"Abunai Deka" drama: Episode 49 of 51(!!!!) recap(season six, 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 21.4%

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. Beginning with the fourth season she became goofier than ever which has been annoying.

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. Five years ago before coming chief Kondo had killed a Yakuza thug which is one reason he's so feared.

  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 ran from the nineteenth until the 26th episode. Season four has been completed which is episodes 27 through 35. So now were down to the last two seasons which each have eight episodes.

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

Episode 23 .... Episode 24 .... Episode 25 .... Episode 26 .... Episode 27 .... Episode 28

Episode 29 .... Episode 30 .... Episode 31 .... Episode 32 .... Episode 33 .... Episode 34

Episode 35 .... Episode 36 .... Episode 37 .... Episode 38 .... Episode 39

Episode 40 .... Episode 41 .... Episode 42 .... Episode 43 .... Episode 44

Episode 45 .... Episode 46 .... Episode 47

 

 Two more episodes to go after today, could wrap this series up by the end of the month but may take a break for a few days as I have been getting a bit burnt out from watching and recapping so many shows. For the second time in four episodes much of the action took place in Miyagi prefecture, the previous show took place in the city of Miyagi while for this show the location was the prefecture's largest city Sendai which is 220 miles from Yokohama. That's a picture of the Sendai bay above and Fukuura island which is a popular tourist spot, as you can tell the screenshot was taken from a helicopter. For the first time Takayama and Oshita took a ride on one but it really didn't play a part in any action scene, let' get to what took place.

 Bit of a silly first two minutes as the main investigators Takayama and Oshita were trying to withdraw some cash from an ATM and didn't even know they existed in 1987. They were using the Juvenile Unit's detective Suzue's card at the Minato branch of the Toyo Bank but kept entering the wrong PIN number which aroused the suspicions of the bank's manager. Arriving on the scene was Suzue's leader, the inept Kaoru, who played a gag and handcuffed the pair for using Suzue's card though he actually had lent it to them. This gag really backfired as the second the cuffs were thrown on the investigators a pair of shots rang out from behind the bank! Takayama and Oshita quickly tore back there which was kind of difficult as they were handcuffed plus couldn't fire so accurately at the robbers who saw their heist backfire. For as they were firing at the Minato investigators a pair of youngsters jumped into the vehicle carrying the cash and tore away with 120 million yen! Oashita says above did this pair of robbers have accomplices and the answer was NO, the real robbers immediately left the scene.

 The robbers were a pair of well known lowlife criminals named Sakaguchi and Shimamoto, we didn't see them that often but were very important to the story. The two youngsters who foiled their heist and got away with the 120 million yen were named Shinji Segawa who was nineteen in age and Nami Nakano who was seventeen. The two had just arrived in Yokohama the previous day and that was known by the Juvenile Unit who had picked them up but why was never revealed. However it was known that Shinji had come to Yokohama from Sendai to visit his aunt Sanae Iioka who was the leader of the once powerful Seagull(Kamome) Yakuza clan. How this pair of teenagers knew about the bank heist was a mystery, perhaps Sanae will have more info for Takayama and Oshita. Which she didn't as the Seagull clan's days as a powerful group was a thing of the past and Sanae was seriously thinking of disbanding the group. Shinji was hoping his aunt could give him some cash as his family wasn't doing so well but the Seagull clan was almost bankrupt so no help was coming from Sanae who was a very nice woman.

 So now two groups are after Shinji and Nami, the investigative team from the Minato station along with the two would-be robbers Sakaguchi and Shimamoto. But the question still remained how did the youngsters know of the robber's plans and that was soon discovered. In the top screenshot above Takayama and Oshita had traced the whereabouts of Sakaguchi and Shimamoto to a seedy motel where they had stayed the previous week casing out the Toyo bank. They used a pair of fake names and those were of two very popular actors from the 60's and 70's. It was also found out then that Shinji and Nami had stayed in the room next to the robbers so that's how they found out about their bank heist. Soon after Sanae from the Seagull clan had contacted the Minato station saying Shinji wanted to meet her that night at a pier, Takayama and Oshita were waiting in the wings. At this encounter Shinji handed his aunt a huge wad of money, he knew Sanae's clan was in dire financial trouble and that was one of the reasons for the robbery though there were more motives than that. Shinji and Nami were able to flee the scene without being nabbed which wasn't the worst thing to happen.

 For the pair free was the best way for Sakaguchi and Shimamoto to expose themselves which they soon did but once again the inept Kaoru foiled Takayama and Oshita's plans. She had seen the pair of robbers stealing a truck along a busy Yokohama street, she told her assistant Suzue to call in to the Minato station while she ended up jumping in the back of the truck! Which headed to an area below a bridge where Takayama and Oshita already were, they had tailed Shinji and Nami there. The investigators were going to finally haul in the pair but when they checked the cases that should have been packed with the stolen cash they were empty, what happened to the loot? Right then the stolen truck driven by the robbers appeared on the scene and shot at everyone then quickly tore away. Takayama and Oshita were in hot pursuit but when Kaoru stuck her head out of the truck's back they couldn't fire at the thugs which ended their chase and once again she foiled an arrest. During that pursuit Shinji and Nami had fled once again so everything was back to square one, where did they head and the most obvious place was Sendai where they had come from. The robbers also somehow knew that as Kaoru called from the city(!) as she traveled all of the way there in the back of their truck but had no clue where they disappeared to.

