"Informant"
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SPOILER WARNING: This section may contain major plot and/or ending details. Proceed at your own discretion. |
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"Informant" (情報提供者 Jōhō Teikyō-sha) is the second episode of Human Vapor. It was released with the rest of the series on Netflix on July 2, 2026.
Plot
In an alleyway, Hiroki Obata raises a lighter to his White Center journal but is interrupted by a young girl, Satsuki. While tying her shoe, he glances up at her face and is startled to see it charred and blistered. When he recoils back, the girl is nowhere to be found—Obata is sleepwalking. He begins wading into the nearby bay shouting for Satsuki, which one of his employees notices and wakes him up before he can drown himself. At his business, Umikaze, Obata goes about his day as normal. He sees off a boy, Shota, leaving for school, and is transfixed by the sight of his untied shoe. Obata goes to wash dishes as a report on last night's Human Vapor incident plays on the TV; when the footage of the Vapor threatening White Center appears, the plate drops from his hand.
At the Nishiazabu Police Station, Sergeant Abe grills Kono about her interview with the Vapor, finding it suspicious that she knew he would be at Bunko Ramen's old location. As Inspector Okamoto observes, he recalls an interrogation of his own with businessman Yasutoshi Mori four months ago.
- Okamoto accuses Mori of fatally drugging a 17-year-old girl, but the man refuses all questions. He goads Okamoto by bringing up his late father, also a detective, who he says wound up dead because he "didn't do things smartly". Okamoto launches at him over the table and is pulled away by other officers. That night, Kono helps a drunken Okamoto into his house. She lays him on his bed as he mumbles about Mori. Sometime later, Okamoto waits for Kono in a restaurant with an engagement ring in his hands. He receives a call from Abe, who tells him to watch a clip from JNT; in it, Kono is shown ambushing Mori with questions only known by the police. At the station, Detective Kawada reprimands Okamoto for leaking information and suspends him.
In the present, Chief Inspector Norio Yoshida calls off the questioning and returns Kono's phone, which he says showed nothing suspicious. Okamoto catches her in the hallway and insists she not get involved any further in the Human Vapor case. He continues that, because of her recklessness with Mori, the man committed suicide before his guilt could be proven. Kono retorts that Mori got what he deserved and storms off.
In the forensics lab, a scientist reports that no traces of DNA could be found on the Vapor's discarded suit. Abe and Yoshida add that no matches were found for his face and that there are hardly any records left of White Center. Okamoto notices one of the buttons on the suit's sleeve looks different from the rest and turns it over to find an emblem on its underside. Meanwhile, at JNT, Kono's coworkers search for their own leads on White Center. One, Tatsuya Nishiyama, shows her an email they were sent from a retired newspaper reporter giving information about the facility, and agrees to arrange a meeting with him. Back at the police station, Abe tells Okamoto the symbol on the button has been identified as the crest of the Fujishiro Syndicate, which she notes has been expanding its influence lately, as if aided by a benefactor. Okamoto examines the Human Vapor's confession video and realizes the handkerchief in his breast pocket is the same kind worn by Professor Sano at the time of his death. He reasons that the button may be a hint at the Vapor's next target.
Kono and Nishiyama meet with the reporter, Shinichi Kato, at a cafe. Laying out binders of newspaper clippings, Kato explains that a meteorite landed in Yamanashi in 1999, the same year that the prefecture was to host the World Children's Peace Exposition. Professor Sano, he reveals, was the head of the Meteorite Safety Committee and falsely proclaimed the Yamanashi meteorite to be harmless. White Center, supposedly a social welfare facility, was recruited to dispose of the meteorite and subjected its workers to inhumane treatment. The director of White Center, Obata, disappeared thereafter, but Kato claims he saw the man, going by a similar-sounding alias, doing volunteer work for children. Kato demands they pay him to hear the location.
That night, Obata sleepwalks again, this time dreaming of a time in 1999 when he opened the back of a truck leaving White Center to find piles of the charred corpses of its workers. He squats to the ground and sobs. At JNT, Kono briefs Ibana on the information from Kato and assuages his skepticism with a promise it will lead to a story. At the same time, Okamoto and Abe stake out Fujishiro Enterprises, a front for the Fujishiro Syndicate. They watch as a caterer, Palm, is kicked out of the building, followed by the arrival of a group of gangsters on motorcycles. Okamoto catches up with Palm and learns Fujishiro has declared an emergency related to the Human Vapor. Palm also thanks him for giving him the confidence to find a new job, and gives him a hug. JNT looks into volunteer youth groups in Shizuoka, where Obata was last seen. Kono notices a photo on Umikaze's website of its director, Hiroshi Ozaki, who looks suspiciously like Obata. She rings the man and confronts him about his identity, suggesting his past with White Center may put him in the Human Vapor's crosshairs, but he insists she has the wrong person and hangs up. Just then, one of his employees tells him Shota was involved in an incident at school.
Obata races to the school and sits in on a meeting with Shota, his teacher, two other boys and their parents. The teacher accuses one of the boys, Yoshitsune, of stealing money from wallets, which the other boy, Daisuke, says he and Shota witnessed. After a long pause, Shota quietly agrees. On the walk back to Umikaze, he admits to Obata that he lied; it was actually Daisuke who took the money, but he was afraid he would be bullied for ratting him out, as he is the class president. Obata responds that withholding the truth will lead to him hating himself one day, and makes him no better than the bullies who mistreat Yoshitsune. That night, Obata awakens and flips over a mattress to retrieve his journal hidden beneath. He flips through pages of photos of White Center's emaciated and dead before stopping on a page about a missing person, Ren Tsutsumida, who has the same face as the Human Vapor.
The next day, Kono receives a call from Obata telling her he would like to donate the journal and all its contents to finally find peace. Shota finds him in the bathroom before school and confides in him that, although he doesn't want to be a liar or a bully, he is scared to tell the truth about Daisuke. Obata tells him it's okay and that he need not rush it, and wishes him a good day. At Fujishiro, the biker gang leave angry and are followed by Okamoto and Abe. Kono and Nishiyama arrive at a cafe where they agreed to meet Obata, but Kono finds it to be crawling with shady figures. The pair decide to leave and the men follow them out. Walking turns to running as they are chased through stores and into the parking garage, where they are finally cornered. The men—the same gangsters who were spotted at Fujishiro—find nothing of interest while digging through Kono's purse. Enraged, the leader pulls a gun on them. They are saved by the arrival of Okamoto and Abe, whom the gang leader opens fire on before trying to abduct Kono in a van. However, Abe prevents them from leaving by ramming the van with her car. The gunman begins riddling the car with bullets, but his gun jams after turning his attention to Okamoto, who chokes him unconscious.
Okamoto frees Kono from the van and asks her why yakuza might be interested in her. She tells him about the journal arrangement with Obata, and he concludes the gangsters must have found out about it. Meanwhile, while driving through Shizuoka, Obata stops for a man broken down on the side of the road. He offers to call a repair shop and steps away a moment to answer a call from Kono. She tells him she believes his life to be in danger and urges him to find a police box to take refuge in until the TMPD can get to him. Obata responds that he isn't afraid of dying, but is afraid of the possibility he won't be able to pay for his sins. He tearfully explains that White Center was taken over by a group who killed its director and installed him as the replacement, under whose leadership the disadvantaged residents there would be sacrificed as "human fuel". He names the organization responsible as "Mufu". The broken-down driver suddenly stabs him to death and makes off with the journal.
Cast
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Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.
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Appearances
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References
This is a list of references for Informant. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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