Piece Ep. 5 first impressions

Well the usual source for the episode had issues this week so it took a couple of days more to get this to watch and review. On the bright side the subs have just about caught up with the episodes with only this recent episode not subbed now. Which is nice as I now know what I was missing from those episodes and this episode is pretty dialog heavy so it will be nice to know that it should not be long for me to know what was exactly said.

The episode starts off with the phone call to Yanai Takashi that Suga Mizuho made at the end of last episode. We do not get to see much of the phone call continue as we get pulled into flashbacks from three years ago again, but this time it is Yanai as the focus of them. Things starting off with the breaking of a flower vase that Yanai and Haruka end up cleaning up together.

Later/the next day Yanai is walking to school with his friend, Koike, played by Yasui Kentaro. There is a girl from another school waiting to talk to Yanai, I assume she is his girlfriend, and they end up talking in a nearby playground. The girl is clearly upset with him and if they are a couple she breaks up with him telling him that he has a deceptive appearance, if I'm reading that phrase on the screen right.

Yanai is surprised and unsettled by this and seems to be largely distracted by thoughts about whether or not it is true. That is until he is doing committee work with Haruka and he notices a new flower and vase on the table. Haruka ends up telling him that the flower is a Casablanca Lily and Yanai is impressed with her knowledge of flowers. Yanai's crush on her seems to really start here as she smiles and he notices that she looks more lively when talking about the flower. His narration of the event though mentions about his pride getting in the way of expressing his feelings for her.

This thought about his pride comes up again when he is talking to Koike later about love. Koike is pining over Madoka and Yanai says that he understands his friend. Yet when Koike asks if that means that there is someone that Yanai likes Yanai is quick to deny it.

Eventually he decides to go ahead and ask Haruka out and finds an event about flowers to ask her to. When he goes to do so though he accidentally overhears Haruka talking to someone on the phone excitedly. He pretends not to have overheard when he enters the room but does ask if she was talking to her boyfriend. While I do not think she outright said yes she did seem to give a pretty positive answer which of course crushes Yanai's hope for being able to ask her out.

We then get to jump forward to the funeral and can see that Yanai never really got over his feelings for Haruka. And when we get back to the present with him speaking on the phone with Mizuho he is in tears.

Mizuho ends up meeting with him with Narumi in a cafe. She asks him about Haruka and her boyfriend and Yanai seems to answer honestly. When Yanai asks about why Mizuho wants to know about who Haruka was dating Narumi causes a distraction as he notices that Mizuho does not seem to want to tell him the truth. Narumi loudly asks the waitress about cakes before leaving to check them out. Yanai ends up following him.

When confronted by Yanai about how he knew that Yanai liked Haruka, Narumi tells him that he spotted them together and could tell by the way Yanai looked at her that he liked her.

As the trio walk after they are done at the cafe, Narumi ends up having to leave to catch a bus leaving the other two alone. They talk and honestly it was hard for me to follow but I believe it was about being in love. Yanai at the end though tells Mizuho that he wants to know who was Haruka's boyfriend as well so Mizuho picks up another helping hand in her search.

Yanai is able to give Mizuho the next link to try to figure out the mystery by bringing up that there was a connection between Haruka and Setouchi Madoka. The next and final scene shows that this is true with Madoka looking at a box of notes, the top one having Haruka's name on it.


I am personally quite glad we are finally getting to the part of the story that lets the viewer see the other pieces of the puzzle. Haruka becomes much more of a person than we have seen her before now that we have gotten the chance to see her around someone who actually regularly interacted with her. There also seems to be some little things that are hinting at things, but until I have a clearer idea of what was said I will not speculate too much about them.

Also glad that there are signs that Hokuto is starting to get roles that are a little more diverse. I hope he continues to be kept busy with drama roles so he can continue to expand on that and continue to become more versatile as an actor as he proves with every role he gets that he has talent in this field.

For fans of Yasui I think this and the next episode will be the best for seeing him. He definitely does not have a big role in this. It also seems tied to Yanai and Madoka with no signs that we will get to see Koike without one of them. And I know that Suzuki Airi has been done with filming for a while now so I do not suspect to see much of Madoka once the episode is done.

It is a pity the ratings have not been great for this series, but I am hearing from unconfirmed sources that the program has been delayed for the past couple of episodes until more around 2AM instead of the midnight airing it is supposed to have. So I hope that is the main reason for that as I am enjoying this drama much more than the previous one for this time slot, which I honestly still have yet to finish.