"Abunai Deka" drama: Episode seventeen 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 15.2%

Subs were once 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

Episode eleven .... Episode twelve .... Episode thirteen .... Episode fourteen

Episode fifteen .... Episode sixteen

   

 

 

 For today have the final two episodes of season two, first three seasons each had nine episodes. After today will be taking a minor break from the series, have viewed eighteen episodes in about seven weeks and will admit I am getting slightly worn out from so many. A three week break will clear my head and this drama being so ancient there's no rush to finish it quickly. Once these two posts are done will have the next two recaps for the "Informa" series which is currently airing and what an intense series that is. Then will focus more on the Korean drama "Taxi Driver" from 2021, have recapped the first two episodes and that too is one intense show. Whew, lastly will soon be watching an AKB drama from 2018 which may be their last group one to date and am looking forward to it, I do wait too long sometimes to view dramas.

 The first screenshot below is from about the 25 minute mark of this episode. The young investigator Machida had bene grappling with a drug dealer in a bath but finally subdued him, one of our 'heroes' Takayama was also there. The location was a bathhouse but not a men's one which meant.... it was a woman's bathhouse. Bring that up for I was a bit stunned at what was shown on prime time TV which was that the women in the scene were all naked..... and none of it was censored! That shocked me as didn't think nudity was allowed on regular TV but I certainly wasn't complaining, now that my heart has stopped racing so rapidly(!) let's get to the recap.... couldn't take any screenshots of that scene.

 Like every episode in season two this show began off with a lighthearted, humorous scene. Second screenshot above is from the scene where it's payday at the Minato police precinct. Once again our two main 'heroes' Oshita and Takayama couldn't stretch out their paychecks like their mates could as they ended up borrowing some $$ from everyone and now it's payback time! There was also a scene like this way back in the beginning, think the second episode. Borrowing money again will happen if the pair end up settling their debts as its an ongoing cycle, was there anyway these two could be saved? Yes, for at the front desk was a six year old boy who claimed to have witnessed a murder(!), Oshita and Takayama zoomed to help the youngster and for now can keep some cash in their pockets! That six year old boy is above in some screenshots, his name is Shohei who came to the station with his aunt Noriko. We learned later on that she's Shohei's main guardian as his father, her brother, is a sailor who is out on the sea nine months a year. Because of that Shohei's mother began an affair and eventually ran off with the man!

 Shohei and his aunt Noriko were visiting a ship that was docked in Yokohama harbor, it was open for visitors. While she was enjoying the view from the deck Shohei was checking out the rest of the ship and ended up below near the engine room. What he witnessed is in the third screenshot above, a man who was strangled to death. Shohei was noticed by the two men who did the evil act but hid and soon enough the men had to flee the ship. So Shohei's account of what took place was true but try telling that to Oshita and Takayama who investigated the crime scene. There was no body there and it being death by strangulation meant there was no blood so of course they ended up not believing the boy. However the following day a body washed up on the banks of the Shimayamashita canal, that's the bottom screenshot above. This man did die by being strangled and it looked like the body had been dumped into the canal, could Shohei been telling the truth?  Oshita and Takayama now believed so and went to visit the young boy again but after being shunned before by the pair he refused to talk with them.

 But there to save the day in the top screenshot was the Juvenile Division investigator Karou. Her unit works with those under the age of twenty and Karou's role has really increased in this second season. She hit it off well with Shohei and he'll help her out anyway he can so in a way Karou is now on this case. The Minato office wanted Shohei to give a description of the pair who did the murder but the boy only saw one face clearly. Being six meant Shohei couldn't give an accurate description of what this other man looked like so a drawing couldn't be made but if he sees the face again he'll remember the man! Karou did give the boy mugshots to look through but with no success. But there was immediate success in finding out the identity of this murdered man, his name was Hisashi Yagisawa. It was easy to find that info out for Yagisawa had been an officer for the Kanagawa Prefecture's Narcotic Division. Doing that line of work opened the door for so many possibilities, Oshita and Takayama are the main investigators for this case and paid the dead man's office a visit. Yagiasawa's superior was a man named Nakaya, that's him on the right in the fourth screenshot above.

