"Informa" drama: Episode five recap

 

 Air Dates: January 19th until March 24th on Kansai TV, Thursday nights at 12:25 am

 Subs were done by Magicstar at NYAA, episodes are ~24 minutes in length. This drama is based upon a novel by Garyu Okita that came out on December 5, 2022 so not a long wait until it became a show, it will also be a manga.

Main Cast: Sure there will be some updating as we go along but it appears after two episodes the top two characters will easily have the most screen time. Its nice to see Megumi whose role is a medium sized one yet important. She was a fave actress of mine for a while and was also a popular gravure model back in the 2000's, she's now 41 in age but still looks terrific to me. Hopefully won't have to add any more names to this list, it's only a 25 minute show but what a large cast.

Kenta Kiritani as Keijiro Kihara.... The 'Informa' in the series which is the Japanese word for informant. Which is what Keijiro is and he has his hands in so many shady activities involving celebs, politicians and criminals. There was a sordid affair five years ago that forced Keijiro to leave Tokyo but he's returned for good in the first episode.

Reo Sano as Kanji Mishima.... Young reporter for the Weekly Times newspaper, Kanji's wish was to have beefier stories and he may come to regret that wish!

Megumi as Asuka Nagasawa.... Editor of the Weekly Times newspaper which is a tabloid mainly reporting on celeb scandals and such. But Asuka does have a background in hard news and it was her who told Kanji to work with Keijiro aka the Informa.

Yasushi Fuchikami as Kyosuke Kawamura.... We didn't meet him until the second episode. Keijiro's 'younger brother' but just in the Yakuza sense of being brothers. The two are very close and Kawamura is the leader of the Mugurama group.

Go Morita as Saeki.... What a ruthless man who is a contract killer, supposedly from overseas but he is a Japanese man. Though very ruthless Saeki is also quite intelligent and careful which is why he's been a killer for so long.

Toru Hakozaki.... Older reporter for the Weekly Times.

Kana Kita as Nana.... Works at a hostess club and has known Keijiro for many years. She has a five year daughter and is the father Kawamura? No, it was revealed in episode five who the real father was Nana's husband Ainosuke however he was shot to death five years ago just before the birth of his child.

Ryo Tajima as Okabayashi.... A member of Saeki's gang and appears to be the brains of the team but can be a brutal person when needed.

Wataru Ichinose as Kim.... Also a member of Saeki's gang who is their 'heavyweight'. Kim is a Korean but was born in Japan, Tokyo's Korean town.

Kazuya Takahashi as Katsuji Maruyama.... Detective with the Metro Police and their organized crime division, he has a long history with Keijiro.

Mototaka Mishimura as Mizukoshi.... Maruyama's partner..

  

Previous recaps

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

 It's been a few weeks since the last pair of recaps were done so may help to read how the fourth show ended, on an intense cliffhanger and so didn't this episode! But a lot of what took place before that is also very important and won't be referring back to what took place that often. Subs for the sixth show haven't been done yet, am writing this up on February 18th, so viewed this episode before they were done. Which isn't a bad thing as the ending to this episode was rather shocking plus very intense and with not watching the next show yet won't spoil anything.

 There were two cliffhangers to end off the previous episode, let's get to them first to see how they turned out and they did merge into one story. First was that Kawamura and his gang had been able to abduct the goon Kim who is a member of Saeki's hit squad, that's Kim beaten badly above. That was courtesy of Kawamura and despite getting beaten so bad still wouldn't reveal any secrets about his gang. Kawamura then departed the scene which was at an abandoned night club, taking over the grilling was our 'anti-hero' Keijiro, sometimes you'll see his last name Kihara in screenshots. He was a bit more successful in getting Kim to reveal the location of the gang's hideaway which was a pet store run by a gun dealer. Keijiro was able to get Kim talking for Kawamura's henchmen had broken into Kim's mother's house in the Korean town section of Tokyo. He had an ultimatum, tell us where your mates are or else your mother may be the next in the family to be beaten!

