"Actress" drama: Episode seven of eight recap

 

 Air Dates: April 14th until June 2, 2023... Friday nights at 1:00 am on Lemino

Eight episodes that were ~32 minutes in length, suns done by WeStillSubbing

As was the case with the "Borderless" drama this was based on a novel by Teteuya Honda

Main Cast: There's no Wiki page nor did the Lemino site have any info on the characters and such. This is a sequel to the "Borderless" drama that aired in 2021 and takes place five years after that show took place. The setting in that previous drama was a small town in Saitama, now most of the action takes place in Tokyo. Four of the six main characters returned except for the sisters Haru and Kei, that was probably because Risa graduated but she still could have appeared in this drama. There's so little info out there about the series and characters so sure there will be a lot of editing to this above section, wrote most of this up after viewing the first two episodes and there are some characters we haven't seen much of yet. Kyoko, Hikaru, Yui and Seira were all in the previous drama.

Kyoko Saito(Hina) as Kiri Katayama.... In the other drama Kiri had been an aspiring novelist and still is at the age of 23. She did attend college and after became a writer/director/actress of stage plays. Besides that dream of being a writer Kiri also had some thoughts about being a detective as the other series revolved around a murder case which she helped solve. For the first four shows we didn't see Kiri in any present day setting as she's been missing for over four days, what we saw of her were flashback scenes from the last few months. Kiri is currently writing a web novel titled "Escape Beyond" which has been popular but there's been a huge downside. Which is that the credit is going to an actress named Kanna and Kiri is just going along with this charade as she had been in debt because of her producer running off with the money from her last production! That novel was the same one Kiri had written in the "Borderless" drama but in that show it was unfinished, it's now complete. 

 Hikaru Morita(Keya) as Nao Mori.... Kiri's best friend in high school though the pair didn't meet until they were seniors. She's also 23 in age and in a shock Nao attended the police academy and did graduate eventually becoming a detective in the Violent Crimes unit. However three months before drama was taking place Nao quit the force and is working as an investigator for the Wada Tooru Detective Agency. At this new agency Nao is partnered up with Tomomi and the pair seem to be very close. Nao hasn't seen Kiri for over two months and is worried about her disappearance. Nao had quit the force to stay home with her mother who had cancer however it soon went into remission. Nao had help getting this new investigative job from Kotone, the two weren't close but knew each other well enough as both lived in the same small town.

Rei Ozono(Keya) as Tomomi Tagawa.... Also an investigator at the detective agency and as mentioned is partnered up with Nao. To date know zero about Tomomi's past but she is so gung-ho as a detective and is just so observant plus very deductive. She impresses Nao to no end who may think deep down why didn't Tomomi join the police force? Though she's never met Kiri she's the one who is mainly leading the case about her disappearance. Tomomi is friends with Kotone as both had gone to high school together and have remained in touch though Tomomi is now living in Tokyo and is one year younger than Kotone.

 Yui Kobayashi(Keya) as Kotone Nakajima.... In the previous series her last name was Ichihara but in the five years since that ended Kotone married her childhood friend Kazushi and they have a three year old daughter. Kotone is still working at her father's coffee/tea shop called Cafe Dominant located in a small town in Saitama, the family lives in the back. As mentioned she does know Tomomi from years ago as Kotone was her senpai in high school and the pair have remained friends. Kotone only knew Kiri slightly but is aware of her disappearance and think she eventually joins the case to find her.

 Seira Hayakawa(Nogi) as Kanon Ichihara.... Kotone's sister who is three years younger and lives with her sister's family in the back of the cafe. Through three episodes we've only seen Kanon in two short scenes so have no clue what is up with her, in the previous drama she was an aspiring musician who wanted to attend college in Tokyo, do know she currently has a broken leg.

Ririka Ito(Nogi) as Kanna Mase.... Perhaps the most key figure in this drama though she was murdered at the end of the first episode!!!! Kanna was a very popular actress and one with a swelled head though of course was always an Angel around her fans. Kanna was not a writer and didn't like books but was convinced by her manager to begin a web book called "Escape Beyond", three chapters have been released which have been extremely popular. But Kanna had no hand in writing this story as 100% of it was written by Kiri(!) and could that have played a part in her death? Also there's a copycat criminal who has done some of the violent happenings in the first three chapters such as killing cats. In the soon to be released fourth chapter there was a person killed, could this copycat criminal be following what took place in the story? If so how did he know of what would be taking place in the new chapter?