 Nakaya claimed in the past that Yagisawa had been suspected of dealing the drugs the Narcotics Unit confiscated but nothing had ever been proved. Right from the get-go Takayama had his doubts about Nakaya and that story, Takayama may be a very tough man but is also a very astute one. Along with another investigator named Yoshi they tailed Nakaya along the streets of Yokohama where he was looking for any info about the murder of his colleague Yagisawa and even roughed up a few of the hoodlums. To Takayama Nakaya seemed to be going a bit too overboard with these thugs, was he really looking for info on why his mate died or was there something else sinister going on? As you can see in the bottom screenshot above the Minato investigators were at a standstill with this case, there must be so many dealers and others who wanted Yagisawa killed and where to begin? During this time Shohei and his aunt Noriko went back to their normal lives as the boy couldn't give anymore help.. However one of the killers from the ship discovered who Shohei was and where he lived, that made him a target. Which is what soon happened as while Shohei and Noriko were walking down the street a car zoomed up behind them and the aim was to eliminate Shohei! Which would have happened but Noriko pushed her nephew out of the way though in the process she was hit by the vehicle which sped away.

 Noriko was injured but after surgery was fine however she'll be laid up in the hospital for three months. For the time being Karou will be staying with Shohei and the pair do get along so well together. The detectives at the Minato police precinct have discovered his mother had taken off with that other man three years ago and settled down in Kawasaki. But she's now dumped this man and though Shohei claims to hate his mother for deserting him and his father Karou has deduced that's not true at all and her plan is to bring Shohei to Kawasaki the next day. Meanwhile Takayama is hard at work on the Yagisawa murder case, he was working with different investigators but at the end him and his partner Oshita teamed up once again to be victorious. Takayama was checking out the last case Yagisawa was working on, it had to deal with a pusher who used a floral shop as a front. Later on Takayama made an astute observation, if Yagasawa was spying on the man why would he also be supplying him with drugs? Takayama and a few others had a stakeout across the street disguised as painters, when they noticed a woman paying 30,000 yen for a pot of flowers they knew something was up! And there was for as you can see above Takayama found a small bag of cocaine in the pot, it was back to the flower shop to arrest this dealer.

 His name was Nonomura and at the Minato precinct the first assumption was that Yagiswa had been selling his office's confiscated drugs to this dealer, probably many others too. But as mentioned above something wasn't adding up right to Takayama and he was the only investigator to question all of the facts to date. Nonomura had confessed too easily in his opinion and Takayama was also curious about Yagisawa's supervisor Nakaya. He's the only one to say Yagisawa may have been doing something shady but was that just a story to throw Takayama and his mates off what was really taking place? The answer to that is a huge YES but where to get any evidence to tie these theories together? One other thing I almost forgot to mention was about Shohei. Him being at the murder scene was never released to the media so how did anyone know he witnessed the murder? There was a person outside of the Minato station who knew and that was Nakaya, could it have been him who was dealing the confiscated drugs and tried to kill the youngster? It's now the following day which is when Karou will be bringing Shohei to Kawasaki to see his mother. They hopped into a taxi but instead of heading to the train station this taxi went to a remote area of Yokohama. The driver stopped, turned around and pointed a gun at Karou and Shohei, is it the end of those two?

 I've been really impressed with Karou in this second season, to me she'd be a better fit working in the Investigative Division instead of dealing with juveniles. With the taxi not heading to the station Karou knew something foul was up, in a very wise move dropped her police ID out of the vehicle's window. When the taxi stopped and the trio got out Karou slipped out her revolver from her leg holster and shot this goon which allowed her and Shohei to escape. They ended up at the deserted Honmuko Base and as mentioned before every show's final scene is at an abandoned base, factory or warehouse. Soon another car of thugs arrived and were after the pair, Karou did hold her own and shot one of the gangsters but soon ran out of bullets. But dropping her police ID book paid off as a passing motorist saw it and reported that info to the Minato station, Very quickly Oshita, Takayama and the whole crew were there to save the day which happened but it did take a while. As the investigators were hunting for Karou and Shohei in this massive base the pair were finally cornered by one of the thugs, the man that Shohei remembered strangling Yagisawa. 

 Just when it looked like the two would be shot to death arriving in the nick of time as usual were Oshita and Takayama, you can see above the outcome of that goon. So a happy ending for Shohei who eventually did get reunited with his mother in Kawasaki. But the case wasn't quite over yet as there was one more man for Oshita and Takayama to arrest. That was Yagisawa's superior Nakaya and Takayama had been doing quite a bit of solid investigative work to bring this traitor down. Which paid off as he was able to dig up enough dirty acts by this narcotics officer, enough where the courts issued Takayama a warrant to arrest the man! So that ended off this episode and so far all seventeen episodes have been top notch and once again will say I do highly recommend checking this drama out. Plenty of screenshots below from this show and the next post is for episode eighteen.