. If you enjoy J-Pop songs then this show has some superb tunes, most know I'm a fan but do prefer the music from the 80's. Plus there's no beating the hairdos of women from that era! This series also goes by the name of....

 Hiroshi Tachi as Toshiki Takayama.... You'll see Taka often in the screenshots. He's about a 35 year old man who is an investigator of serious crimes and the gangsters go out of their way to avoid him! Takayama has a bit of a 'cool persona' about him and is an ace with guns, he's the partner of Oshita but seems they didn't start working closely together until the first episode. While both are aces with guns their methods also get them in hot water with their superiors but the pair usually come out on top at the end as far as solving cases go.

Kyohei Shibata as Yuji Oshita.... About the same age as Takayama but looks younger. During the first episode Oshita blurted out he's got a bit of a shady past and it surprised many he became a sergeant. He knows how to pick a lock and some other methods criminals use, sure we'll find out more as time goes on. Like his new partner Takayama he is quite adept using all guns, unlike his partner Oshita isn't much of a 'people person' as Takayama is the one who often interviews witnesses, criminals or others. 

Atsuko Asana as Kaoru Mayama.... Member of the Juvenile Division which shares the same office as the Investigative Unit which Takayama and Oshita are a part of. Karou has gone out to crime scenes with the detectives but they never let her get in on the real action. However she is a tough woman who used to be a regular officer and knows how to use a gun well.

Toru Nakamura as Toru Machida.... Not a rookie but hasn't been an inspector for all that long. Machida is the best fighter in the unit and also the women swoon over him but he does have a girlfriend which he said in the first show. 

Nana Kinomi as Yuko Matsumura.... How about that hairdo?! Yuko is the chief of the Juvenile Division but haven't seen her make much of a contribution to any cases so far. She does share some unknown secret from the past with the Investigative chief Kondo that took place ten years ago, will that become part of the story? She's also quite the 'Fashion Queen' who often shows up at the station in some new glittering outfit.

Shizuo Chujo as Takuzo Kondo.... Chief of the Investigation Unit, smart man but seems to be more concerned on what he'll be having for lunch! But at one time Kondo was feared by the Yokohama gangsters and has been on the force for thirty years.

 There's a few more minor characters such as the detective Yoshi, chief Tanaka and female officer Hitomi,  if their roles become larger will add them onto this list.

 

Previous recaps

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

Episode six .... Episode seven .... Episode eight .... Episode nine .... Episode ten

   

 

 Been doing a pair of these recaps about every five days for the past month and I'm still not a quarter of the way through the series yet! May slow down a bit with the recaps, even though I'm really enjoying this drama think if I watch too many that enjoyment level may go down. There are two other shows which have begun in the last week which I do want to view but unsure if either will get subbed and really hope they do. Like the previous episode there wasn't as much action as brains were once again needed over brawn and have been noticing Takayama has been dominating the screen time the last few shows.

 This was another episode where a pair of cases intertwined though Takayama and the rest of the investigators at the Minato precinct weren't aware of it for a while. In the top screenshot is Takayama meeting up with a hood named Kojima, Takayama had arrived at an apartment building for a wife had called up and said someone was threatening her husband with a knife. Which of course was a lie but the family didn't want the case to go any further, they said there was no knife in the 'incident' though Takayama did notice one sticking from the ceiling. Outside the apartment building Takayama had some words with Kojima who works freelance as a debt collector, mainly for the Ginsei clan. Takayama has been after them since the first episode and two shows ago did take down many of their henchman but they're so large it's impossible to take down the entire family. Takayama does have a history with Kojima and the pair do get along to a certain extent, Takayama could take the thug down to the station but only wants to arrest Kojima in the act of collecting a debt, they have a 'semi truce' going.

 That encounter is in the top two screenshots, in the third the man in the middle is named Shibano. We've seen him in a few other episodes and he works for the prefectural police, on the right is Takayama's chief Kondo. Shibano had been trailing Kojima and his office really wants to nail this debt collector, he'll pop up a few more times in this show but in the end it wasn't him who nailed Kojima. In that fourth screenshot is a 21 year old woman named Michiko, she had gone to the Minato station for some help. She's been receiving these letters with no return address that have odd messages in them, can the investigator Karou help her out? That is a tough enigma to crack, a letter with no return address, Oshita and Takayama felt Michiko could be being blackmailed and all will start on the case tomorrow. Michiko lives in Shinjuku which is outside the station's area but the letter was mailed in Minato. However there will be no more tomorrows for Michiko for as you can see in the second to last screenshot the following morning her dead body was found in a small river. The cause of death though was strangulation and Karou was beyond upset with what happened with this young woman though she did nothing wrong, these are the two cases that will merge into one.