Learned in the sixth episode her real first name is Kazumi.

Runa Hayashi as Mari Mizuta.... Mainly goes by the nickname of Mickey and she also may have another alias of Miki Amano. Mari had been staying at Kiri's apartment up until the time of her disappearance, she was also an actress who appeared in her plays. Mari does have some useful info about Kiri but when she tried to contact Kotone about it had been struck by a car and until the end of the third episode was laying unconscious at a hospital.

 The above seven were from the three Sakamichi groups, there are more characters who are below. As mentioned there was no info anywhere on most of the cast save for the above seven so for now will just list the character's name and a bit of info, sure more will be added in.

Runa Hayashi as Rie Kato.... Didn't learn until the seventh episode her last name is Kato and we didn't see much of her until the sixth episode. Rie was Kanna's assistant and just may have seen her killer who could also also have been stalking her, will that put her life in danger too? Don't think so as in the sixth episode I got a strong impression that Rie was involved in the murder. In a bit of a shock we learned in the seventh show she's Kanna's older sister!

Kounoso.... Kanna's manager at the Delight Agency, seems like a decent man though he did rope in Kiri to write that web novel and he too was looking into her disappearance.

 Kuzushi Nakajima.... Kotone's husband for about four years and the pair had been childhood friends in that small town in Saitama, no idea what he does for a living yet and that's him in the middle.

Oki.... Publisher of Kanna's web novels and while we haven't seen much of him yet think this role may become larger, that's him on the right below. In the seventh show we learned he had been in  a relationship with Rie and he too thinks she may have killed Kanna!

Wada.... Owns the Wada Tooru Detective Agency where Nao and Tomomi work. He seems like a decent chap and his assistant is named Okura who is in the middle below. Wada is retired from the Tokyo PD where he worked in the First Investigative Unit.

 As mentioned more characters will be added in as we've heard of some other names but haven't met them yet. If you didn't view the "Borderless" drama or read the recaps have the links to that drama's final two episodes if you want to learn more on how that ended and about the returning characters.

Episode nine .... Episode ten

 Short promo video for the drama which is worth a view, don't think there are any videos for each episode. There could be but the Lemino YT channel isn't available in America.

 

Links to the dramas previous recaps

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

Episode five .... Episode six

 That opened this show but of course the trio have had quite a bit of help from Kotone. For the final time did do a bit more editing to the above characters. One more episode to go after this, haven't viewed that yet and won't until this is complete. In that next post will have my final rating, for the "Borderless" series gave that a 8.8/10. That's solid but think this will be .3 or so lower unless the last episode is the best one. Something that may get a rating of 10/10 is the way Rei has looked in this drama!!!! May be hard to tell from the screenshots but she has truly never looked better and she's moved way up on my list of fave Keya members, WOWOWOWOW!!!!

 After these two recaps are done may take a break of 2-3 weeks from drama viewing unless I can find another mini series such as this one. Up next will be the second season of "Taxi Driver" but wanted to wait until about mid-September until starting on it. Do have a small pile of Korean horror films to watch so perhaps doing reviews for them is a better option, Korean dramas aren't too popular here but the posts for horror films do draw a high amount of views. Let's get to this episode which was another solid one but thought the first four shows have been the best to date. Took 38 screenshots for this episode which may seem like a lot but up until now had been taking 45-50.

 We didn't see her in this show but the previous one ended with the woman in the top screenshot. Her name is Iinuma who is a reporter for the Weekly Real tabloid. She's been doing a lot of investigating on the murder of the actress Kanna Mase and has dug up more than the police or the trio of Kiri, Nao and Tomomi. Iinuma knows that Kiri wrote the web novel "Escape Beyond" which Kanna had taken credit for. Iinuma has done much more digging into the people associated with Kanna such as Kiri, could her bitterness have driven her to kill the actress? Of course not but Kiri and her mates refused to answer any of Iinuma's questions which may prove to be a mistake. That's because the next morning Iinuma will be printing a story about Kanna's murder and by some things she said it won't be putting Kiri in a good light. So the trio have less than a day to solve the case and prevent the story from being published, can they do it? It being a drama my money will be on the girls being successful.

