Posted on July 27, 2026
NIGHT HEAD synopsis – episode 2
Episode 2 – Obsession
broadcast date: october 15th 1992
Director / Screenplay:
George Iida (飯田讓治)
Naoto Kirihara – Etsushi Toyokawa (豊川悦司)
Naoya Kirihara – Shinji Takeda (武田真治)
additional cast can be viewed here
trigger warning: graphic depictions of murder
When we last left our two brothers, they were fleeing the scene of a bar room bust-up. Naoto – having failed to keep his cool while overhearing disparaging banter about psychic powers and frauds – also foolishly revealed his younger brother Naoya’s powers of touch-based psychic intuition. In addition to the gleeful patron who molests Naoya to test these skills, he is also briefly touched by a woman as she leaves. He is bowled over by the visions this brings him; she and her partner are murderers, and that brief shove left him doubled over in terror.
We begin episode two with this same couple, acting out the frenzied scene witnessed by Naoya: they shriek and argue and strangle a young woman to death. Reiko, the leader of the duo, reads as particularly unhinged. She beats and berates her companion, Jiro, who is cowed and frantic – though, in the end, he doesn’t seem all that unwilling to help.
Naoya wakes up, screaming, having relived the vision yet again. He gasps out, hyperventilating, that those two have killed five women – she believes that if she doesn’t kill, she herself will die. He collapses into sobs in his brother’s arms.
We cut to the bedroom of a teen girl – this is Shoko, the girl who we last saw in the library doing automatic writing, staggered by visions. She sits on the floor, contemplating. As before, a forest and an elderly hand overwhelm the screen. Quietly, she says to herself, “the barrier has been destroyed.” Electricity crackles the screen – her room is now empty. At 2:40 AM, Shoko Futami has disappeared.
We see Naoto returning from a research trip to find Naoya incapacitated with fear, still suffering from visions of the murdered woman. After calming down, they discuss the newspaper articles Naoto was able to find. Four murders with the same M.O. have already occurred – strangulation of young women in the bathrooms of love hotels – but none describe the woman in Naoya’s visions. Naoya wonders if they ought to return to Mikuriya’s lab. He fears that, having broken the barrier, they will only draw in more negative energy – and with it, visions he will will never be able to escape. Naoto comforts him, but remains practical – there’s no guarantee that if they return the visions will cease. The only thing to be done is to try and stop the killers themselves.
After a brief interlude with our killers, Reiko and Jiro, who bicker over burgers, we return to Naoya who sits doubled over on a park bench. When Naoto returns with breakfast, they sit quietly together under the trees. It is a nice moment of calm for them, and I find myself somehow tickled at the sight of them sitting there eating croissants.
They begin to discuss plot relevant exposition – they talk around the role played by an elderly man, Misaki, which was only revealed upon his death (though they don’t yet go into specifics). They are approached by another elderly man in a wheelchair who cryptically – with psychic resonance – says this: “There is a flow. It flows like a big river. The destruction of the barrier was also part of that chain of events. There is a reason why negative forces are drawn to you. If you do not run away, you will find the answer.” He points directly at Naoya before sighing blissfully and then falling asleep.
Naoya begins to hyperventilate before falling to his knees. The vision returns to him – yet this time, he is himself inside of it – viewing it as if in the room with them. We see Naoto in the park, unfazed, alone with the old man – Naoya has disappeared. In his vision, Shoko also appears. Staring at the scene, she quietly murmurs – “This is not the past.”
With a sudden realization, Naoya leaps to his feet, rushing to the window of the love hotel – he looks at the skyline, doing his best to memorize the location before returning back to the park. He tells his brother the reason the woman in his vision hasn’t appeared in the newspaper – she’s not dead yet, and his vision is of the future. Naoto takes this in stride, immediately responding that they’ll have to save her.
We see our killers brutally abduct the young woman – Shiho – while the brothers try their best to find them. Naoya wonders why his vision this time is so strong, and Naoto thinks that it’s because Shiho may have untapped psychic powers herself, and could be subconsciously crying out for help. As they get closer, the timeline of the vision begins to overlap with the present, and Naoya finds himself living out Shiho’s pain as she’s strangled.
They scramble up to the hotel room, breaking the lock, and manage to halt the duo with a pretty ineffectual “Stop it!” Reiko and Jiro awkwardly stare at them, surprised, while Shiho flops to the floor. Reiko finally rises, seemingly untethered from reality, and pushes past them to the window. Naoya checks on Shiho, who is alive, while Naoto watches the two murderers shriek at each other for a while before Reiko leaps out the window, falling to her death.
After fleeing, gasping and clutching their sides, Naoya asks his brother – “We saved someone? With our powers?” Ambulance sirens ring out as he turns to Naoto with breathless relief. “It was painful, but it turned out alright. It turned out alright…”
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A fun episode, which ties particularly well with the first! It was nice seeing Naoya get a win, as well as showing us more of his powers (particularly the toll they can have on him.) Credit to Shinji Takeda especially, because he played the distress with aplomb.
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