Not sure if the title is accurate enough, for now will keep it that way as Hiragana does deserve to be in the title. The eleven members, the ones you see above, are the stars of this drama and there will be no Kanji members making an appearance. Glad for that as I'll bet not many of us know these members well enough and after viewing four episodes they're really likable gals. Here's the cast and will keep the beginning like this for a while, they all go by their real first names in the show.
This is the order of the members in the opening credits, also the order they all woke up in.... you'll learn about that right off the bat. As a bonus also have the member's birthdates included with most members are being older than I had thought.
Mirei Sasaki.... December 17, 1999
Sarina Ushio.... December 26, 1997
Mei Higashimura.... August 23, 1998
Ayaka Takamoto.... November 2, 1998
Kyoko Saito.... September 5, 1997
Kumi Sasaki.... January 22, 1996
Shiho Kato....February 2, 1998
Yuuka Kageyama.... May 8, 2001
Mao Iguchi.... November 10, 1995
Mana Takase.... September 20, 1998
Memi Kakizaki.... December 2, 2001
Above are the regular eleven Hiragana members but there needed to be a twelfth person. That ended up being a new second generation gal and her name is Miho Watanabe. There were auditions for the role and she came out on top. Through three shows we hadn't seen her but did in this episode and her DOB is February 24, 2000.
Update: We still haven't seen Miho live but there's been plenty of flashbacks with her and as it stands after the sixth episode she could be one of the main reasons for the student being trapped.
Episode nine aired last Thursday night so falling a bit behind, to be honest had almost forgotten about this show. No reason for that as this has turned out to be a decent drama and much better than 'Zankoku' which featured the Kanji members. This one just has the first generation of Hiragana gals and glad for that as I've gotten to know many of them better. Not all though as at the end of almost each episode a member disappears, at the end of the eighth show were're down to five. Some of those members that disappeared in the first few shows I've almost forgotten about.
The two screenshots at the top feature Miho and it's the first we've seen of her so far, more on her throughout the post. Most of the trapped students think she's the main reason for them being held hostage wherever they are. So far four gals are gone, two more will in this pair of shows. The four to date and in the order they vanished are Mao, Mei, Serina and Yuuka. You'll learn who the other two are very soon and there's also one more who has disappeared without a trace and that's the girl's teacher Hayashi. The girls thought he was the prime suspect for them being shackled to the floor but with him gone seems he's in the clear.
His exit took place at the end of the sixth episode and to the seven students he seemed to evaporate into the floor. This pair of shows seemed to have more fighting between the girls than the previous six episodes combined, tensions are starting to run a bit high. You have to expect that as the girls have been locked up for a while, think it's only been about a day but there's really no way of knowing.
What the conversations were mainly about was why they were captured in the first place and is their capturer waiting for them to do something before they'll be released? Last episode it was explained to them by their teacher Hayashi that the main reason for them being locked up was their 'White Justice' club which all twelve had been members of.
The White Justice group was intended to help bring attention to smaller problems such as issues with neighborhood parks and other various local topics. However it got out of hand as all twelve members had written some nasty comments on the site, it caused their teacher to get fired, a supermarket to close and some other injustices. Hayashi had also been captured and in his opinion the girls are locked up for all the troubles they had caused, could it be one of the people they wronged is behind this ordeal?
But the girls think there's much more to it than that and their attention turns back to Miho who stopped attending school many months ago. Miho had fallen down some stairs at school, it resulted in her having to be placed in a wheelchair and her so called 'friends' began to bully her. Just got to thinking about it, why would anyone want to bully a person in a wheelchair? There is no good reason, that could be what's led them to being shackled to the floor and to vanishing one by one.
Some of the students still have phones which work but they can't call out. But they can view pics and other things like that, that group one is from a barbecue that had been held on May 3rd. According to them the date is now early December, it's been five months since Miho stopped going to school. As Mirei says above the seven left in the room are the seven that attended the barbecue. The party was held at the villa owned by Okazaki, he's the man we saw in the first batch of screenshots.
Kyoko has my vote as the one member who deserves to have her own show... 'Kyoko's Loco's'?! The students are supposed to be 17 or 18 in age, they were scheduled to graduate the day following their capture. That means Miho was going out with a much older man as Okazaki is a doctor so you would have to peg his age at around 25 or even older. Don't think Okazaki was the owner of the villa, probably his parents were as they are extremely well off. There was some footage taken of the couple and it had been saved on the phones the gals had though the videos weren't complete.
At the party Okazaki had announced his eternal love to Miho, why would a doctor say that to a seventeen year old? Obviously there were some ulterior motives for him saying that and we know what those plans were. After committing himself to Miho he broke up with her and it looks like he may have had cheated on Miho before that breakup with one of her friends, perhaps even two.
The group of guys and gals had taken a bus to the villa, on the return trip the bus had to be held up as two of them weren't back yet. That pair was Okazaki and Mana, at the time no one had thought they would have been an item but now that's not the case. The remaining six start to pressure intently, that is except for Shiho who is unable to speak.... for now. Because the girls were shackled to the floor they couldn't reach over to Mana though Memi could and they were best friends.
