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

 

 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:  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.

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. **** We haven't seen her for many episodes so may end up deleting this character after this recap.

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: 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

   

 

 Glad I started back on this series and the plan is to recap all 51 episodes though that wouldn't be completed until next year. Did do it near the top but once again will give a huge thanks to GEO9875 for subbing this entire series which was one huge project. Dramas these days are still mostly decent but when you view these older shows you notice how much better they were, certain things like cell phones these days are a such huge negative plus the stories were so much more interesting. Korean drama and movie posts usually draw a decent amount of views, that doesn't happen too often with ones from Japan. When I did the first batch of eighteen recaps back in February and March they drew about 50-75 views. But as time has gone on almost all are now over 200 so will give a thanks to you viewers for checking these posts out and do highly recommend this series.

 Right above is my favorite character from this show who is the investigator/detective Takayama, have seen him in many other dramas too. But in the previous episode he only had about 3-4 minutes of screen time as a few of the medium sized characters had the spotlight which is needed in dramas. However Takayama was back in full force in this show and don't think it'll be a spoiler but for about the third time in twenty shows was wounded by a gun shot though of course recovered which is bad news for the endless supply of Yokohama thugs! Enough of an intro and on to what took place in this show, hope to have the next pair of recaps done by the end of this week.

 You would think with a series having 51 episodes airing on 51 consecutive weeks the stories would start to repeat themselves but that hasn't happened as every case has been interesting, Plus it does help that the main characters are both superb and so aren't the medium sized characters. This show began off with the team of Takayama and Oshita waiting at a pier for a car from Kyushu to appear, rumor had it the car would be packed with drugs. When it arrived the pair dashed over but to their shock quickly appearing were a dozen cars from the prefect police, they too were hunting for the car. But their aim was to find a kidnapped girl and there was one in the trunk, no drugs were there but Takayama and Oshita ended up being heroes for finding the car first!!!! Needless to say the publicity went to Oshita's head and he can be quite the ham but in such an entertaining way. The rumor was true about a vehicle coming from Kyushu packed with drugs, it had been on it's route to Yokahama when this incident took place, and could the kidnapped girl been a diversion so the other vehicle could slip by Takayama and Oshita?

 The vehicle was a van disguised as an ice cream truck and it never did make it to it's destination in Yokohama. Before it arrived in the city it was ambushed, the two thugs in the van were killed and the drugs were stolen by an unknown person(s). The way the heist was done was very similar to some jobs done a decade ago by a member of the Yakuza gang Ginsei. That man was named Ozaki and while we never saw him his character was very important to the story. Ten years ago there was a corrupt detective who worked closely with the Ginsei group and covered up some of Ozaki's heists. But it appeared the head of the clan ordered the detective to take out Ozaki which failed, he could trust no one so the story was he had fled Japan but no one was sure. The head of the Ginsei clan is Tojo who is in the middle two screenshots above and you can see him asking about Ozaki. Below those screenshots is a woman named Natsuko and she was Ozaki's long time lover, these days she runs a store. The pair had a daughter who is named Erika, she's now fifteen in age and what a brat to put it mildly! Takayama and Oshita had visited Natsuko's store as they too thought Ozaki could be involved in that van heist and killings. However Natsuko said she's had no contact with her former lover for ten years which wasn't the truth.

 We viewers don't know that much about the Ginsei Yakuza group but they have been a minor storyline and could become important later on. For years Takayama has been secretly working to discover a way to take down the clan though with no success, it almost appears he's obsessed at times with destroying them but the subject has been only brought up now and again. The two detectives thought perhaps Ozaki would try to contact his daughter Erika and she does not get along well with her mother. So the hunt was now on for this fifteen year old brat and the chase ended up in a chalet in the mountains, it was Winter when the action took place. That's Erika in a few screenshots above, Takayama and Oshita weren't the only ones who thought Ozaki may contact his daughter for arriving at the chalet were some Ginsei thugs. They slashed the tires to the pair's car and how can our heroes escape from a snowy mountain top? Erika said there was a boat on the nearby lake and it wasn't too cold as it wasn't frozen over. Oshita slipped out the back door and ran to the lake, there was a boat there and told his partner Takayama via a walkie-talkie to hurry there with Erika. Easier said than done as by this time the chalet was surrounded by the Ginsei troops, they did fire at Takayama who had fled into the woods with Erika and winged him in the leg so he was in no shape to dash down a mountain.