 Now the rest of the action will be taking place in and around the city of Sendai, the Minato chief Kondo hates to spend money but sent his best two men Takayama and Oshita there. Also in tow were the investigators Yoshi, Tanaka and Yoshida along with the Juvenile Unit detective Suzue. First visit was to the restaurant Nami had worked at in the nearby small town of Matsushima, that was a dead end as she had quit the place ten days before. Next up was another small town near Sendai named Shiogama where Shinji worked as a driver for his father's fish company but before that visit an urgent call came to the investigators. Shinji had been shot at a hotel, no doubt it was the work of the two robbers Sakaguchi and Shimamoto but the young man will live. Nami wasn't at the hotel, did she flee when her boyfriend was shot or could she have been taken as a hostage? There had been another small clue which Takayama and Oshita did check out. Shinji's aunt Sanae had told the investigators a dream of his was to buy a small yacht but did he just say it on a whim? The investigators did pay a visit to a marina and by all accounts it did seem Shinji and Nami had their sights set on buying a small yacht which was another motive for stealing the 120 million yen. 

 While Takayama and Oshita were checking out that lead the other four investigators were at another marina when out of nowhere appeared Sakaguchi and Shimamoto who began to fire at them! With them was Nami so she was being held as a hostage so of course that meant she hadn't told these thugs the location of the stolen loot. She had been taken hostage at the hospital when she tried to visit Shinji. The room was guarded by the investigator Yoshida who had fallen asleep on the job but he was a man of action and tore after the robbers when they hijacked a boat. The destination was Fukuura island, it seemed to be a popular tourist spot and had a mini amusement park. Yoshi and the two other investigators were also chasing the thugs in a boat while Takayama and Oshita for the first time in this series were using a helicopter to tail Sakaguchi and Shimamoto who of course still had Nami as a hostage. That helicopter was a nice touch but it wasn't used for any action scenes. So all six of the Minato staff made it to the island but had no clue where the robbers were hiding but soon found them and Nami in a funhouse. 

 Nami must have been made of steel for even with a pistol pressed against her head wouldn't reveal to Sakaguchi and Shimamoto where the bank heist money was hidden. But did so to Takayama and Oshita who were ordered by the robbers to go and grab it. The location was behind the Entsuin Temple, four of the investigators rushed there but not Takayama and Oshita. The other Minato investigator Machida was still back in Yokohama holding the fort down with the chief Kondo, Machida called Takayama to let him know of some details he learned of Shinji's life. He hailed from Shiogama where his father owned a fish delivery company, Shinji was a driver. The company wasn't doing well and one huge reason was because Shinji had acted up in his younger days which forced his father to pay 'damage money' quite often. But Shinji seems to be a bit more grown up and wants to help out his father, that was another motive for stealing the 120 million yen but was that an act of someone more responsible? Takayama felt strongly that Nami had lied when she said the money was hidden behind the Entsuin Temple, no doubt to buy time and the investigators on their own headed for Shiogama and that fish company.

 Where they did find the loot hidden in the back of Shinji's delivery truck and it was in a pink suitcase. The pair notified Sakaguchi and Shimamoto of their discovery, a trade for Nami and the money will be made ASAP at a local hotel but before that the 'heroes' did pull a fast one. At the hotel was an unexpected visitor who was the Seagull clan leader Sanae who was willing to give Sakaguchi and Shimamoto the last of the group's dough for Nami's release. However the group was known to be poor and Oshita told the robbers not to take her suitcase as it was just filled with newspapers to make it look full. So Sakaguchi and Shimamoto took the pink suitcase and fled the scene, Sanae's suitcase truly was packed with money which was discovered when Takayama shot at it and the air soon became aflutter with ten thousand yen bills!!!! Which drifted down to the mall below, it was a humorous scene with peopled  trying to catch the cash but it may have gone on for too long. Sanae had sold the group's name and building for the cash. Sakaguchi and Shimamoto were traced to a place below a bridge, when they opened the pink suitcase there was money on the top. But that was all as the rest of the suitcase just had paper in it which was the fast trick that Takayama and Oshita had pulled. These goons were so incensed but there was little they could do about it as Takayama and Oshita had arrived on the scene. Once again there was no big gun duel to end the show as the thugs were arrested quite quietly, in such a rarity there were no murders in this episode. That concludes this show's action and now we're down to just two episodes to go. The recaps will be done this week but unsure if in two days or at the end of this week, really going to miss this drama.