"Abunai Deka" drama: Episode 24 of 51(!!!!) recap(season three, episode six)

 

 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 18.0%

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:  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 him referred to as 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.... that may have been a lie.

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.

  In the third season the roles of Yoshi and Tanaka have become much larger, will add them in for season four. In the two screenshots below Yoshi is on the left, Tanaka is right next to him.

 

Previous recaps: There's 51 episodes but they were divided into six seasons, there was no break between them. Season one was episode one to nine, second season was ten through eighteen and this third will run from the nineteenth until the 27th episode. 

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 .... Episode seventeen .... Episode eighteen

Episode nineteen .... Episode twenty .... Episode twenty-one .... Episode twenty-two

 

 Don't need a longish intro like what was needed in the previous recap. Three more shows to go after today for the third season and was going to take a break before beginning on the fourth. But there's two current airing dramas that are being subbed which I will be recapping and need to wait for a few more episodes to be done. So will either begin on season four or could do something completely different and start recapping the 2018 series "Werewolf Game: Lost Eden" which finally got subbed a few weeks back. Not as much action in this show or at least compared to many of the prior episodes. But we did learn that the coolish investigator Oshita is kind of a softie and for the first time showed his human side though his partner Takayama wasn't quite too thrilled seeing his buddy's compassion or least for most of the show.

 This show began off with Oshita on a solo night patrol, not much of a patrol as he slipped into a seedy bar to have a few lagers. At the jukebox was a young man who desperately wanted to hear the oldie song "A Horse With No Name" from 1972, it was an oldie then and much more so now! We never did hear the tune during this show and you can even see Oshita above much later requesting it on a radio show but the DJ said No Way!!!! Back at that bar the young man had lost his coins in the jukebox and began hitting the top of the machine. The bartender became a bit irate and said this man would have to pay for damages though he machine was already broken! Oshita tried to be the peacemaker but didn't have much of a chance as two men rushed into the bar and were about to pummel this youngster. Oshita thought they looked like some Yakuza thugs, he put them down easily and fled the bar with this young man. Who was the key guest character for his show, he was a twenty year old named Ryo Narita. He and Oshita hit it right off and Ryo said the tune he wanted to play was the favorite one of his junior high school teacher Yoko Kitamura who he hadn't seen for five years.

 Ryo did have such a crush on his ex-teacher but with Yoko being about ten years older he knew there would be no chance of dating her but he really needs to see her one final time, why? Supposedly Oshita was a bit of a roughneck when he was Ryo's age(20) but we still haven't learned any of the details. Oshita could tell that Ryo was so much like him when he was that age which was one reason he took a liking towards him. He bid Ryo farewell and never expected to see the young man again but did the following morning. In the middle screenshot above is Oshita's chief at the Minato precinct Kondo, he heard all about Oshita's scuffle at the bar and why hadn't he patrolling? To top it off Kondo let Oshita know they weren't thugs that he had pummeled but two detectives from the Yamanashi PD!!!! They had traveled to Yokohama to pick up Ryo for he was wanted for the murder of a police officer! Which Ryo did confess to later on to Oshita who by now had been joined by his partner Takayama. Ryo said the killing was in self defense as a pair of Yamanashi officers were beating his friend up, Ryo jumped in to help his mate. He hit one of the officers so hard it led to his death, since then Ryo has been on the run. So after that brief questioning the chief ordered Oshita to bring Ryo back to Yamanashi to atone for his errant ways. Takayama would be joining him, the time was 9:30 am and they had until 3:00 pm to deliver Ryo, Yamanashi is only 85 or so miles from Yokohama.

 Have a brief detour from the main case as there was one other minor storyline which I didn't think was all that good. Perhaps it could have been but there wasn't much time devoted to it. In the above top screenshot are the two other investigators who we've been seeing much more in this third season. On the right is Yoshi, on the left is Tanaka and the pair had led a raid on a store selling illegal adult videos. We did learn that Tanaka is a fan of those, Yoshi isn't as he's married with children. Tanaka secretly took one, who would miss one out of two thousand? Back at the Minato station the Juvenile Unit investigator Kaoru had discovered the video and thought it was a legit movie! She ended up giving it to a former woman who had been arrested but has cleaned her act up and was getting married. Luckily Kaoru was able to get the video back for Tanaka, think it was supposed to be a humorous story but didn't turn out that way. One other thing Yoshi and Tanaka were involved in was finding the body of a man named Hiroaki Numata and that's in an above screenshot. Numata had been killed the night before and a witness saw a suspicious man in the area that night though didn't see his face but by the description it just may be Ryo!!!!

