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 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 two shows we haven't seen her yet but at the end the second episode we did learn about her and she plays very important part in the drama, her DOB is
February 24, 2000.
Know Nogi dominates the posts but I'm kind of liking Keya much more than them these days. Nogi would never do a group drama like this though a member may appear solo in a drama or film similar to this. Keya has that edginess about them which has made them a bit more interesting, Nogi's popularity has gone through the roof but kind of wish their activities weren't so safe and bland.
Two episodes in the books and two Keya members have disappeared, Mei is the latest gal and that happened at the end of the second show. Luckily we do see her and Mao who was the first one to disappear a bit in the next episode, be a shame for the members who've waited all this time to become popular to get no screen time.
First two shows there were some huge rats that had infested the dining room where the girls are held hostage. Still no clue if the room is in someone's house or if was created just for this occasion. Now the students have another annoying pest to deal with which are frogs, to me that'd be much better than hungry rats gnawing at your legs. And they could as the girls are shackled to the floor, kind of a mystery how two have disappeared and not a unshackling sound was heard when it happened.
Next episode we do learn many more details about the student's background, not so many in this show but it was enjoyable watching them argue with each other. Most of the remaining nine girls feel that Miho is responsible for their abductions though that slightly changes in the next show. Miho was a classmate who suffered an injury at school which left her in a wheelchair. After the accident she had been bullied a bit by these girls and eventually stopped attending school.
There are a few differing opinions on how the accident happened. Some of the nine students think that Mei was the person that shoved Miho down the stairs, Mei is now one of the two students that disappeared so perhaps that's the reason for her no longer being around. Then again Mao was the gal that had bullied Miho the most, that could be the reason she's no longer with the group and it is possible the group surmised that she had a hand in the accident.
It hasn't been revealed yet if Miho will be spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair, have s sneaking suspicion we may see her up and about before the drama ends. One more of the nine girls could have played a part in Miho's accident and three of them think that it's Sarina who seems to be one of the nicer gals and is friends with the smartest student in their class who is Mirei.
Sarina says she's innocent but wasn't too convincing as most of the girls didn't believe her, include me too. Mirei would never lie so Sarina says she'll give her smartphone to her so she can check the messages. The other gals feel there's a clue about the accident on an old message but it never gets found out whether there was any evidence on the phone. The girls, especially Kyoko, are really badgering Sarina to tell the truth on what happened that fateful day when Miho fell down the stairs, Sarina had been there when the accident happened but so weren't a few other students.
Despite the pressure the other girls are giving Sarina she doesn't confess to a crime but after a while seems like she's about to break down and tell the true events of that day. No time for that as there is an alarm clock buzzing, shortly after the lights go out which sets us up for you know what! That what is that another person has disappeared, naturally it was Sarina and is it any coincidence that the three gals who are are now gone were the ones who may have been involved in the accident?
There's eight students left now and none of them seemed to care that Sarina was gone. Actually some were glad as if Miho has taken the three most responsible for her condition perhaps she would let the rest of her classmates out. For now that's not happening but the girls better start worrying about their lives first. Above their table is a skylight, all of a sudden a black substance begins leaking from it's edges. The girls have figured out it's oil which if lit could burn them to ashes.
Ayaka, who I also have liked a lot in this series, has come up with an inane idea that would be good if you want to die. She suggested lighting the oil on fire, there's enough candles around the walls to do it. If a fire was raging wouldn't firemen come to rescue them, that was Ayaka's and Mana's theory. All of the other girls laughed at them and rightfully so as who knows where the building they're in is plus even if a rescue attempt was made they'd be dead well before any firemen could enter.
As a prank Ayaka and Mana did begin to throw objects at the candles to have them fall and ignite the oil, think they were joking but not 100% positive. We're getting close to the end of the recap and hope it hasn't been too long, know it hasn't and am enjoying doing these brief ones. But it'll be short lived as this weekend will hopefully be finishing up the "While You Were Sleeping" Korean drama. But we're not quite done yet as there is one more major development prior to the show ending.
It's been three months since Shiho has been able to talk, right about the time of Miho's accident. None of the students know if it's physical or in her head but the only way Shiho is able to communicate with others is by writing messages on her phone. Her phone is unusable now due to the battery being dead so she's been using Yuuka's phone and seems like the pair are close friends.
Yuuka's phone can say the words so everyone can hear what's written, Shiho has typed a message which says to the other seven students 'Miho is not the culprit'. Why Shiho has written that is unknown, because of her inability to talk bet she knows much more of what's happened to Miho. Before the other gals get a chance to start questioning her all of their phones ring, that was definitely odd as none of their phones had worked until now. As Yuuka began talking about the school's lacrosse club the show concluded, there's no credits at the end so it just stops at the snap of a finger.
All of the shows end just like that, one second you're watching the following one it's ended. No big deal as it doesn't make a difference how a show ends as at least they do finish on cliffhangers that way. For only a 22 minute show quite a few events take place and there's never been one second of filler so far. To see how that above sentence ends off check out the post right after this one which contains the recap for the fourth episode. This recap took a while to write up and think the next one will do. Am blaring my Buono CD collection which isn't huge but they add up to being well over two hours, what an underrated J-Pop group they were and their tunes are so upbeat.
EDIT: Once again a second post doesn't show up when you go to the next page so added what had been written in that post which you can view after the rest of these screenshots.
Episode Four Recap
We mentioned we finally got to meet Miho who could be the person responsible for the eight students being locked up, that number is down from eleven. At the conclusion of the third episode the gals got a text message on their phones, it was strange that they did because none of their phones had worked up until then. The message that they have received opened this show and it was from 'Pure White Justice' and all of the girls knew what it meant.
