Air Dates: January 6th to March 10, 2019 Sundays at 10:30 pm on NTV
Average rating: 11.5%
Director: Naoko Komuro and Yuma Suzuki Writer: Shogo Muto
Also goes by the title of 'Mr Hiiragi's Homeroom'
Main Cast:
Masaki Suda as Ibuki Hiiragi.... the slightly warped homeroom teacher
The Students, thirty in all so just listing a few of them
Mei Nagano as Sakura Kayano.... homeroom class president
Moka Kamishiraishi as Reina Kageyama.... committed suicide in September
Rina Kawaei as Kaho Usumi
Haruka Fukuhara as Suzune Minakoshi
Mio Imada as Yuzuki Suwa
Ryota Katayose as Hayato Kai
Jin Suzuki as Kaito Satomi
Tsuyoshi Furukawa as Ken Sunaga
Kaito Mifune as Ren Nakao.... Hiiragi's 'first' victim
The rest:
Kippei Shiina as Makoto Gunji.... detective who is leading the case
Yoshihiko Hosoda as Ryoichi Miyagi.... Gunji's partner
Kohei Otomo as Toru Igarashi.... superior of the two above detectives
Bengal as Koichi Ichimura.... principal of Kaio high school
Akane Hotte as Mizuki Morisaki.... teacher who had a crush on Hiiragi
Seiichi Tanabe as Yamato Takechi... annoying teacher who is also an author
Kenichi Yajima as Takahiko Sagara
Whew, this may be the biggest cast ever for a regular drama as there's twenty more students and a few other teachers. The show began on the date of March 1st and by what was told to us in the first episode the events take place until March 10th, the day the students were(are?) supposed to graduate....
Another intense ending to end off the previous show which also means an intense beginning to this show but it doesn't keep up for too long. As usual so much does take place but have a feeling this may be the shortest recap of all, if you've read all nine so far it could be a blessing in disguise. That intense ending from the previous show had two incidents, let's get to the first one which featured Hiiragi and you can see a bit of what happened in the above screenshots. At first we weren't sure if he really was shot though there was the sound of a rifle and Hiiragi did immediately go down.
It was a rifle shot but Hiiragi wasn't down for too long as he quickly jumped to his feet, while doing so he opened his coat to reveal that he was wearing a bullet proof vest. That vest did stop most of the bullet's impact but it still hurt Hiiragi severely, that's what he doesn't need as his cancer has really sapped his strength. That sniper attack was ordered by the new police director Honjo who had been wearing a secret microphone, once Hiiragi was clear of Gunji he gave the order to fire. After that attack Hiiragi isn't taking any more chances, he's told the audience that he'll give his final speech in the morning at 8:00 am, he still has Gunji as a hostage and dragged him back into the school.
Think what slowed down this episode a bit was all of the flashbacks which took up at least a third of the show. There were quite a few hours until the morning so Hiiragi had plenty of time to explain to Gunji why he's done what he has and hopefully the detective can get into Hiiragi's shoes and understand his reasons. The main one was to get revenge on Takechi for creating the first fake video, that showed the teacher Fumika with one of her male students going into a love hotel. The incident upset her so much she soon quit her teaching job at Kaio high school and for the most part has been home bound for over a year.
Hiiragi had been working at a different school but transferred to get closer to Takechi, if you read the previous recaps you know how his revenge plan worked out. Hiiragi also confessed to Gunji about Fumika's father Sagara and how he had been his ally. He had ordered the bombs and other items for Hiiragi as he too wanted revenge for Takechi's evil deeds. Sagara was also able to convince Gunji's superior Igarashi to join forces with them, the three had worked together to plant the bombs around the school and replace the windows to make escape impossible. It was quite easy to convince Iragashi to help out as he's actually Fumika's biological father! Few other things were confessed to Gunji and as not to drag this on for too long they're in the many screenshots.
On to the second cliffhanger which had to deal with Sakura's confession at the end of the last episode. Her confession was 'I killed Reina' which brought a gasp from the other 28 students, there's no way the sweet class rep could do such a deed. The students too had may hours to pass until morning so Sakura told everyone the whole story of the day Reina died. It's been presumed that Reina had jumped from a roof which was kind of true and the roof she jumped from is right above. Sakura and Reina had been good friends but had a falling out which was mainly Reina's fault but she hasn't been in a solid state of mind.
Sakura had asked Reina to join on the roof as it was a secluded spot, she wanted to apologize for any misunderstandings and really wanted to be close friends with Reina again. But Reina's mind over those previous weeks had become so warped, she had taken such a beating at the Mind Voice site over the video of her doping, back then it was still considered to be a real video. After all of the bashing towards her Reina just couldn't take it any more as she's about to suffer a breakdown and it truly was a matter of time until she ended her life.
On the roof every time Sakura opened her mouth to say something nice Reina heard the words differently and thought Sakura was another one her spiteful enemies. After a few more words from Sakura it just became much for Reina's crumpling mind as she dashed to the roof's edge, quickly jumped on to it and let her body fall naturally to her death. But that death didn't happen right away as Sakura tore over there and somehow was able to grab a hold of one of Reina's arms. There was no way Sakura was going to let go but then again she couldn't hold on to Reina's arm for too long, perhaps she could have held on longer but we'll never know. Reina pleaded with Sakura to let her go, doesn't she realize how the world hates her so much and just let her drop to end her misery. Sakura thought about that for a few seconds and if letting go was the only way to help her friend then so be it as Sakura let her arm go which sent Reina to her 'peaceful' death.