 Who at the time was being transported to Yamanashi by Takayama and Oshita, the ETA as mentioned was supposed to be 3:00 pm but their arrival was over four hours later! While Oshita got along so well with Ryo and was really supporting him Takayama had the opposite view of this young hooligan, as he reminded Oshita this young man killed a police officer! It was getting close to lunch and Oshita wanted to make sure Ryo had a nice send off meal so a quick stop was made to a restaurant. During this time  Ryo was still a bit upbeat though he knew a prison sentence of over five years was in his future, no problem he kept saying! Takayama kept telling him prison is no walk in the park and Ryo had no idea how cruel of a place it could be. At this restaurant a young group of punks passed by their table and happened to knock into Ryo who wanted to fight them. 'Hold On!' muttered Oshita and said Ryo needs to learn violence doesn't solve anything, watch a master in action! Oshita is the complete opposite of his partner Takayama who is so adept at defusing a situation, before you knew it Oshita was in a scrap with these punks! There was no problem taking these goons out and Takayama even helped out but the main leader escaped. During the melee Ryo too fled but instead of seeking freedom he ran after this thug and gave this creep a beating also, perhaps he could survive in prison. That's all above and the bottom and below screenshot shows the junior high school Ryo attended.

 As said a few times Oshita really thought Ryo deep down was a good person, perhaps if he wasn't going to prison Oshita could help him out. Takayama is also beginning to like Ryo to an extent, after the scuffle in the restaurant he could have escaped but instead remained and took care of that fleeing thug. Oshita wanted to do one last favor for Ryo which was to bring him to his old school so he could have a final meeting with his favorite teacher/crush Yoko, that's her above in many screenshots. Ryo went into the school by himself where he learned that Yoko had resigned a month before and was working at a place called Heiwa Equipment. A secretary at the school told Ryo, also later on Takayama and Oshita, that a Yakuza creep had been hounding Yoko and it appeared he forced her to quit. Ryo was furious when he heard that tale and slipped out of the school's back door. Shortly after Takayama and Oshita entered the school where they heard what had taken place, now the hunt for Ryo is on but he may not be too hard to locate. 

 Even Takayama wasn't too disappointed with Ryo's actions as he wanted revenge for his ex-teacher Yoko. She did instill into Ryo that learning is so important, maybe if she was his high school teacher Ryo's life wouldn't be in shambles. In the second to last screenshot above is the investigator's chief Kondo wondering what happened to Takayama and Oshita? You can see that the time on the clock behind him read 3:00 pm and the pair were still in Yokohama! Ryo had called up Yoko at her new office and they arranged to meet immediately at her apartment. Arriving a bit late to nab Ryo was Takayama and Oshita though Yoko was still there. She wasn't as fine of a woman as Ryo made her out to be and Takayama had warned him young women can change quite a bit in five years. Yoko revealed so much info to the investigators, such as that her fiancee' Abe was the person who had killed Numata the night before! Numata had a long history of blackmailing women and he did so to Yoko but it was never said what dirt he had on her but she was forced to quit her teaching position. Yoko had heard that a suspicious person was seen around her apartment building the night before, Ryo had said it was him but didn't have the nerve to knock at her door. The witness that saw Ryo didn't notice his face but did see he was wearing a bright green jacket, that was why the Minato police also thought Ryo could be the killer of Numata.

 So Abe had killed Numata to avenge the blackmailing he had done to his future wife Yoko. But because of what Numata had done Yoko's past had become a bit shady, the only way to clean it up completely was by getting rid of the last person who knew her well and that was Ryo! Yoko told Abe about the witness and how they saw that unknown person in a green jacket, seems that person may have seen Abe commit the crime and Yoko said to eliminate Ryo! Yoko never did tell Abe that Ryo had no clue about any murder and wasn't a witness to anything, she did end up not being the dream woman Ryo thought she was. For Yoko had set an ambush up for Ryo at the Nogeyama Park pool, she told him the Yakuza that had been blackmailing her would be there and could he settle things up for her? However Yoko had also told Abe that witness that could finger him for Numata's murder would be there so Ryo would be walking into a trap, all that she confessed to Takayama and Oshita. Takayama was so furious with this woman Yuko and did speak to her quite harshly, after not liking Ryo at first he's also become a bit fond of this young man.

 Our heroes made it to the pool in the nick of time and that's become so common in this series. That's Abe in the third and fourth screenshots above, he had Ryo in his sights. There's no better sharpshooter than Takayama who winged Abe in the arm and saved Ryo's life, once again the investigators used some unorthodox methods to solve a case but as usual it all worked out well. They never told Ryo that Abe wasn't the Yakuza thug harassing Yoko as not to smash the image he had built up of her, that's Takayama at the end musing about that. Just before that Ryo had finally been delivered to the Yamanashi station and was placed under arrest for killing an officer. Both our heroes were quite upset knowing Ryo would be facing a long prison term and you could see the pain they felt during that scene. Takayama and Oshita had arrived at the Yamanashi PB at 7:30 pm, over four hours late and were berated by the station's chief. The two investigators reamed this chief out even worse and that man was fuming when they left hut was powerless to do anything about it. So that concludes this recap and while viewing this show it didn't appear to be as good as most others. But often when I write these up my opinion does change and it did so for this episode which was another solid show. Three more shows to go in season three, the next pair of recaps will be done within the week.