Miho had started a club at school with that name, it was also the name of their website. One day Miho had asked Mei to join her Pure White Justice club, Mei knew it was an honor but didn't know what the club was really about. Mao and Sarina had explained all of that to Mei, those are the names of the three girls missing and for a change no student was whisked away this show. Ayaka and Sarina had explained that the club was one trying to make the world a better place, if they saw something wrong then if they could fix it they would or alert others of the problem if they couldn't.
Sounds good in theory but the site didn't always work that way as the members of the club tried to shame 'evil doers' and often harassed them needlessly. Some of the entries they did on the Pure White Justice site were to expose a grocery store selling bad meat, a gym teacher who may be a pervert and to shame a respected banker.
Least we get to see Mao and Mei after an absence. For their site the members would upload pictures, videos and whatever to expose an impure act that only they were able to discover. The group eventually grew to twelve members, everyone who had been abducted along with Miho. Though they were able to do some other good things such as fixing streets or parks the girls ended up destroying a few lives, don't think the crime fit their punishment.
After getting the text with no message from Pure White Justice the girls start to wonder if Miho really is responsible for them being locked in shackles at this unknown location. Even Shiho ended the last show off saying that Miho wasn't the culprit, if she wasn't then who could it be plus who had sent them the text?
Yuuka seems to have many useful thoughts, she brought up the number twelve. There's twelve chairs for twelve students, there's twelve clocks in the room, when a clock strikes twelve a student disappears and a few other observations. For a while the girls keep looking at the clocks but for now none of the minute hands are close to twelve. Another observation was made by Kyoko of all people, if Miho is not involved int heir abduction could it possibly be a victim of their club?
To me that didn't sound too reasonable but the other girls did as they had brought such shame to a few lives. Would probably be easy for someone to discover who ran the Pure White Justice site but doesn't seem as though this abduction would be an act that someone would do for revenge. However don't think Miho is responsible for the girls being taken prisoner either but then again she could have a hand in these events, hmmmmm.... but a good one as it's not a confusing hmmmmm for a change.
After receiving the text message from Pure White Justice the girls lost access to their phones again. That is except for Yuuka's, she gave it to Mirei who is the smartest gal in the class and has some ideas on what to do. She brings up their site and checks out entries they did such as the top photo with the car. That car had been owned by a doctor, don't know his 'crime' but the girls that did the damage to the car and told about the doctor's activities on the site ruined his life.
That would be a good motive to abduct the twelve girls but if that was the case then why wasn't the club leader Miho taken? The car had been damaged by Sarina and Mei, the first two students to disappear. No one was sure if it was just a coincidence but another entry that was checked involved Mao who had posted about a market selling bad meat.
That store got into serious trouble, she was the first gal to be taken from the room. Mirei began checking other entries which brought shame to people and tried to figure out who wrote the entry, perhaps they could figure who would be taken next. Not a long wait as the alarm began to blare and the lights in the room went off but when they came back on for the first time a student wasn't taken.
The most interesting development of the series happened right after the lights came back on. Slowly the door to the dining room opened, inching in was a hooded man and the hood was the same one as all of the girls had woken up in. The man shuffled very slowly around the room as his left leg was lame, he was there to clear off the table that was filled with plates and glasses. We never did see them enjoy a meal, it's presently well after midnight when this scene takes place so they have to be hungry.
The hooded figure doesn't say a word and methodically clears the table, after doing that he puts a new tablecloth down along with eight teacups. However the unnamed man didn't take all of the silverware as Kyoko had hidden a knife away to possibly use on him, when Ayaka noticed that act she tried to talk Kyoko out of doing it to no avail.
Soon the man had finished his duty and was preparing to leave, Mirei had asked him what they could do to escape but it went unanswered. Mirei thinks that the limping man may be the grocery store manager as his left leg had been lame, is this his way to avenge what the girls did to him? Around and around the questions went, the eight girls kept trying to discover anything that had to do with their predicament but they could never come up with a satisfactory answer.
The hooded figure makes another appearance and on his cart he has a beaker of tea, to me it's not nearly enough for eight people. But we never did get to see him serving the tea or at least not in this episode. After not coming up with an answer to the question of were the victims of their Pure White Justice site taking revenge they came up with another possibility. Was it possible that the hooded man had also been abducted by the same people who have captured the twelve girls and if so could this be the grocery store manager who is being forced to atone for his crime?
The hooded man was getting ready to serve the tea but Kyoko pretended to drop a spoon on the floor, being shackled down she can't reach it so the hooded man comes over to pick it up. As he bent down Kyoko was ready to grab him and use the knife she had hidden, not sure if she really would have stabbed him. She never got the chance as another object dropped to the ground which distracted her, the man slithered away to the other side of the table.
There Yuuka had dropped something, when the hooded figure started to pick it up for her Yuuka threw him him back and held a spoon(?) against his throat! That was a useless effort as she was subdued in about one second, she wasn't trying to hurt him as she was mainly pleading for their release. Least the hooded man held no grudge as for now he didn't do anything to Yuuka, on that note this episode ended with the hooded man about to ring a small bell.
We'll see how this hooded character works out, nice to see someone new but was hoping he would get a bit violent and and add a bit more suspense to the show. There is a bit of that but not as much as there was in the first two episodes but to date every show has been a winner in my book. The sixth episode will be airing this Thursday night, will be back in one week with the next recap and that will bring us up to date which is a rarity for me recapping dramas.
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