Title: 黒の斜面
Title (romaji): Kuro no Shamen
Format: Tanpatsu
Genre: Suspense
Viewership ratings: 10.6%
Broadcast network: TV Asahi
Broadcast date: 2016-Jan-24
Air time: Sunday 21:00
Synopsis
Tsujii Takashi (Harada Taizo), who works for a large construction company, lives with his wife Keiko (Dan Rei) in a house along the coast of Hayama in Kanagawa Prefecture. They have been together for 10 years, but are still happily married that Takashi would give Keiko a sapphire pendant on her birthday and they are considered the ideal couple by the people around them. However, it is a fact that at some point, they started to hide what they really feel and live with consideration for each other. One day, an unusually tense Takashi returns home with a purple trolley bag that Keiko does not recognise. He tells her not to touch the bag which has confidential company documents that he will be taking with him for a business trip to Kumamoto. On that day, he hurriedly takes the last flight to his destination. However, Keiko happens to see that the bag is full of 10,000 yen notes when they are parting. Although she is overcome with a feeling of foreboding, she sends him off without being about to ask about the large sum of money. Takashi arrives at Haneda Airport where an unexpected person calls out to him. His mistress Kawakami Taeko (Uchiyama Rina) who had just said that she is leaving him over the phone the other day has been lying in wait. She threatens to expose everything to Keiko. So Takashi makes his colleague Shimizu Yoshiro (Makita Tetsuya) go alone to Kumamoto on the last flight while he stays with Taeko for one night and takes the next morning’s flight over. Then Takashi hands his plane ticket to a young man Tajima Seiichi (Kaneko Takatoshi) who is desperate to go to Kumanoto where his fiancee is waiting. However, the last flight that Takashi was supposed to board crashes right after takeoff. Taeko learns about this while Takashi is in the shower and decides to hide the truth from him. Some time later, she finally informs him. Takashi is shocked. Furthermore, his name is on the list of passengers presumed dead. It appears that Tajima boarded the flight without changing the name on the ticket. Takashi attempts to contact Keiko and his company hastily. However, Taeko calmly asks how he intends to explain the situation after such a long time. Meanwhile, one misfortune follows another for Keiko who is already shaken by the sudden circumstances. Takashi’s boss Toyama Koji (Watanabe Ikkei) reveals that before the business trip, Takashi had secretly taken out a purple trolley bag filled with 100 million yen embezzled by Hata Miyuki (Endo Kumiko) of the Accounting Department, in order to bribe an important lawmaker. However, Keiko meets Yamana Hitomi (Kitahara Rie) right after that and starts to have doubts about her husband’s death. According to Hitomi, her fiance Tajima had said to her on the phone right before the plane bound for Kumamoto took off that he received a ticket from a man called Tsujii Takashi. Takashi did not board the flight that crashed? If that is the case, why has he not contacted her even though he is alive? Keiko’s dark misgivings about her husband swell. At that moment, Miyuki is found strangled to death on a coast near the scene of the crash. Detective Honma (Sano Shiro) is suspicious of the deaths of people working for the same company at almost the same time.
Cast
Dan Rei as Tsujii Keiko
Uchiyama Rina as Kawakami Taeko
Harada Taizo as Tsujii Takashi
Watanabe Ikkei as Toyama Koji
Endo Kumiko as Hata Miyuki
Sano Shiro as Detective Honma