 Takayama told Erika to dash to the boat and he would hold off the gangsters which he did but though having two guns Takayama soon ran out of ammo. He was captured and brought to yet another abandoned warehouse near Yokohama, there must have been thousands of them back then! Erika made it back home safely though of course wasn't too pleased to be reunited with her mother. Oshita kept his cool but was quite irate with Erika and her mother, while he saved Erika Oshita couldn't do the same for Takayama and was so worried he may have met his end! That was a tough call for Oshita, Takayama ordered him to bring Erka to safety but Oshita was feeling so guilty about leaving his partner behind. The Ginsei HQ is at the back of an arcade, Oshita paid a trip to the joint with a few of his mates from the Minato precinct. They roughed up these goons a bit telling them nothing better happen to Takayama and while Oshita may be a clown at times what a fierce fighter he can also be. The next day the chief of the Minato station, Kondo, received a call saying Takayama was safe and sound.... but for how long? The caller said they would be willing to trade the wounded detective for the drugs from that ice cream heist though the police didn't have them. But the caller said Ozaki probably did, find him and the drugs was the caller's order or else Takayama may end up meeting his creator!

 But of course the police didn't have Ozaki or any idea of his whereabouts. That was one extremely difficult decision for the chief Kondo, make a trade with gangsters where he would have to give them a huge amount of drugs and Ozaki to save his best man Takayama? For now Kondo told his team he has to say NO to the trade if Ozaki and the drugs are found, even if they gave the gang the drugs there was no assurance they would release Takayama. Not a popular decision by Kondo but perhaps the right one, it's up to his troops to find Takayama and no one wants to more than his partner Oshita. Our two heroes often don't follow police procedure and to the fury of their boss Kondo have their own methods of solving crimes which usually are successful. Oshita took matters in his own hands to find Takayama as he'll work solo but it did take the troops at the end to save his skin. First off Oshita saw Natsuko once again who still claimed she had no idea where Ozaki was or even if he returned to Japan but did say he had a good buddy named Johnny who had been in the US Army and said he lived near a pier.

 There Oshita did find this veteran and that's him in two above screenshots. Johnny wasn't going to reveal any info to just anyone and while Oshita was roughing him up Oshita's car was leveled which is also above, The person may have thought Oshita was still in the car and his first instinct was that the man was Ozaki. Oshita managed to nab this creep and he had no clue what Ozaki had looked like so presumed it was him. Johnny came running up and said it wasn't Ozaki but the corrupt cop Takigawa who had shot at Ozaki a decade earlier. Johnny said that was when Ozaki left Japan and has never returned but didn't know what country he was living in and whether he was still alive. But this was a huge coup for Oshita as this creep Takigawa was the man who had held up that ice cream van, killed the two drivers and stole the drugs. So now with the drugs Oshita can make a trade to get his partner Takayama back so quickly called up the Ginsei main boss Tojo, the man in the bottom screenshot above. Oshita never contacted his chief or anyone else at the Minato precinct so this was going to be a one man battle, Tojo guessed that and that pleased him to no end.

 An episode is around 44 minutes in length, after all that takes place in a show the climax usually only lasts for 3-4 minutes though is often very exciting. So in this final scene Oshita arrived at the meeting to trade the drugs he just got off that goon for his partner Takayama who was very hurt after being roughed up quite badly. Plus he had taken a bullet in the leg saving Erika, not a severe wound but it went untreated for two days so Takayama wasn't moving around so well. But well enough to escape from his captors as Oshita was able to scatter the goons away with his pistol, Takayama joined his partner who had an extra gun and the duel was on! Both are ace marksmen but when it's ten against two those odds are a bit too high for even them who fled into another abandoned building. Outside Tojo told his men to remain cool, fire a few shots here and there to draw some return fire but the boss thought it would be better to wait for the night to enter the building. Plus by then the ammo supply for Takayama and Oshita would be close to empty, the two heroes knew that too

 However when night descended and Tojo's gang were about to enter the building the cavalry arrived, that's in the second to last screenshot above and there had to be at least a dozen squad cars. Don't know how it happened but their boss Kondo and the rest of the unit at the Minato station learned of their dire situation and arrived in the nick of time, no shots were fired and the Ginsei gang was taken into custody. The only ones who may have known about Oshita's location were Johnny and that thug Takigawa who had originally stolen the drugs. We did learn that the main suspect Ozaki had never returned to Japan after leaving ten years ago and was living in America. So a quick ending as usual but then again this was another solid episode, only 31 more to go! Will view another show later on today and the next pair of recaps should be done by the end of the week.