Toei Hero Next (2012)

“Piece” opens with a dream-like scene in a forest, where a girl asks the man she’s with (Watanabe) what he’ll do if she dies. After he explains to her what he imagines to be living as if he was dead, she abruptly collapses and turns to stone, the scenery changing to a dark room with two other girls looking on. He suddenly wakes up on a bench by a riverbank, and it’s revealed that he’s a freelance reporter named Tomoki Chino. The recurring dream is apparently the fuzzy remnants of an actual occurrence from three years ago, and he’s been trying to figure out what really happened and what his girlfriend’s last words were. When more people start turning to stone, he jumps head-first into the investigation, and consequently comes across a photographer named Rei (Miura) who’s housing multiple symbiotic personalities within himself. As luck would have it, Rei’s van contains the equipment necessary to solve the mystery, and his various personalities are also able to help Tomoki reach back into his own memories.