Yui Aragaki: "Okitegami Kyoko no Biboroku" drama episode 8 recap and screenshots

 Start Date: October 10, 2015  Director: Toya Sato   Rating: 7.2%

Main Cast:

Yui Aragaki as Kyoko Okitegami

Masaki Okada as Yakusuke Kakushidate

Mitsuhiro Oikawa as Horo Kizunai

Arioka Daiki as Nuru Narikawa

Rio Uchida as Makuru Makuma

 Going to try to keep this a bit brief, mainly because I'm attempting to do two drama reviews tonight which is a rarity, they're not difficult but just a bit time consuming. Unsure about how I'm going to recap the rest of this series, if there's just two episodes left then will hold off a week then do two reviews on the same day for episodes nine and ten. But if there's three shows left then will do episode nine next week and then two weeks after will be reviewing the last two episodes. Just visited the show's website and as usual no info on how many more episodes it'll be but have the impression episode ten will be the final one, if anyone knows for sure just leave me a comment.
 Few different things took place in this episode, mainly at the beginning at end so will get them later as we'll look at the mystery Kyoko had to solve this time. This was an okay episode, especially the beginning and end as we learned more about Kyoko but the mystery this time may have been the weakest to date so perhaps that's why it got it's lowest rating.

 Yakusuke's job this time around was working at a upscale clothing store called Nashorn, after all of his jobs and the fact he has to keep paying Kyoko to bail him out he finally admitted in this episode that his funds have finally hit rock bottom. On the morning of Nashorn's third anniversary sale a tragedy happened.... a special customer named Yanei was found murdered in a dressing room, once again all fingers pointed to Yakusuke as the culprit. But there was really no evidence to back that fact so the police have called in Kyoko to help them solve the murder.
 At first Kyoko didn't want to give them all of the information she had discovered, she was only going to get paid half her regular wages so she originally only told them half of what she discovered. However the police finally relented and were willing to pay her full wages, Kyoko also relented and with the help of Yakusuke explained what happened. To me her explaining the details of the case were what brought the episode down, seemed like she only investigated the details of the murder for a few minutes but was able to deduce what happened at the snap of a finger.
 Yanei had been clubbed by a coat hanger(!) and was left in a dressing room where she went unnoticed for almost an hour. No one saw anyone leave the dressing room, it wasn't even captured on the store's video camera. Kyoko surmised though no one had left that dressing room because the murderer had managed to get to the next room without anyone noticing and then escaped. But the culprit really didn't escape as Kyoko has figured out that the murderer is an employee of the store, the key to the mystery are the shoes one of them is wearing.

 The employees at the store would check the dressing rooms every 15 minutes if a customer was still in there, what the culprit did was switch the shoes outside the room to make it look like a different person was now in there. Which is how the victim went undiscovered for at least an hour until Yakusuke happened to drop a pile of shoe boxes in front of that room and noticed blood on the floor. Upon entering the dressing room a body was discovered, all fingers pointed at him again and as usual they were pointed at the wrong person.
 One of the boxes he dropped contained the murderer's real shoes, Kyoko said whoever is wearing the shoes that should be inside that box is the murderer. Which was the case as a jealous employee had done the crime, she was jealous because she thought that the store's manager was going to marry Yanei instead of her. Actually the manager had said the same thing to all the employees which is that he would marry them, no crime in that but it did lead to a murder.
 That really sums up the mystery this time around, it really wasn't all that strong of a cast to solve plus instead of working on the case for most of the show seemed like it only took about 2/3 of the episode. That's because we did learn a few new things finally about Kyoko and how she lives, even she's a bit confused on how she ended up living as a detective.
 She's been living in an apartment above the Sandglass Cafe for three years, how she ended up there is a mystery to her and Kyoko is starting to become more serious about finding out about her past. Seems like the one person who would now is the owner of the cafe who is Horo but he beats around the bush and never quite explains to her how she ended up living there. Also seems Horo knows much more about her past then he's admitting, sure it will come out towards the end of the series but for now Kyoko is just so confused about most most things in her life. Seems like we would all feel like she does now, when you wake up every day wondering who you are because your memory gets reset think all of us would eventually start to feel a bit anxious.

 All of Kyoko's questions about her past happened in the first 7+ minutes of the show which really was the best part of the episode. In the final two minutes though a major development has happened, one that will be continued on for the next two episodes and will give the details of that in the next post. Of course the next post has many more screenshots from this episode, probably didn't need to take as many as I did as so little happened in this show compared to the previous episodes. As mentioned above unsure about the next update, if there's two more shows left will be reviewing both together in two weeks, if there's an 11th episode will be back next week with a recap for episode 9.

