Piece Ep 07 Review

When we last left Suga Mizuho (Honda Tsubasa), she had approached emotionally fragile Sugawara (Nozawa Yuki) and discovered that he was the one responsible for angry, stalkerish notes sent to Setouchi (Suzuki Airi). More importantly, he bullied the main tragic figure of the story, Origuchi Haruka (Mizuno Erina). Will this help Mizuho piece together what happened to Origuchi?

Sugawara said he tormented Origuchi because she defended the gym teacher, Miyamoto, when Miyamoto seemed to never waste a chance to touch Setouchi.

Not only that, but Sugawara also happened to see Origuchi visiting Miyamoto, leading to all sorts of suspicions about what they might be doing together.

When Mizuho brings these Miyamoto-related issues up with her fellow investigators – Yanai (Matsumura Hokuto) and Setouchi – Yanai pushes back against he idea vehemently, saying that it’s nonsense. After all, he still has a place in his heart for Origuchi, and can’t believe that she would do such a thing.

I have to say that Matsumura-kun’s acting here was a bit off – somewhat incongruous with how his character has behaved so far. Even if we disregard behavior in previous episodes, his reactions felt forced.

Setouchi also doubts that Sugawara’s word can be trusted on this issue . . .

. . . but Mizuho insists on following every lead.

They head out to Miyamoto’s place with Yanai still resisting petulantly.

Setouchi notes that Mizuho has changed, and that she likes the new Mizuho better.

I feel like we haven’t been given a sufficient catalyst for the change, though. Apparently the search for information about Haruka itself had brought about this improvement in Mizuho’s personality? It seems like the change occurred at the instant she took the case – she decided to take an interest in someone else and to interact with others, and that’s it. It’s not unrealistic, but if this is all the character development we’re going to see in her, I’m not going to be ahppy.

Meanwhile, Narumi (Nakayama Yuma) continues to brood. Really, this is quite irritating. The more they show him like this, the more I despise the character. If that’s their plan, fine, but it’s hard-going for Yuma-kun’s fans, I think.

Sugawara decides to do a bit of character development of his own – breaking with his absolute focus of getting into Tokyo University. Are we going to see more of this character later, or is his part essentially over?

The three investigators arrive at Miyamoto’s apartment, bracing themselves for what is bound to be a rather uncomfortable conversation.

 

 

They find he’s not home, prompting Yanai, who we’re certainly getting to see another side of, to propose going home.

But then a young boy appears, followed by Miyamoto:

The atmosphere remains awkward when they get inside . . .

. . . and even worse when the kid reacts then Mizuho mentions Haruka’s funeral.

Clearly, the kid knew and liked Haruka, and his father had kept the news of Haruka’s death from him . . . until now.

They postpone the revelations, with Miyamoto promising to pay a visit to Haruka’s parents to pay his respects.

Well, all sorts of interesting information comes out here. Did Miyamoto really have an affair with his student, Haruka? Since we’re only in the middle of the series, that seems unlikely, so what was really going on? What light can Miyamoto shed on Haruka’s character? Who will be the next piece of the puzzle, now that we have visited almost all of the people we met at the funeral in the first episode?

I’ll leave the answers for your enjoyment, as usual. I will mention that it involves a crayon drawing . . .

. . . and a painting:

After some of the bumpiness in the early minutes, I felt that Yanai’s character got fleshed out a bit better, and more well-rounded. Matsumura-kun showed some of his youth, though, as he acted younger than Mizuho and Setouchi even though he’s supposed to be older. That’s not a problem as long as they keep it consistent from here on out. It certainly seems like a sharp break from the way he was acting in the first half of the series, but I like this better. He’s already played cool and quiet characters in his previous two dramas, and this change allowed him to show a different face.

As for the rest, everything just kept chugging along. We got a few notable revelations, and that’s the least we should expect from each episode. Aside from the change in Yanai’s character, the acting was unremarkable, and the plot continued to follow the pattern set ever since Mizuho decided to take the Origuchi case.

My main disappointment is the misuse of Narumi. It wouldn’t have killed them to write in some activities for him to do except for lazing around at home. It’s not necessary for those activities to have anything to do with the main plot, but they should give hints – or even red herrings – about his character. Instead, our top-billed actor seems to have very little to do, and the writers are filling in the spare time by making the plot move at a crawl instead of putting more meat on it. In the later episodes, they had better give us a very good reason why Narumi had to be inert all this time.