Naoki Hanzawa
Episode 7
Review by David Cirone
The pressure is on as Hanzawa (Masato Sakai) deals with the FSA investigation into Iseshima Hotel’s loss of 12 billion yen due to bad stock investments.
As he scrambles to make good on his promise to Tokyo Chuo bank executive director Owada (Teruyuki Kagawa) – that he’ll do absolutely everything in his power to save the hotel in his role as their banker (and by default, main defender) – his job gets a hundred time harder when he’s face to face with old nemesis Kurosaki (Ainosuke Kataoka), who’s back to his old ways as head of the FSA’s investigation team.
Earlier, Hanzawa discovered the conspiracy that allowed the bank to approve the massive loan to Iseshima Hotel was spearheaded by Owada himself, and in the previous episode, Hanzawa (in true hot-headed fashion) directly confronts Owada, promising to make Owada kneel before and beg forgiveness.
Kurosaki pushes Hanzawa’s team to find assets from Iseshima’s holdings to stop the bleeding – using his fingers to calculate invisible financial formulas in the air – and gives them just 48 hours. In addition, he’s been tipped off that Hanzawa’s holding secret documents at his house that would expose the bank’s cover-up.
Dispatching an investigation team to Hanzawa’s home, Kurosaki runs into a fiercer opponent – Hanzawa’s equally stubborn and fearless wife Hana (Aya Ueto), who has sent the documents far away from their home and threatens legal action against the FSA team for trashing her home and just being rude. (Watching Sakai’s reaction to this scene is one of this episode’s highlights.) Hana has saved the bank, exclaims Hanzawa’s confidant Oikawa (Shinobu Tomari) – “Buy her 100 dresses!”
Hanzawa works out a solution to the 48-hour deadline, urging the hotel owner’s son Takeshi Yuasa (Taro Suruga) to convince his father to sell the family’s art collection, which is being prepared to create a legacy art museum. The effort is blocked by longtime bank executive Natsuko Hane (Mitsuko Baisho), who’s working behind the scenes with Owada to take control of the hotel. Inspired by his old friend Kondo (Kenichi Takito), who’s suddenly dealing with false accounting practices at his new job, Hanzawa spurs Yuasa to oust his father and take control of the family assets himself.
With just a few hours left before the FSA deadline, the art collection is sold and the plan is in place to repay the hotel’s debt. But Kurosaki seems too relaxed when handed this defeat and suddenly pulls an ace from his sleeve – the hotel’s future plans rely on a new IT system, whose producers have just gone out of business.
Game, set, match: Kurosaki – unless…
Hanzawa races to the Iseshima Hotel to confer with Yuasa. Somehow, they’ve got to find a solution. But Hane and Owada are already there, ready with a plan for Tokyo Chuo Bank to seize control of the hotel and appoint a new president – the scheming Hane.
Owada is just as prideful as Hanzawa, and hasn’t forgotten that promise about “kneeling”. When the chance comes to humiliate Hanzawa and punish his stubborn insistence on honor, he takes it. Hanzawa is forced to kneel before his sworn enemy and beg for just a little more time.
ALL KILLER, NO FILLER
The tension and stakes are kept at a high level this episode thanks to carefully placed reveals and a few quick flashbacks to show how dangerously close Hanzawa comes to defeat.
In what could have been a placeholder, connect-the-dots episode of exposition, superb editing and direction accent a really strong screenplay, where Hanzawa’s dealing with multiple opponents, mounting problems, and back-to-back-to-back reveals.
SWORN ENEMIES
Hanzawa’s fervent defense of the bank’s reputation at first seems a bit off balance – in the first part of the season, the threat was directly pointed toward his reputation and his professional future. In this second arc, it’s the bank’s reputation and the hotel’s future at stake, so why is he so invested?
The answer is smart scripting – Hanzawa’s real opponent is Owada, who Hanzawa still blames for his father’s death. Besides the bank’s financial problems and Kurosaki’s irritating attacks, it’s knowing that Owada is pulling the strings behind it all that drives Hanzawa to such extreme lengths. To see Owada so smug and successful at the expense of others is too much for Hanzawa’s pride to bear. And it’s that pride that will both empower him and prove to be his Achilles heel.
By having Owada respond so forcefully and immediately to Hanzawa’s threat last episode, the series keeps us on on our heels. They’re not stretching out this conflict to make us wait for the final round. These two are opponents are coming out swinging.