Yui Aragaki: "Okitegami Kyoko no Biboroku" drama episode 7 recap and screenshots

 Start Date: October 10, 2015  Director: Toya Sato   Rating: 9.3%

Main Cast:

Yui Aragaki as Kyoko Okitegami

Masaki Okada as Yakusuke Kakushidate

Mitsuhiro Oikawa as Horo Kizunai

Arioka Daiki as Nuru Narikawa

Rio Uchida as Makuru Makuma

 More enjoyable episode this week though there wasn't much of a mystery involved in the story until the last ten minutes. Still unsure how many episodes are going to be aired, the eighth one aired last night so if there's a total of ten then the final show would be on December 12th. Two weeks before X-Mas seems like an early end date so perhaps there will be an 11th show which means there will be three more episodes with an end date of December 19th. Don't bet the house on any of that as it's just some rambling thoughts of mine.
 Kind of a continuation from the sixth episode, in that show Kyoko's case was to to find the final manuscript written by her favorite mystery writer Sunaga. Kyoko wasn't the only person looking for the manuscript as it was Sunaga's 7th 'festival' which was a contest to see who could find his hidden new book. During the festival though Sunaga died but Kyoko with help from a few others did find his final book.

 That story line is brought over to this episode as a few people associated with Sunaga feel as though he may have committed suicide instead of dying of natural causes. If he did kill himself it would help the sales of his final book however his editor and the president of the publishing company don't think it was suicide and have enlisted the help of Kyoko to find out the reason for his death.
 Kyoko feels the clues to determine how Sunaga really died will be in his books, he's written 99 of them and the new manuscript would be number 100. The problem lies with Kyoko falling asleep, if that happens while she's reading his books she'll forget any clues she may have found so she enlists the help of Yakusuke. Kyoko has to stay awake for many days as she's planning on reading all 99 books at once, seems like an impossible feat and it turned out so.
 Yakusuke was hired to stay with Kyoko at her apartment and keep her awake and at first it seemed the plan would work. Kyoko zipped through quite a few books at first, it appeared as though it would jsut take her a tad over 2 1/2 days to finish all 99 of them. Of course though reading that much takes it's toll and it did to Kyoko who really started to slow down on the reading. Through four days she did manage to read 78 of the books which was very impressive but her body couldn't last any longer and she ended up not finishing them as she fell asleep taking a shower.

 Yakusuke managed to save Kyoko, she ended up taking a cold shower for three hours and he thought she may die. That wasn't the case but knowing that Kyoko wouldn't remember the case Yakusuke got rid of all the materials in her apartment so she wouldn't be reminded of it such as disposing of all 99 books. Kyoko did wake up though before he got rid of all of their materials and was able to pilfer a list of the books from him which ended up solving the case.
 Kyoko did find some clues in a few of the books, reading them all she deduced would have been a waste of time. Sunaga had written mainly series, out of his 99 books only seven would be considered stand alone mysteries. Kyoko was able to find the clue in those seven books which could have been considered a series as they all featured a minor character. That character was named Asami who was Sunaga's girlfriend when they were 17 but however had died at the age.
 In those books he kept the name of Asami alive, first as a 17 year old, then as a young woman in her 20's, then a woman who gets married and continued that mini story until she was an older woman. Kyoko thought that someone who cared about another person that much and wanted to keep their memory alive would never kill themselves. The editor and president were satisfied with that deduction and accepted the fact that Sunaga died of natural causes, now his final book can finally be published. It will be released in February and that's also the month when those previous seven 'stand alone' mysteries were released.

 Mystery was kind of on the thin side for this show but found this episode a bit more enjoyable than the previous 2-3 shows, no real reason for that but it just seemed a bit different. If you're a Gakky fan then would recommend this drama, her previous two series that she had the lead in were so-so at best but this one is an improvement though won't call it a must watch.
 Subs for the drama have been getting done about a week after the episode airs so would think the next recap will be next weekend but will do another post of screenshots without subs between now and then. Speaking of screenshots as usual have a huge amount of them in the next post.

