"Janus no Kagami" drama: Episode two recap

 Air Dates: This series aired twice, first on the FOD network Fridays at midnight from August 16th until October 4th, then Mondays at 12:55 am on Fuji-TV from October 21st until December 9th.

Eight episodes with a running time a little over twenty minutes, subs by aoinousagi

Above is the PV for the theme tune that's sung by Hinako, didn't know she could sing

Main Cast:

Hinako Sakurai as Hiromo Ozawa.... meek 17 year old student who lives with her grandmother....

and also as Yumi who is her split personality and the complete opposite of Hiromi

Jin Shirasu as Kenichi Shindo.... president of the high school student council

Akihisa Shiono as Tatsuya Tsutsumi.... mysterious young man who befriends Yumi

Sayuri Kokusho as Takako Ozawa.... Hiromi's very strict and violent grandmother

Maria Mori as Jun Abe.... Hiromi's best friend at school

Sawa Nimura as Ryoko Azuma.... leader of a gang who all despise Yumi

Few others will be added in as the episodes go on

 Added in the drama's theme song's PV which I'll have at the top of the posts and it's sung by Hinako who I never knew was a singer. May have made a mistake watching the first six episodes in a row, should have stopped after two to write up the recaps as I may have forgotten a few things which took place. Luckily screenshots help out so much and if you don't view them do recommend it as they do make the story easier to understand.
 You've probably read the above recap which ended with Hiromi waking up in the morning with a bandage on her arm where she had been cut by a knife. How did that happen she wondered and also how did she get to her bed as the last thing she recalled was being locked in a shed by her grandmother. We don't know how she got out either but when Hiromi did she had transformed to her Yumi personality who is the complete opposite of the meek and studious Hiromi. Yumi had got in a scrap with a gang of four young gals who we'll see often in the upcoming shows, one of them had sliced her with a knife.
 The battle ended in a bit of a draw as sirens were hear approaching but one good thing did happen to Yumi was that she met the young man Tatsuya who plays an important role in the plot. That should bring you up to date and as mentioned Hiromi is wondering how did she get a knife cut on her arm? Plus she was confused on who made an entry in her diary the night before, it couldn't have been her yet the writing was the same. Her grandmother Takako knows something is going on as she snuck into Hiromi's room after she went to school and read the entry which disgusted her.
 Those diary entries take place in almost every episode yet we've never seen once what was written. At school Hiromi is on the committee in charge of the upcoming sports festival, the leader is a boy named Shindo who seems to have a budding crush on her though keeps it hidden. Hiromi has been trying to avoid him as Shindo had called Hiromi's house the day before which infuriated her grandmother to no end which was why she was locked in the shed. Also at school Hiromi was noticed by a pair of students who thought they had seen her the previous night at a club but it couldn't have been the same person as Yumi is such a tough street gal... or could it have been?

 Few screenshots of Yumi above and though there is a striking resemblance to Hiromi she does look so different and actually better. Yumi is the Queen of pickpocketing as above you can see her with the spoils of one. But in it was also an ATM card which a friend of Tatsuya's was able to decode and the trio reaped a huge amount of spoils. There was more to be had but Yumi is a smart gal, she burnt the card after that one transition as she didn't want to take a chance on going to the well too often. If it seems we went from Hiromi to Yumi very quickly it's because we did, the transformation to a new person only takes a few seconds and it usually takes place early in the evening.
 That middle screenshot is of Yumi standing in front of the young adult club Party On. Hiromi had found an old photo of their mother standing in front of the club, a few months after that is when the mother Yukiko committed suicide. While Hiromi has never questioned what made her mother kill herself or what events led up to her death Yumi wants some answers which soon becomes the main storyline to this drama.
 Also above is Yumi heading home after leaving Tatsuya's place with her pocketful of money. That boy is Shindo who at first thought it was Hiromi then thought there's no way she would be roaming the streets late at night dressed like a Yanki. Upon returning home waiting up for Hiromi as usual was her evil grandmother who is really becoming leery of her granddaughter. But it's not Hiromi who walked in the door but her alter ego Yumi who had lipstick on which sent her grandmother into her usual rage of fury. She checked her backpack inside and out looking for other suspicious items but luckily Yumi had hidden her huge stash of cash.

 Final segment and with episodes just a little over twenty minutes will never make these recaps too long. Right above is Yumi the following night at Tatsuya's place, am up to episode six but what a mysterious person he remains. We've learned zero about his background or what's led him to live in a hidden away large room. However he seems to me to be a very dependable person and Yumi thinks that way too as he's the only person she'll open up to though only slightly. In the upcoming shows Yumi does ask her new friend to do many underhanded deeds for her and never once has Tatsuya questioned her motives.
 Hiromi never remembers one thing about what Yumi does or thinks but the same can't be said for Yumi. She does recall many details of Hiromi's life and what took place during the day. Yumi is getting a bit concerned that her identity may be found out before she can complete her mission of finding out the details of her mother's suicide. One reason is because of the pair of girls mentioned in the beginning who think they saw Hiromi walking the streets the last few nights and they also saw her in the fight where she was cut with a knife.
 Yumi can't take the chance of the girls blabbing what they know to the wrong person(s) so with Tatsuya's help she's devised a plan to get rid of the two. However we didn't know now that it was a plan to get rid of the girls but it did seem Yumi was up to something sneaky. She confronted the girls that night who were admiring some jewelry through a store window but were too poor to afford it. Yumi asked if the girls were interested in making some very good cash, so much they could buy whatever their hearts desired. The pair mulled it over for a few seconds and then told Yumi that they were definitely interested as Yumi's face soon had a huge but devilish smile on it. There was a semi conclusion to what happened to the girls in this episode but it gets explained more in the next show so will have the details in the recap just below this one.

 Need to write these recaps up a tad quicker and at one sitting as I did this in two sessions, sometimes I lose my train of thought but not this time around. For a twenty minute show these recaps are actually much longer than I thought they would be and really so much takes place. So fa so good for this series and the recap for episode three is the next post.