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....
Had been planning on doing two sets of five recaps for this series but as usual changed my mind. Know it can be a drag reading so many in a row so will have three in a row now as I've watched up until the eighth episode. Then will be back within the week for the final two recaps and think the very few who read these will prefer them being done this way.
Would be a good idea to read the previous recap or perhaps even the one for the fourth episode as I won't be rehashing too many things. But the storylines have changed so often since the first show so it may not matter though then again it just may. But briefly where we stand is where we have since the beginning of the series but with the circumstances changed slightly. The 29 students are still locked up at the Kaio high school but now it's by choice as they're no longer Hiiragi's hostages.
He explained to his students the main purpose for holding them hostages in the beginning was to find out info on Reina's death which was presumed to be a suicide but now it looks to be more like a case of murder. The police know about this now too and have been working on finding clues for the case. One such incident was the leader of the Berumuzu gang whose name was Kishi. He's now under arrest and had a hand in creating the fake video of Reina that showed her doping before a swimming meet which had been filmed by a classmate.
The police had also attempted to break into the school again to free the students, they don't know they're remaining there under their own free will. The raid had been thwarted by Hiiragi who set off a small bomb and threatened to set off bigger ones unless the police vacated the school which they soon did. During the event Hiiragi had crumbled to the ground as his illness is getting worse, doesn't seem as though he has much time to live. One other final note that took place at the end of the fifth episode was that Kishi's list of buyers for fake videos was found. Seems as though the buyer is a teacher at Kaio high school who went by the name of Hunter when he bought the fake video. The students know that fact now too and it's on to this episode's recap.
Been keeping all recaps these days at five segments which means because of that long intro will try to squeeze all of the happenings into four of them. As you can see in the screenshots above Hiiragi has contacted the police, he goes through his fellow teacher Takechi with the calls and he'll turn out to be an important character soon. The police have been sent Kishi's list and were informed that the Hunter name was actually a teacher who had ordered the doctored Reina video. They have until
8:00 pm that night to find out which teacher went by that name, failure to find out the true culprit may mean the 29 students at school will all be killed.
Hiiragi has made that threat many times but has never gone through with it, how much longer are the police going to believe him? Also way above is an image that a student had posted on SNS from the school, Hiiragi had given them their phones back but now realized it was a mistake. The student was a girl named Yuki who had just been trying to get more followers on her account, that action meant once again everyone had to give up their phones. It's only about noon time so Hiiragi gave the students a 'free recess' until 8:00 pm which is the deadline for the police finding out who Hunter is.
But the students aren't going to wait around for the police and try to solve the mystery of Kishi's buyer by themselves. None of the staff appeared guilty until they came to the last teacher on their lineup who was Tsuboi. He was the school's swimming coach and had seemingly pushed Reina quite hard during training but it paid off as she became a champ. But one student was very leery of his ways and felt he had been rebuked by Reina when he made advances to her. That student was Suzune and we finally saw more of Haruka who has become such a huge fave of mine.
Suzune had excused herself to go to the ladies room and while there another student arrived but hadn't seen Suzune until it was too late. That student was Yuki who had managed to swipe her phone back from Hiiragi after he had taken them once again. She had been sending messages while in the bathroom and had been discovered by Suzune who threatened to rat out Yuki unless she did what she ordered. With no alternative Yuki agreed and it what she had to do was take a video of Suzune and then load upload it to the SNS site for the millions of viewers to watch. In the video Suzune had told some dirty tales of Tsuboi and how he had forced her to quit the team, not only that he had made advances towards Reina which had been shot down.
With the video completed Suzune returned to the classroom as Yuki remained behind to upload the video or did she? We'll find out soon but as you can see above Hiiragi had been watching the entire scene along with the class rep Sakura. Shortly after the pair made their way back to the classroom, it was getting late but there was still time before the deadline. Hiiragi once again contacted the police to see if they were making any progress, they admitted none had been made as they and the school staff had been unable to find out the true identity of Hunter.
After hearing that Hiiragi dropped a bombshell on them as he said one student did know Hunter's identity and that was.... Suzune! She was bewildered that Hiiragi knew about the video which he showed the police and teachers, one of them was Tsuboi who was immediately presumed guilty by everyone. Hiiragi had Suzune step to the camera and tell the audience her complete story which she reluctantly did but soon the words came flowing out along with her tears. She had told many truths in her 'testimony' but there were many factors she hadn't been aware of though the lies about Tsuboi's advances were 100% lies.
It's true that Tsuboi had made Suzune quit the swimming team even though she was the hardest worker and by then had been the second best swimmer on the team after Reina. Tsuboi had told Suzune in front of the whole team she was dismissed because she had a boyfriend and had photos to prove it. That was true but Tsuboi would have let it slide as he really was behind Suzune 100% but at the time couldn't reveal the real reason he dropped her from the team. Tsuboi had been notified by Suzune's mother a few days before that she had some health issues and the pair visited the doctor to find out what they were,
Suzune had some irregular heartbeats, if she continued swimming it good prove fatal and she had to quit immediately. Suzune's condition had been hidden from her until now and when the truth came out she of course was speechless. She eventually confessed to the police and teachers that she had lied about Tsuboi's advances to Reina as she was unaware of what he had hid from her, Suzune was truly ashamed but at least Tsuboi was now off the hook.
However Hiiragi was fuming, granted he was pleased Suzune owned up to her lies but didn't she realize what she could have done to Tsuboi's career and his family? As you can see above he went ballistic on Suzune and that went on for a while, that was one of the most dramatic scenes to date. The problem with Tsuboi being cleared if any wrong doings was who was Hunter? It's now past 8:00 pm which was the deadline Hiiragi had set, he's now announced to the police because of their ineptness he has no choice but to set off the bombs!
As you can see a bomb was set off though it was a minor one that didn't cause much damage though the police didn't know that. Also above is the what was said in the bottom screenshot and it had to deal with what Hiiragi said in the beginning which was 'We're now going to play Believe it or Not'. I forgot about that for a while and so didn't most of the students except for Sakura. She noticed that when Hiiragi had his glasses on he was telling the truth, when he took them off he wasn't. So through this whole show she was the only one to notice Hiiragi's little trick, Sakura knew they would be safe as when Hiiragi threatened to blow the school up he had his glasses off.
Would have been nice if it was revealed earlier but it really didn't have any impact on the happenings for us viewers but it did to the students. What also was discovered was who Hiiragi may have been before he became a teacher. His pet phrase to the students was often 'Let's Think' which was a saying heard often on the 'Garm Phoenix' superheroes show. That discovery was made by Runa who we hadn't seen much of before now but her role in the next two shows will be much larger.
On to the end as we're in the final minute of this show and was able to keep the recap to five segments. There's been a new video discovered of Reina's final day alive which was the previous September 25th, it's now March 6th. The grainy video was from a neighborhood camera and it showed Reina entering a building with another man, an older one that may be her killer? Odds say so as that was the building she jumped from and the next two episodes deal with the video.
Another superb show and the next two are just as intense if not more so. Can't believe how often a new twist is thrown into the plot(s) but for the most part it's never been confusing, why aren't there more shows in this vein? Perhaps there will be as the ratings for this drama were fairly decent plus it did won some awards at the last Japanese drama awards show. Next two posts are the recaps for episodes seven and eight, still have no idea how this show will end.
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