 We did see Hieda aka Zoomi briefly twice this episode for a minute and didn't think he would be seen again, Zoomi was his blog name and he had kept Kiri as a hostage for five days. He knew Kanna better than anyone else, the detective team thought Kanna may have had a secret boyfriend who wasn't her manager Kounosu, if anyone would know it would be Hieda. Which was a good try but even he didn't know about a secret lover who may have killed Kanna in a possible rage but Hieda had quite the bombshell for them. Which was that Kanna's personal secretary Rie was actually.... her older sister!!!! That came out of nowhere and that could prove to be the most key clue to date in solving the murder of Kanna. None of the team of Kiri, Nao or Tomomi had met Rie yet and where can she be found? The trio did ask Kanna's ex-manager Kounosu if Rie may have also had a secret boyfriend, that's him above. He wasn't sure but if anyone could have been it would be a man named Oki who is in the bottom two screenshots above. He's been the publisher of the web novel "Escape Beyond" and was one of the few that knew Kiri was the actual writer, meeting this man was the most logical next step.

 We've seen Oki here and there up until now but his role hasn't been all that large. He was an important figure in this show and could be in the finale too. Oki did admit he's been seeing Rie and he must be 15-20 years older. In that first screenshot above he did blurt out that he did think Rie was a woman who could have killed her sister. However Oki claimed on the night/morning of Kanna's gruesome murder he was with Rie at his apartment. When pressed further by Kiri he did admit that no one else had seen the pair and the trio of sleuths will just have to take his word for it. Oki had a lot of info stored in him as he soon revealed that Rie was currently staying at his apartment as the media pressure about her sister's murder was just too overwhelming for her. Our Ace detectives believed everything that Oki said as he did seem sincere and was quite open. On some things he wasn't as revealing and the girls soon left but will be making a return trip to Oki's office in about ten minutes.

 While Tomomi was out getting her car from the parking garage the old best friends Kiri and Nao had a mini conversation, few of those screenshots are above. So while the trio have learned some useful info they're still at square one and it looks like there's no way the crime will be solved today to prevent that article from being published in the morning. Kiri did also talk about her parents for the first time and how ashamed they were of her choosing a career in the Theater, Kiri also wondered if her "Escape Beyond" novel may be a reason for the death of Kanna. Shortly after rushing back to the office was Tommi with some urgent news, she said to check the dead Kanna's Blog! There was a message there that was just published that morning from all people.... the murdered Kanna!!!! The message said 'Thank you for everything and goodbye', obviously Kanna couldn't have written it and the girls rushed back into Oki's office. They showed him that message which stunned Oki to no end, to Kiri it was clearly a suicide note.

 Right above is Kotone and we saw so little of her in this episode as the main focus was on Kanna's murder case which is taking place in Tokyo. Kotone was at her small Saitama town but at the end of the episode she did pay a second visit to Kiri's family house so we should be seeing much more of her in the final show. Of course if it was a suicide note at Kanna's page as there was no way it could have been written by her, the only other person who could have done such a thing was her older sister Rie! This incident has made Oki a bit more honest/open, he admitted at the time of Kanna's murder Rie wasn't with him and though he didn't want to admit it Rie truly could be the killer. He related a mini story to the gals when he last saw Rie which was the previous day at his office. She had wanted Oki's company to publish Kanna's inspiring Blog messages as a book for a farewell gift to her fans though most seem to have realized that it was Rie that did the writing, During the conversation it also appeared to Oki that Rie was insanely jealous of Kanna as she felt Oki had a crush on her which was far from the truth. Oki couldn't stand Kanna and truly did like Rie who isn't as level headed as she seemed.

 In the background of that potential suicide note there was a tower which the trio had been able to see from Hieda's house in Kitamoto. So one thing has been determined which is the whereabouts of Rie, Oki wants to clear this mess up too and will drive the girls to the location. Once again during the drive Oki did say that he felt Rie was capable of killing Kanna, that's above and if so why would he have been dating her? In the final few seconds we did see Rie on a road in front of that tower, it appeared she set up some sort of mini shrine for he sister just off the road, with that this episode came to it's conclusion. That wraps up this recap, the one for the final episode is the next post and haven't viewed that show yet. Every episode has been very solid but think what may have helped make things better were if the shows were five minutes longer or perhaps two more episodes.