 At the autopsy it was discovered that Michiko had drugs in her system. However the remains were old, say from two months ago so it appeared Michiko had quit during this period of time which isn't an easy thing to do. The investigators were wondering how she went about it but had noticed that Michiko wore a cross on her neck, could the help from quitting drugs have come from God? Michiko was strangled at Yamashita park which is a popular place for.... Peeping Toms(!), need to check out where that term came from. So perhaps one of those pervs had noticed the strangulation of Michiko or at least who she was with. Assigned to the task was Machida and Yoshi, both their roles have been getting larger. That's them in the second screenshot above and they've hit pay dirt as there was a 'Tom' at the park who saw Michiko. By the description it was a young man of 23 named Akamatsu who was a thug but not a man who was violent nor dealt drugs.

 A little more digging has discovered that Michiko was a promising young singer and as the investigators say above it's not cheap to become popular. So where had she been getting the cash for lessons, clothes, etc. and was Akamatsu somehow involved, first order of duty was to locate this goon. Which for some reason wasn't difficult as Oshita and Takayama found the young man at a Mah-Jong parlor but Akamatsu gave the the pair the slip and leapt out of a window. A perp eluding the pair happens often but the criminal never seems to fully leave Oshita and Takayama in the dust for good as they trapped Akamatsu in a passageway. That's the man in the bottom screenshot above and at the time Oshita had his pistol pointed at Akamatsu. But so didn't someone else and a few seconds later a shot was fired nicking Akamastu in the shoulder. Of all people it was Takayama's nemesis/ally Kojima who fired the rifle and was too far away to be caught. That really baffled Takayama, Kojima may be a low life debt collector and a goon but had never been known to be such a violent person.

 What else confused Takayama was that how did Kojima know who Akamatsu was and why would be want to shoot the man? Akamatsu's injury wasn't serious and was interrogated at the Minato police station where he gave the investigators many helpful clues. Akamastu admitted being at the park with Michiko when she was strangled but it wasn't him who did it as Akamatsu really liked her. The fiend was an older man named Tomioka who is in the second screenshot above, he worked a lot with Akamatsu though the pair really weren't partners. It was Tomioka who had started Michiko on drugs and was furious she had quit though all in all not 100% sure what other reasons Tomioka had to kill the young woman. Oshita and Takayama split up for a while to check out some potential leads. Oshita has found the man who sold both Tomoioka and Kojima their guns, it was a little shrimp named Joe. He's a known gun dealer but the pair can never seem to catch the man in the act of selling weapons but he did have the biggest lead of all for this case.

 Joe told Oshita that Tomioka had written a note on a message board to Kojima at the local train station, Oshita dashed there before it could be erased. That message told Kojima to be at the Shinka pier at 3:00 pm, it's now 2:35 pm and Oshita quickly contacted his partner Takayama. Who during this time was at the club where Michiko would do most of her singing. Yuriko was an older woman and also the owner, she asked Takayama if he knew about Kojima's history? Which Takayama didn't and the woman revealed ten years prior Kojima had been an up and coming Enka singer, looked like he would be a huge star. But one night he had been roughed up by some hooligans who damaged his throat meaning Kojima could no longer sing. Of course he was very bitter about what took place and it's why his life had spiraled all the way down to being a debt collector. But Yuriko told Takayama another interesting fact, Kojima had kept coming to her club and months ago had noticed the talented Michiko singing.

 Kojima knew she had the ability to make it big bit of course that takes a lot money for lessons, travel, clothes, recording sessions, etc. So those unsigned/unaddressed letters that Michiko had been getting were from Kojima and guess what.... they all had large sums of money in them, sometimes as much as 500,000 yen!!!! That cash had been coming from Kojima's profits as a debt collector, business much have been good. The club owner Yuriko knew what Kojima had been doing but no one else, if he couldn't get a good break in life then he wanted Michiko to. So that's why Kojima tried to gun down Akamatsu earlier though he was wasn't much at fault for what happened to Michiko. However the goon Tomioka was and Kojima is heading to the pier to settle things once and for all! Of course arriving on the scene was Oshita and Takayama who heard gunshots and dashed to the abandoned warehouse where they had come from. Tomioka had nicked Kojima in the arm but not bad enough to put him out of action, in all of his screenshots Kojima is the man wearing a cowboy hat.

 Tomioka was eventually trapped and was willing to surrender, would that mean Kojima wouldn't get his revenge for Michiko? He almost did as a 'cool' Takayama knew what Kojima went through, Takayama threw down his pistol and told Kojima 'do what you have to do'. That's why Oshita above was screaming to Takayama 'are you trying to make Kojima a murderer?'. Even though Tomioka was such a lowlife Oshita couldn't see an unarmed man shot to death so he fired his own pistol and knocked the gun out of Kojima's hand. So that wrapped up this case but it wasn't a happy conclusion for anyone. In the final seconds Oshita and Takayama had paid a visit to a church where they laid Michiko's cross as some sort of memorial to her. That word they use in the bottom screenshot Nanawabushi in Japanese means a sob story/song and this case definitely was. So that ends this recap and this is turning out to be one of my all time fave dramas, bet I've viewed close to 500. Will be back in about a week with the next pair of recaps and will also have some for the "Informa" series.