Yui Aragaki: "Okitegami Kyoko no Biboroku" drama episode 6 recap and screenshots

 Start Date: October 10, 2015  Director: Toya Sato   Rating: 7.5%

Main Cast:

Yui Aragaki as Kyoko Okitegami

Masaki Okada as Yakusuke Kakushidate

Mitsuhiro Oikawa as Horo Kizunai

Arioka Daiki as Nuru Narikawa

Rio Uchida as Makuru Makuma

 Had originally planned on reviewing episode four of "Siren" tonight, subs though for the 5th episode just came out so will put those two together. This drama started out fine but think "Siren" has passed it easily, this series has dropped a bit as far as quality goes. Viewers may be agreeing with me as the ratings for the show have come tumbling down.
 No episode, including this one, has been bad but a few of them have turned out to be uninteresting watches, not enough mystery in the stories. Like I just said no episode has been bad but this latest one was the worst to date, kind of boring and lacked any real suspense.

 Yakusuke may have had the biggest part in this episode, the character is okay but when he gets the most screen time that means Kyoko doesn't get as much so that could be a big reason why some of these shows aren't as good. This time around Yakusuke has left a job at a bookstore to work as a handyman at a girls school, more on the bookstore later. One day while cleaning up a trail of water in a hallway he notices a strange odor coming from a utility room. Investigating he finds a student passed out on the floor of the room, the result of some gas coming out of a few canisters.
 After the door closed the room was sealed, whoever had done this set it up so no one could escape. Yakusuke tried every way he could think of to get the door or a window open but it was to no avail. The gas coming out of the canisters was CO2, any minute now he too would pass out and possibly die. However he was able to set a fire detector off saving his life and that of the girl whose name was Masaka.
 Yakusuke wasn't hurt too bad, he was discharged from the hospital quite quickly but Masaka remained there still passed out. Most everyone.... the students, staff and police.... thought that it was a suicide attempt, there was even a letter found at the scene written by Masaka. When Yakusuke presented the case to Kyoko she was unsure about it being a possible suicide, murder came to her mind.

 Doing some investigating at the school Kyoko found out that Masaka was quite a loner. Not a loner because she was bullied or disliked, just because she thought she was different and preferred books to anything else. For the most part Kyoko dismissed the murder theory as it appears no other student disliked Masaka enough to do any harm to her. So this led back to the original thought which was that she tried to commit suicide, now Kyoko tries to find out why.
 Kyoko eventually found out the reasons in a far fetched solution and one that really was so uninteresting, yawn. Prior to working at the school Yakusuke had a job at a small bookstore, one which Masaka visited often. One day he was checking her books out at the register and from that Masaka seemed to think that Yakusuke remembered who she was. Her tastes in books was quite wide and sometimes a bit strange, thinking that he might tell someone at school what she read led Masaka to the brink of despair.
 It was a suicide attempt at the school but she had also planned to murder Yakusuke at the same time! She knew he would follow the trail of water into the room which was sealed, she had it set up for the CO2 to kill both of them. That plan would have worked if it wasn't for the fast thinking of Yakusuke, unfortunately it was such a huge mistake on Masaka's part as Yakusuke had no recollection of her from the bookstore. Both the attempted suicide and murder should have never happened, if not for Kyoko no one would have known the true details of what happened. Actually it may only be Yakusuke who knows the truth as it doesn't appear as though Kyoko will be telling the school or police what really happened.

 That really sums up what took place in this episode, more than anything it was a bit boring which to me is the worst kind of view. The previous cases Kyoko had to solve were always at least bit interesting but not this time around, still enough time for this series to get back on track but they had better start with the next episode.
 The 7th show aired tonight and will be back within the week with a recap for that episode, let's keep our fingers crossed that it'll be a better watch but don't think that'll be hard to do. As usual took too many screenshots which you can check out in the next post plus a few other Gakky thoughts.

Yui Aragaki: "Okitegami Kyoko no Biboroku" drama episode 5 recap and screenshots

 Start Date: October 10, 2015  Director: Toya Sato

Main Cast:

Yui Aragaki as Kyoko Okitegami

Masaki Okada as Yakusuke Kakushidate

Mitsuhiro Oikawa as Horo Kizunai

Arioka Daiki as Nuru Narikawa

Rio Uchida as Makuru Makuma

 Subs were done late for this episode so even though my computer has had a major problem this recap would have been done late anyhow. Actually not going to give much of a recap now, will be back once things are back to normal and edit this post.
 This episode was mainly about Kyoko trying to solve the mystery of her fave writer's hidden manuscript. The writer;s name is Sunaga who instead of being at his sixth 'Sunaga Festival' has died in Tokyo, Yakusuke tried to keep that news from Kyoko but she eventually found out about his death. She and another participant who was Detective Toasa did find the manuscript which was his 100th one and would be his final work. Sorry for the short recap but had to keep it short due to lack of time plus the computer I'm at doesn't have the screenshots to jog my memory. There should be enough screenshots to guide you through what happened and ;like I mentioned above will be back to edit this post.