Of course it wasn't Sakura's fault and the other students let her know that, seems most would have probably done the same thing she did under the circumstances. Sakura also revealed she had told the story to Hiiragi on their first day of 'captivity', he too told her not to blame herself and at the time asked her to stick it out for the entire ten days as he'll prove her innocence. That too was a flashback and they must have consisted of fifteen of the first 25 minutes.
Back to Hiiragi and the detective Gunji is a hard man to understand. Seems as though deep down he's on Hiiragi's side and every action Hiiragi has done has helped out the police or students. But Gunji still vows to arrest him, will Hiiragi remain alive long enough for that to happen? It's approaching 8:00 am which is the time that Hiiragi has told everyone he'll be giving his 'final lesson'. Hiiragi made a journey to the school's roof, Gunji had a chance to stop him but like many others he wanted to see what this lesson will be, he had also notified his partner to bring Fumika to the school.
On the roof Hiiragi had set everything up beforehand though we never saw him do it. Set up was a laptop along with a camera so he could communicate with the world or more specifically the SNS site Mind Voice as to Hiiragi it's an evil place which was the main reason for Reina's suicide. Things go slightly downhill here a bit as it was such a long scene which could have been shorter as Hiiragi ranted to the world the evils of the internet. Hiiragi had to preach for at least ten minutes as she ranted on how Mind Voice users are nothing but followers who hide behind fake names and say such cruel things which can push a person to despair, a prime example was Reina.
During his orientation many Mind Voice users were commenting about his preaching and how none of them are to blame for anything, so many of those comments were quite brutal. But they didn't stop Hiiragi from going on, even if he could save one person in the future from ending up like Reina then his lesson was a success. Hiiragi's preaching and the comments went on for a while but seemed as though he may have gotten through to some users as the vicious comments did slow down. They did affect one person for sure who was Takechi, he truly did finally understand the evils of his deeds and gave a warm apology to Fumika who was on the scene watching the action.
That final lesson is complete so what will Hiiragi do for a dramatic ending? To Sakura it was no mystery as he had revealed to her he had a dream a few nights back where he fell off the school's roof, be kind of poetic to die the same way Reina did. Sakura told that to the students who knew they had to flee the school to save their teacher but the problem was they were trapped behind many feet of rubble. But with 29 students working furiously they were able to create a hole to escape, on the other side of the rubble helping was Gunji who wanted the students to see their teacher one last time.
Falling off the roof was Hiiragi's final act, besides the crimes he's committed his cancer has gotten much worse and he probably wouldn't have much time to live anyway. So for his final act Hiiragi lives out the dream he had a few nights prior as he shuffled over to the roof's edge and lined himself up to take a backwards dive off the ledge. Which is what happened though once again a fall was interrupted by.... Sakura! Somehow she and her classmates were able to dig through the rubble that had prevented them from leaving the classroom for ten days, she knew what Hiiragi's last goal in life was and rushed to the roof in the nick of time.
As was the case for Reina Sakura was able to somehow grab hold of an arm, of course this time it belonged to Hiiragi but unlike before there was no way she was letting go of her teacher's arm. And like Reina Hiiragi pleaded with Sakura to just let go and end his misery, she wouldn't let go but he was much heavier and there was no way she could hold on to him for much longer. Luckily her strength wasn't needed as the rest of the class had followed Sakura to the roof, they too weren't going to allow anything to happen to their teacher as they were able to pull him to safety. Not much was said by Hiiragi at the time except for a partial thanks, more than anything else he was pleased that his students had listened to his preaching and put another person first.
Also waiting was Gunji who fulfilled the goal of his as he slapped his handcuffs on Hiiragi but don't think the charges would be too bad. He did keep the students 'semi hostages' for ten days but no one was killed or hurt so he may have gotten off lightly. Say 'may have' as the final scene shifted back to the third reunion which we saw in the previous episode, we never learned the outcome of the trial. What we mainly learned was that Hiiragi had been able to hold on living for another year which means he had been dead for two at the time of the reunion. The world hasn't changed much since his long oration about the internet to the Mind Voice users though at least all of his 29 students seemed to have become decent people. Thought this would be the shortest recap but as you can see that didn't happen but at least now we've finally hit the end of this series.
Whew, didn't think that final segment describing the final scene would ever end. But it did along with the series which was one of the top Japanese dramas I've viewed in years, do highly recommend this show if you enjoy non stop intensity and many twists to a plot. This final show brought the grade down just a bit, that rooftop scene did go on for too long and would have been nice to see what happened to Hiiragi after he was arrested.
For my final grade will give it a 9.3/10 which is one of my highest in a long time. Do suggest viewing the many screenshots as usual to get get the full story of what took place. Just began on a mini Korean drama and have another one in that same vein lined up after that. Unsure what series from Japan to watch next, have a lot of catching up do to but would like to watch another one that aired this year. Have a few in mind but was leaning towards "Kakafukaka" which is entirely different than this drama.
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