In the ominous opener of the new Japanese series Burn the House Down, young Anzu stands in a crowd of onlookers watching her family’s home burn to the ground. Thirteen years later, when we meet Anzu again, she’s hired as a house cleaner at a mansion — where she aims to collect more than a paycheck.
Using a false identity that her new employer doesn’t question, she explores the rooms with secret purpose: The once-affluent Anzu grew up in the house that once stood on this same lot. She’s never believed the accepted story that her mother is the one who started the fire. And now, if Anzu can cut through the layers of intrigue and influence (both IRL and online) she’s swept into, she’ll finally get her chance to clear the air and get her revenge.
From director Yûichirô Hirakawa (The Promised Neverland, Group Demotion) and writer Arisa Kaneko (Orange, An Incurable Case of Love) comes Burn the House Down, based on the popular manga series of the same name by Moyashi Fujisawa. Starring Mei Nagano and Kyôka Suzuki, the new eight-episode thriller uncovers multiple skeletons in the closet and delivers plenty of stunning turns along the way.
Stream all eight episodes of Burn the House Down now.
Anzu Mitarai’s first day at her new job — working undercover as a house cleaner — is immediately haunted by more than déjà vu. The mansion she’s hired to clean is full of her own memories of living in the house that once stood on this same lot. That is, until a fateful night 13 years ago — when Anzu was just a girl, standing under a blazing orange sky watching her home go up in flames. She can’t erase the image of her mother collapsing to the ground, apologizing to her and her father, and how, right after, she caught sight of a woman in the crowd of onlookers, smiling.
That woman — Makiko — is now her boss. And, unbeknownst to Makiko, she’s also Anzu’s stepmother (more on that in a minute). Makiko believes Anzu is a young domestic worker named Shizuka. She forbids her from going upstairs when she cleans, which makes Anzu/“Shizuka” all the more determined to explore there. Anzu’s certain Makiko’s mansion contains traces of her mother, Satsuki, including evidence that she believes will prove Satsuki didn’t start the devastating fire.
For Anzu, it’s not just about clearing her mother’s name, but hopefully restoring her memory. Since the fire, her mother’s been hospitalized in the Mitarai Hospital owned by Anzu’s father, Osamu; her memory loss is so bad, she can’t recognize her own daughters. Meanwhile, Osamu believed that Satsuki hated their house; he’s been completely estranged from her and his daughters all these years since the fire. In fact, he’s now married to Makiko, who once upon a time was one of Satsuki’s fellow “mom friends.”
This wildly tangled web gets even more complicated by the series of discoveries Anzu makes in the mansion — starting with finding a hair clip of her mother’s and encountering a person who’s living in the forbidden upstairs rooms. Over the course of eight episodes, her investigations pull her into a thorny trail of social media and internet intrigue, as she stirs up secrets from the past and forges surprising bonds.
Yes, Burn the House Down is based on the manga series of the same name by Moyashi Fujisawa.
No, Burn the House Down is fictional and is not based on a true story.
The series is set in Japan.
