The first episode of the mystery drama "The Kidnapping Day" (TV Asahi, Tuesdays at 9pm), starring actor Takumi Saito, aired on July 8th, and viewers immediately reacted to the plot, which saw casualties appear.
◇The following contains spoilers.
This is an "involvement-type human mystery" based on the drama of the same name (2023) that became a hot topic in Korea. The story depicts the escape of Shinjo Masamune (Saito), who kidnapped the hospital director's daughter at the behest of his wife Shiori (Yumi Adachi) in order to raise money for their seriously ill daughter's surgery, and the hospital director's daughter, the amnesiac genius girl Nanase Rin (Yuno Nagao), who is being pursued by unidentified men.
In the first episode, Masamune succeeds in kidnapping Rin through an unexpected turn of events, but Rin loses her memory, and Masamune has to play the role of her father with a lie he quickly tells. Shinjo calls Rin's father, the hospital director Nanase Mamoru (Handa Shuhei), to demand a ransom, but for some reason the call doesn't go through. Feeling suspicious, he goes to check on the Nanase family home, only to find police cars lined up in front of the gate, and the media and onlookers all mixed up. Rin's parents, the hospital director and his wife, have been murdered by someone, and Shinjo becomes not only a kidnapper but also a murder suspect. Then an unidentified delivery man (Yahagi Masaru) attacks Rin in an attempt to take her away... and so the story unfolds.
Towards the end of the series, the delivery man who failed to kidnap Rin is also killed by a mysterious man in black. It is also revealed that Masamune, who is kindhearted, has a criminal record for murder. Viewers responded to this development on social media with comments such as, "There are so many dodgy people right from the first episode lol," "There's so much information right from the first episode!", "It was scary in the middle but interesting," "It was scary but interesting!! The second half was so thrilling that I got stomach aches," and "It was a fast-paced development, I can't wait to see how it goes."
