Review of Seinaru Kaibutsutachi Ep 5

This episode simply flew by because there were so many things happening in just 45 minutes. Some of my guesses went the other way while some were partially correct. It was exciting to see how the pieces of the puzzle fell into place and how some seemingly impossible things could be achieved. Ep 5 also marks the end of the first arc which can be summarised as how the surrogate pregnancy scheme was hatched and executed. Now that the baby is born, it looks like the theme of the second half of this drama will be how the key players fight to keep the truth from being exposed.

Following Mie's fall from the staircase, Keiko panics and calls her sister for help since she cannot reach Toshio nor the gynae. Kasugai then instructs Keiko to drive Mie to Okubo Hospital and drop her off before escaping from the scene. This actually provides answers to two questions: why Mie didn't give birth with the help of that gynae who Toshio bribed and who was the one who drove Mie to the hospital. In the first episode, Kasugai had been standing beside the window for a reason. She was waiting for Keiko drop off Mie and drive away. As soon as that happens, Kasugai scurries to get help in order for Mie to be able to give birth at Okubo Hospital. As fate would have it, Shiba and Yoko are both on duty so my guess that Shiba was tricked into delivering the baby was only half correct. Shiba didn't know what was going on but he certainly wasn't forced to treat Mie. As a doctor, he had to do so and of course, Kasugai did play some tricks to make it happen.

As the hospital does not have any gynae who can handle the Caesaran operation, Shiba is reluctant to take this on especially since he has not done this before. However, Kasugai manages to persuade Shiba to do it because there aren't any hospitals which would accept Mie and it would be dangerous for her to be transferred to somewhere else. Now, that's something I think which might be easily found to be untrue since I doubt Kasugai really checked with other hospitals to accept Mie. Anyway, Shiba trusts Kasugai so much that he's more than willing to listen to what she says. It will probably hurt even more at the end when he finds out that Kasugai plays such a huge role in the scam and isn't as noble as he thinks. One other thing which should be a potential key factor in determining when the surrogate mother scam comes to live and how it is exposed will be Itokawa. He happens to overhear Kasugai's conversation with Toshio on the phone so it will be soon before he realises what is going on. The thing is, will he be drawn into the scheme as an accomplice or be the one who helps Shiba to expose the ugly truth? It's quite difficult to tell because Itokawa does seem to like Shiba but if he is indeed in financial difficulty like what the last episode implied, he might just sell his conscience for money.

Although the baby is born successfully, Mie suddenly develops contradictions and dies. This is a crushing blow to Shiba and he starts to doubt whether he did anything wrong to cause Mie's death. On the other hand, Kasugai is busy making arrangements to make sure nobody suspects a thing about Mie's case so this is when her "intelligence" comes into play. Frankly speaking, I was doubting how they could pass on Mie's baby to Toshio and Keiko given that Mie came in as an unidentified patient. To think that the scriptwriter managed to make it work with the inclusion of a few missing puzzle pieces!

True to what I guessed previously, Okubo and Yoko would be pulled into the scam sooner or later. What I didn't expect was that it was done as a form of salvaging the critical situation rather than being a planned move. Of course, from the opening scene in Ep 1, it was already evident that Okubo would have to be bought over so that Mie could deliver the baby at his hospital. I didn't really see how Yoko would fit into the picture prior to this episode. In Yoko's case, Kasugai knew that Yoko has been receiving money on the sly from patients so the latter has no choice but to do her bidding. Yoko probably won't be as persistent in finding out the truth like Shiba but at least there's one more person to hide the secret and assist in stopping Shiba from probing further. As for Okubo, the reason why he hopped onto the train of accomplices ultimately boils down to money. With Toshio's backing, his hospital can be saved from financial ruin so there's no way he would reject such a tempting proposal.