 Kim did open up and told about the pet shop where two of Kawamura's henchmen went to, not a bright idea. They were beaten badly by Saeki and some of his goons, now Kim's info is useless and Keijiro is beside himself with anger! Keijiro and Kawamura often refer to the other as brother, they're not related but many years ago had been part of the same Yakuza clan. The other cliffhanger was with Kawamura, after he left Kim in Kejiro's hands he headed to his deluxe apartment building. Waiting there was the contract killer Saeki and about a dozen of his hired goons, instead of doing away with Kawamura they just took him as hostage as he could be a nice bargaining chip which he was.... then again maybe not! That will be explained at the end, though a ruthless killer Saeki is very intelligent and also careful, he wanted to know how Kawamura somehow discovered he had entered Japan but received no answer. Right above is Saeki's right hand man Okabayashi who can also be ruthless when it's needed, he's on the phone with Keijiro and a swap of Kim and Kawamura has been set up for that night.

 A man we saw quite a bit of in the first four shows was Kanji who is in the third screenshot and to an extent the two above that. He's a reporter for the Weekly Times tabloid, his editor Asuka above had assigned him to follow Keijiro around to report and film everything going down with the case, The case had to deal with two being murdered and a third being targeted which is why reading the previous recaps will definitely help. But at the end of the fourth show Kanji quit being Keijiro's personal reporter, he had watched Kim getting beaten badly and just couldn't take the violence any more. In those three screenshots he's with a hostess named Nana who knows Keijiro so well. She was with her five year old daughter Ai and Kanji was roped into going to her birthday party. After that Kanji visited Nana's apartment and learned some key info, so didn't us viewers, Her husband Ainosuke had been Keijiro's chauffer five years ago and it was him who had been killed in an ambush. The daughter Ai hadn't been born yet so Kawamura had been acting as sort of a 'stand-in father'.

 So that cleared that up as I had thought all along that Kawamura may have been the father of Nana's daughter. Kanji knows now that being around Keijiro can only lead to tragedy yet bet Kanji will return to him soon. For now the older reporter Hakozaki has taken Kanji's place reporting on the activities of Keijiro, that's him right above. Also above is a screenshot showing a photo of Saeki and his two mates entering Japan. Looking at that photo was Maruyama who is a detective for the Tokyo organized crime division. He knows Keijiro well who had told Maruyama that Saeki has a mole in his division, not only that but it seems the higherups could be under Saeki's control. The meeting to swap Kim and Kawamura has been set up for 9:00 pm at a restaurant named Club M. It's approaching that time so let's go to that action packed, intense scene which was the final one of the episode.

 On to the thrilling conclusion for this episode and the screenshots above are from the final scene. That took place at the restaurant Club M which appears to be a place where the underground does many of it's deals, the owners don't mind just as long as the bodies are disposed of! First on the scene was Keijiro with a few of Kawamura's gang plus the hostage Kim, though badly beaten not one diner raised an eyebrow. Appearing less than a minute later was Saeki who had his hostage Kawamura, the exchange was swiftly made and to Keijiro all is squared up so Saeki and his army can leave. Right at this point we viewers noticed such a change in the atmosphere of the restaurant, Saeki had no plans on departing and sat down as if he was going to order a dinner. Keijiro was all prepared, least he thought he was, for an incident happening as he had stuck a pistol under the table and before Saeki could make a move he fired it! However no bullets came flying out as they had been removed and Saeki one upped Keijiro on that trick.

 Soon two of Kawamura's henchmen tried to smother Saeki to no avail as they were quickly taken out, Saeki had a much larger force. At this time all of the diners rose from their tables and left the restaurant, of course all had been plants of Saeki's! Though a lot happened this scene couldn't have lasted for more than four minutes. The bartender then appeared at the table with a drink for Keijiro who said he didn't order it which was the case. However it was all a ruse as within two seconds this bartender had used a taser on Keijiro and as you can see above he was out for the count. Saeki scripted everything out so meticulously, besides being an ace contract killer he's so intelligent when it comes to planning out crimes. Saeki then rose from the table, without a word pulled out his gun and shot Kawamura to death! All this had been filmed by the reporter Hakozaki who had been noticed by Kim so don't know if he'll be added to the killed list! All this took place in the last half minute, with five seconds to go Saeki turned his gun on the writhing Keijiro and is this the end of our 'anti-hero'? Would think not as there's five episodes to go and an odd thing happened writing this up. The sixth episode's subs were done(!) so will now get to that, the recap for that is the next post but will hold off a day or two before publishing these posts.