Memi was sitting next to her best friend, she was close enough to lay some punches on her. That's exactly what she was about to do but was held back by Kumi, she said let's at least here the truth before they make any judgments. Mana did admit to falling in love with Okazaki and they did spend a bit of time together but never had started dating. He liked Mana but had told her not well enough to go out with her, Okazaki also had told her another reason was that he had a new girlfriend!
That didn't get Mana too down at the time, at least she mused Okazaki didn't hate her. Mana was a bit of a stalker and was accused so by a few of the other girls. She had spied on him working at his hospital and did other various creepy things we associate with stalking. That batch of info from Mana came right around the finale of the seventh episode and it seems the one who says a confession at the end of a show disappears, the lights went out on cue and guess what happened?
Nothing to show of Mana for as the seventh episode she was a goner, now six students are left. Another show of teen angst in a way as most of the discussion was about Okazaki and who he may have been dating. Memi was a bit disturbed at Shiho for some reason and threw a candle holder at her. Shiho wasn't looking as it hit her rather hard, she shrieked out in pain. The remaining five quickly turned towards Shoho, she can now talk!?!?
It's true that she can and has been able to for a while. Shiho had originally lost it after Miho's accident but revealed to everyone it came back a month after, she never told us a plausible explanation why she continued on with her muteness. But the bit of dirty laundry that soon came out of her was unbelievable to the girls as Shiho told them she had been the new girlfriend of Okazaki's! But it didn't last long she told them, they went on a few dates but she didn't care for him but especially his dark secret.
'Dark secret' the other girls wondered, what was Okazaki hiding? He had a patient die on him and it was because of a mistake Okazaki made. That's not what upset Shiho but it was the fact Okazaki showed no remorse for the death, it kind of made Shiho feel very uneasy around him. That death wasn't just anyone but a friend of the group who was mentioned several times during the two shows but not once was her name mentioned.
We'll be hearing that name soon I bet as the girl who died may be a very key figure in this mystery. She was friends with all of the group but especially Kumi who remembered the date of her death was February 27th. On that date there was a blackout in the city(a place that's never been mentioned), as a result of that blackout her friend was given the wrong medication. The girl was having an asthma attack at Okazaki's hospital, in the dark he gave her what he though was the right medicine but wasn't as she ended up dying shortly after.
Can't really fault Okazaki for the accident and the girls didn't, Shiho as mentioned was a bit disturbed by the coldish way he acted towards it. The following day the White Justice site was shut down, what a few students are thinking is that the girl who died was the founding member of the group. That death severely affected Miho, she became so depressed over that and her life began spiraling downwards as a few months later Okazaki split up with her.
A month after that event was when Miho fell down some stairs at school and was confined to a wheelchair. When that happened her ruthless friends began to bully her, heard of a life going way downhill but Miho's really crumbled so rapidly. She stopped attending school after all of those events and was never to be seen again by the eleven though Shiho told them she had once talked with her.
Miho was best friends with Kumi but elected to tell Shiho some dark secrets, perhaps because she knew Shiho had briefly dated Okazaki. Miho had been weeping during their conversation and told Shiho she was going to end it all by throwing herself off a wharf. Shiho rushed down there to prevent it but when she arrived only the wheelchair was on the wharf, as Kyoko begins to say above did Miho really fall into the water?
It was never proved but to me the answer would be no, it would enable her to move around undetected and who knows if Miho still needs the wheelchair. The bickering between the six went on and on but nothing was resolved, most felt that perhaps Miho was waiting for an apology from Shiho. She wouldn't give one as Shiho felt she had nothing to apologize for as she didn't begin dating Okazaki until after he had broken up with Miho. Shortly after saying that the lights went out which usually means one thing.
But what you're thinking never happened as when they came back on Shiho was still in her chair, was there a reason for the mini blackout? It could have happened as to allow someone to screw around with the shackles as the one holding down Shiho began to have water spew from it, that also happened to Mana right before she was whisked away. The girls began screaming more than ever and thought it was the curse of Miho coming to enact revenge on all of them. The lights went out again with the gals still in hysterics, when they came back on the total amount of students left has now dropped to five as Shiho's seat is now vacant.
That incident brought us to the end of these two episodes, once you subtract the time for the credits a show is about 22 minutes. Fairly sure there are a total of twelve episodes which means three more to go and it would be ending on December 28th. Not sure yet how I'll do the final pair of recaps but think it'd be better for all of us if the final four shows were done at the same time as it'd make it much easier to follow the story. That sounds like it'll work out best so will be doing it that way so expect the final two posts for the drama two days or so after the final episode airs.
Before I forget will give thanks to 'We Tried Subbing' as they're the group that has subbed the drama. Also what's quite odd to me is when the DVD for the drama will be released. According to the show's site it won't happen until July 4th(!), most will have forgotten about it by then.
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