Even with these people being bribed to turn a blind eye to things, there is still the difficulty of how the baby could be taken away from the hospital without anyone suspecting anything. I think the timing of taking away Mie's body and the baby was calculated in such a way that Shiba wouldn't be around to question anything but it just so happens (coincidences only happen in dramaland, we all know that the scriptwriter deliberately planned for this so that there will be more clues for Shiba later to piece the story together) that he catches a glimpse of Toshio. True, he may not have met Toshio formally (Shiba probably couldn't remember Toshio and Keiko when she was sent to the university hospital after suffering a miscarriage) but his suspicions would definitely be aroused when he finds out that Toshio is Keiko's husband so why would Toshio be Mie's family and take away the baby? And I was thinking that it is extremely dumb of Toshio to turn back while in the cab. Shiba could have managed to take a good look at his face when that happened.

We still have half the run to go so it doesn't mean that the story ends with Mie's death. Of course, Shiba's guilt in being inexperienced and indirectly causing Mie's death will prompt him to find out the truth despite people around him trying to stop this. Itokawa's presence may also serve to be a key factor on how fast Shiba gets to know the bottom of things. Itokawa has also dropped a hint to Shiba that he isn't responsible for Mie's death so this would be a sign to the latter that Itokawa knows something. As for where his loyalty lies, it's really not easy to tell. When Shiba traces the address given to the hospital, he finds out that it's fake so this will be another key warning sign to him that things aren't that simple after all.

We also have two other subplots i.e. Yoko's acquaintance (or rather family member since they share the same surname) meeting Shiba for the first time and the appearance of someone who has come looking for Mie. The masterminds in this scam did not foresee this happening for sure because they chose Mie simply due to the fact that she doesn't have friends nor family so nobody would be looking for Mie when she was staying at Keiko's house during the pregnancy. Now that someone has come looking for her, that should be another sign of trouble as people start to trace Mie's whereabouts. It's probably going to be a tall order because Mie's cremation was done without her photo and I doubt that Kasugai or Toshio put down Mie's real name as the deceased people. Makes me wonder how Shiba is going to make the link between the dead mother with Mie.

To put it bluntly, Mie's death actually turns out to be a better outcome for some of the people in the scam. First of all, Keiko would benefit because she wouldn't have to rack her brains on how to prevent Mie from taking off with the child and be on tenterhooks all day long. For Toshio, he wouldn't have to worry about Mie revealing their affair to Keiko and in turn exposing the fact that the child isn't Keiko's. Even for Kasugai, it would be easier to handle things since she wouldn't have to help Keiko deal with Mie after their aim was achieved. However, if she had not died, would it mean that Shiba wouldn't try to investigate why Mie had to come to Okubo Hospital to give birth? If she had not died, would that man looking for Mie appear after all?

As we move to the second half of the story, the focus would be on how to keep the pack of lies under wraps. It will definitely be a series of near-misses and harrowing scares for the "holy monsters" as they try to make sure nobody finds out the truth. I'm actually looking forward to the final showdown between Shiba and Kasugai as he confronts her about her role in the scam and how she will justify her actions so I can't wait for Shiba to get to the truth soon.

At the same time, I also hope that the drama won't end too early (i.e. number of episodes being cut due to low ratings). When you look at this drama's official BBS, a lot of people mention recording the show and watching it later or catching the repeat telecast. This goes to show that the actual ratings on the first screening seems to be underestimating the reach of this drama (well, not just for this drama definitely). It's also quite worrying especially when this drama only has one competitor in the same timeslot i.e. Saikou no Jinsei no Owarikata. Some people have complained that this is a half-baked medical drama but frankly speaking, this was never touted as one like Iryu or Kyuumei Byoto 24 Ji. TV Asahi markets this as a medical suspense drama so for those who were looking for something like Iryu, they would have stopped watching this long ago. As a suspense drama, I think it's doing quite well in terms of the storyline and acting but I have to admit, Okada Masaki is really overshadowed by the veterans around him. He needs to build up a stronger screen presence in the second arc of the story or risk being a lead character who people can't really remember him for anything.