The ninth episode of the drama series "The Hot Spot" (NTV, Sunday 10:30 pm) starring actress Ichikawa Mikako was broadcast on March 9th. The scene depicted familiar characters, including alien Takahashi (Kakuta Akihiro) and Kiyomi (Ichikawa), driving to the hotel owner Haraguchi's (Akihiro Kakuta) office to uncover Haraguchi's corruption. On the way, a new character played by Yamada Maho appeared, causing a stir on social media.
◇The following contains spoilers.
The business hotel where Kiyomi works will soon be demolished, and the hot springs that are Takahashi's source of life will be gone. The manager, Okuda (Tanaka Naoki), negotiates with Haraguchi to save the hotel, but the sale plan cannot be overturned. According to Murakami (Fumiyo Kohinata), a man from the future, the city will buy the land around the hotel site and build a multi-purpose facility. Kiyomi, Hazuki (Suzuki Anne), Minami (Hiraiwa Kami) and others start a strategy meeting.
According to Ayano's (Kinami Haruka) husband, Shinichi (Tamura Kentaro), behind the acquisition plan, there is suspicion of fraud by Mayor Umemoto (Rinko Kikuchi) and Haraguchi. So, Kiyomi and others plan to expose the fraud and stop the sale of the hotel. Takahashi breaks into Haraguchi's office to obtain evidence of the fraud... and so the story unfolds.
In order to take Takahashi to the office, the trio of childhood friends including Kiyomi, Ayano, her colleague Yumi (Kaho), and the psychic Mizuki (Shida Mirai) gathered. They headed to the location in two cars, one driven by Kiyomi and the other by Ayano.
One scene that caught the attention of the audience was the woman in the back seat of Ayano's car, played by Yamada. The woman, who is not listed in the relationship chart on the official website and is listed in the subtitles as "Naomi", commented while eating sweets, "It's been a long time since we've done something like this." When Ayano replied, "It's hard to get together anymore," Yamada agreed, "You're right, we used to get together all the time," and then said to Hazuki, "It's been a long time, too, Hatchi," showing her friendly relationship with the others.
On social media, the sudden appearance of a new character caused a stir. Comments like "Sorry, who's that?", "Huh? Is it just me or is there a new character here?", "More and more people don't know about this lol", "A new character has been mixed in", "I'm more interested in Yamada Maho than Takahashi lol", and "I ignored it at first, but there was a new character, right!?" were posted, and the topic became a hot topic.
