"Informa" drama: Episode one recap

 

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

 Subs were done by Monchi at DA and 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.

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?

Ryo Tajima as Okabayashi.... A member of Saeki's gang and appears to be the brains of the team.

Wataru Ichinose as Kim.... Also a member of Saeki's gang who is their 'heavyweight'.

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..

 

 Been on a nice roll with dramas the last five months but the main thing not among those watches were recent suspense and action packed series. This is certainly will be one of them and the only thing I'm worried about will 25 minutes an episode be enough time as so much will be taking place. As mentioned in the beginning this show features Megumi and I've always had a soft spot for her. Did a post a few days ago for her first photobook which to me gets a grade of an A++++, may do another one of hers in the future. On to the recap and it should be a bit shorter than the recent ones I've done as the episodes are twenty minutes shorter.

 The most important character will be the Informa Keijiro but we didn't meet him for the first seven minutes, the most screen time may be for the young reporter Kanji. He works for the Weekly Times tabloid and to date the only jobs Kanji has dealt with were for celeb scandals and he's getting quite tired of it. Especially because celebs and sports figures aren't an easy bunch of people to cover and would rather be left alone. The final straw for Kanji came in the above top two screenshots, he had been following a star soccer player around who had ben cheating on his wife! This man was so irate with Kanji he decked him with one punch but least Kanji's video of the incident is drawing a lot of views on the Weekly Times video channel.

 The other four screenshots above are of the Weekly Times office, it's not a large place and not sure if it's a popular tabloid or not yet. Kanji was moaning about getting beat up again, he went to college to become a reporter and doing stories on celeb scandals wasn't the career he had wanted. That complaining over time has finally struck a nerve with Kanji's editor at the paper, that's Asuka(Megumi) above and she's about to offer Kanji something very different, an offer he may live to regret! Over the years there's been a rumor off man known as Informa who brings down many of the very, very shady people of society. Most people thought Informa was an urban legend but not according to Asuka, she's worked with this man in the past and if Kanji wants to cover hard stories how about working with Informa? That Kanji has agreed to and will be meeting this Informa man later in that day, his real name is Keijiro Kihara who is forty in age and is in the second to fourth screenshots below.

 I have viewed the first two shows but even after 46 minutes there's still a lot of unanswered questions, especially about the Informa Keijiro. For the last five years Keijiro has been living outside of Tokyo, there was a very tragic incident five years ago which has been referred to but none of the major details have been revealed yet. Save for the fact that an associate of Keijiro's was named Junk who was killed, after he met Kanji he began to call him Junk(#2). Keijiro was hoping to work with the editor Asuka again but that wasn't possible, Keijiro though is looking forward to breaking in Kanji to be 'a man'. The pair did meet up and think for the rest of the series the duo will be a team though in Kanji's case it'll just be about reporting on what Keijiro does. After not being in Tokyo for five years Keijiro will be there for the rest of the drama, at first he went around getting reunited with his old mates.

 Over the years what Keijiro has done is to bring ruin to the most shady characters in society, such as politicians, celebs and whoever else, how he works we'll be learning more of as the series goes on. For now it doesn't appear as though Keijiro has one specific case but by the end of the show that'll be changing. In the second to last screenshot above is a politician named Yamamoto who right on the streets of Tokyo had been kidnapped by a group off three, they're a gang but an unnamed one so far. We had seen a scene where the group was offered $2.2 million to kill off some unrelated people, they agreed and their first target was Yamamoto. He's Japan's minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Yamamoto has been ordered to be killed by another small group of people who appear to be higherups in the Japanese government. This gang is so efficient when it comes to killing people, the main man in the group is the one in the above bottom screenshot and his name is Saeki. He is so ruthless and didn't bat an eyelash when he set Yamamoto on fire which for the first few killings will be his MO.

 The other two men working with Saeki are Okabayashi who is the 'brains' of the group, the third man is a goon named Kim who is the group's 'muscleman'. Saeki just couldn't burn the minister Yamamoto to death, he also had to put a gas mask on him for added ruthlessness. Then a door was opened to a crowded street with Yamamoto running frantically around while on fire as you can see above, the gas mask allowed him to live for an extra few minutes. Of course the fire extinguished Yamamoto's life with Saeki and his pals watching from the shadows. Coming out of a local hostess club at the time was Keijiro with of course Kanji in tow, the pair watched the final few seconds of Yamamoto's life. Once the politician was officially dead Saeki and his mates got into a vehicle to leave the scene. But not before being noticed by Keijiro who swore he's seen this ruthless man before but where, plus was he involved in this brutal killing?

 So now Keijiro will be on a case for Kanji to report about but that won't be happening until the next episode. A key question I have after two shows is how does Keijiro finance his activities? Doesn't appear he works for anyone and isn't liked by many as he's brought down so many scandal ridden people, another thing we'll be learning about. In the bottom two screenshots above is a detective who who works for the Tokyo Police's organized crime unit. His name is Maruyama and he does have a history with Keijiro who seems to have helped the detective out on cases in the past. As you can see Maruyama refers back to the incident which took place five years ago and beginning in the next episode Keijiro will be helping out the detective slightly on this case. That scene ended this first episode and a lot was thrown at us at once though there's more questions than answers at this point. More screenshots to help you follow the action a bit better and the next post is the recap for the second episode.