Of Swords and Parasols

59 x BOSS
43 x Chuno
38 x Jack of All Trades
68 x Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
78 x Magadheera
77 x Yasuko to Kenji

  
  

icons @ my lj

Osawa Eriko is a detective returning to Japan after five years training in the U.S., and her old friend, Nodate, has arranged to have her as the head of a new division. The division is ostensibly to handle the rise in atrocious crimes, but she’s really expected to handle the media, and faces interference on most fronts when she decides to actually investigate the crimes she was hired to investigate. In addition, her team is made up of oddballs that don’t quite fit in with their old divisions. They seem to have been handpicked to get in her way, but were actually chosen by Nodate because he thinks they’ll be good for her.

This is a procedural more than a mystery drama, and I’m notably not fond of procedurals, but jdramas are about the only medium where I can like almost any genre. Though, it’s a hard crime drama mixed with offbeat quirkiness and humor, so that contributes. (Also, unlike US procedurals, Japanese procedurals don’t seem to be in love with the lovingly posed corpses of mutilated women.) The men in the cast outnumber the women about 2-to-1, but the women are all super-competent in their fields, and not remotely alike. And the only one who has the typical isolation and social problems seems to prefer it that way. The writers were also clearly crushing on all of them throughout. The men were fun, too, though I admit that while I enjoyed them while they were onscreen, I had difficulty maintaining interest in any of them besides Nodate and Katagiri, and I’m not sure how much of that was the characters, and how much was being fond of the actors (Takenouchi Yutaka and Tamayama Tetsuji) from other shows. Ok, mostly Katagiri. Nodate I found weirdly charming and endearing given what a sleeze he was. Maybe it was because he’s a devoted sleeze who seems to be harboring a long suppressed crush? Also, it made me want to rewatch Rondo.

The drama supposedly has a 100% success rate of making everyone who watches it crush on Amami Yuya, who plays Osawa, and it’s easy to see why. Woman is fierce and has the most amazing expressions. I especially loved when she started scolding people at all times. This is where you rec her other dramas. (I’m already getting Around 40 and The Queen’s Classroom.) I also loved Kimito, Erica Toda’s un-social (not antisocial, just un-social…takes too much effort to commit either way) scientist, though I kept fearing they’d end up pairing her with the random JE boy. At least I assume he’s a JE boy. It’s kind of the only way I can figure his role out. I liked most of the episodes, but I recommend skipping the third episode. Not only was it rather logic-fail, but I also found it pretty offensive. It’s like someone else wrote it in an attempt to get fired or something. I probably would have dropped the drama right then and there if it weren’t for the actors and characters. Also, I am apparently heartless, because when we got to the episode resolving Katagiri’s deep angst that turned him from the department’s golden boy to a scruffy angstmuffin who hates the police department (he would annoy me, but the show indulges in some eyerolling over how he expresses his angst, and so I ended up distractedly fond of him in an amused way) I ended up more sympathetic towards the killer.

The series is pretty well put together, and niftily shot, though the camerawork tries to get too artsy/edgy at times and I want to tell the creators to stop it already. Also, I am weirdly in love with the uber-glam opening credits. Maybe it’s because they’re so pretty? Also, everytime I watched them, I wondered how they got Kimito so dolled up. Like, I’m pretty sure the rest of the team would have to physically restrain her and it would take all of them to get her looking like that.


( some icons of the opening credits )