Nogizaka46: "Zambi" drama episode two recap

 Start Date: January 23rd on Hulu at 1:00 am
The following day it airs on NTV

Cast:

Asuka Saito as Kaede Yamamuro

Miona Hori as Minori Morodzumi

Manatsu Akimoto as Asumi Saijou

Yuki Yoda as Hijiri Kai

Mizuki Yamashita as Yui Kanenura

Ranze Terada as Sena Sakaki

Miria Watanabe as Suzune Sakura

Junna Ito as Rena Igarashi

Momoko Ozono as Yuzuki Sakikawa

Ayane Suzuki as Marina Fujusaki

Minami Umezawa as Kana Kiuchi

Kaede Sato as Azusa Seki

Shiori Kubo as Honoka Hanamura

Mai Shinuchi as The beautiful woman....

..... plus seven other third generation members.....

 For the remainder of these recaps will have a short promo video at the top of the post for the episode. Let's get straight to the action and the previous show concluded with Asumi jumping out of the window of her room to her... death(?). Least it appeared so to Kaede and us viewers that she was dead as Asumi was laying in the ground with blood spewing out of her. Kaede kept her wits about her and dashed quickly to the teacher's office to get help, though late at night there were two of them there.
 The trio then headed to the spot where Asumi has been lying presumably dead but when they arrived.... there was no Asumi! Plus there was no pool of blood which had also been there just moments before, both teachers looked at Kaede as if she's lost her marbles. The three then headed up to Asumi's room to see if she's there and to come to the bottom of this mystery. They knocked at her door though there was no response, eventually it opened with a groggy Asumi asking what's going on as if she had just woken up.
 Her best friend Kaede stood there with her mouth almost to the floor, how is Kaede still alive she naturally wondered and what exactly is going on? There were no answers for Kaede at that time who proceeded to return to her room where she did even more checking out about Zambi Village. Kaede kept her theories to herself but she's beginning to think that perhaps Asumi had been cursed at the village when she had been taking pictures at the temple, those details are in the above post.

 Don't know the name of the above teacher but will find it out for the next recap. We haven't seen much of her through two shows but it appears she may play an important role in this show plus her character seems to be a bit odd and untrustworthy. That scene took place in the girls classroom where Asumi had suddenly leapt out of her chair and bolted from the room. Kaede tried to chase her down but was held back by that teacher who eventually let her go.
 Kaede darted to the bathroom but when she saw Asumi exiting it she hid around the corner, unknown to her Asumi knew she was there. Once Asumi had gone around the corner Kaede rushed into the bathroom looking for something though we didn't know what at first. We soon saw what Kaede had been on the hunt for, that was hair(?) and in a stall she found much of it that belonged to Asumi. In a prior scene we had seen some of Asumi's hair falling out and guess Kaede did too.
 But as she entered the stall pouncing on Kaede from behind was Asumi. Since that incident when Kaede had told the teachers about Asumi jumping to her 'death' Asumi has been very suspicious of her best friend. That could be because Kaede had become aware that Asumi has become infected with a curse though Asumi may not know.

 That is a good point, does the human Asumi know she's been infected with a curse? Probably not is my feeling and perhaps a spirit is also occupying her body for as you can see above it seems that spirit is taking over Asumi's body again. Whatever it may be it's a creature that will soon become dangerous to the school, not really in this episode but in future ones. Asumi began inching her way down the school's hallways, as she was the same creepy song we heard in the first episode was heard again. But just to Asumi as it seems no other girls heard the song though it was late at night.
 One character we've only seen here and there to date had been Hijiri, she seems to be a bit of an odd girl who gets frightened rather easily. Have a feeling she's going to be seen quite often from here on out and she is one interesting student. Hijiri met up with Kaede late at night while Asumi was prowling the corridors. Hijiri had taken a few pics of Asumi in class which may just prove that she's been cursed. When Asumi looks in a mirror her face is quite distorted though she still looks normal to everyone around her.
 But when Hijiri took her snapshots Asumi's face was just as distorted as it was looking in a mirror, kind of reminded me of the 'Ring' movies. Besides Kaede Hijiri had also been doing some checking on curses and the pair start to share their info as both believe Asumi is now a 'cursed person'. Hijiri had found some very old info about spirits from centuries ago, only half of Asumi's face becomes distorted just like the old curse Hijiri found in a book.
 That's when Kaede revealed to her what happened at the temple and how Asumi may have been cursed because of taking forbidden pictures. Kaede then deduced that somehow doing that broke the seal of the Zambis though for some reason Asumi is the only one to date who has been infected. Seems as though the pair are about to become a team to somehow rid Asumi of the curse, hopefully they'll also be joined by Minori and that brings us to the end of this recap.

 An okay show though a bit too slow at times but this does have the potential to be a decent series. Being an Idol drama means there may not be as many gruesome scenes as in other horror shows but least the story has been interesting enough so far. Do prefer shorter episodes but will admit this show would be greatly improved if the episodes were about five minutes longer. Will be doing back to back posts for the remainder of the series, the third show just aired last night so will be back with the next pair of recaps a few days after the fourth episode airs.