Minami Hamabe Back with New "Alibi Breaker" Special

 I fell in love with Minami Hamabe in her stint as the rascally troublemaking idol Junko Kuroba in the 2019 drama “Pure” (which I wrote about here), but it was her next drama “Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu” which really showcased her as a rising star to watch! 

As it was the first full drama I watched with Minami, (Pure was a mere 3 episodes) I’ve always had a sentimental attachment to the Alibi-breaking Tokino Mitani, and so when it was announced that Hamabe would be returning for a reunion speical, I was dying to check it out!

All the regulars from the 2020 series have returned as well, with Ken Yasuda back as the irritable detective Yoshiyuki Saji and Ryo Narita as the bumbling detective Yuma Tokai, also Tokio Emoto and Masanobu Katsumura, reconstructing the old team to once again take on new crimes and new alibis to break...

Ryo Narita

Shotaru Mmiya

Masanobu Katsumura

Tokio Emoto

WELL, after just finishing watching the special , I must admit to being mostly...underwhelmed. For some reason they decided to start the show with Saji being an absolute PILL to Junko, starting things off on a bad foot, at least in MY viewing experience! Secretly using Kuroba to 'solve" his cases is one thing, but forbidding her from offering her services (even deleting her webpage) to the public is a jerk move, in my opinion.

Was waiting for the moment where he slinks back to her and asks for her help, instead  it's almost framed like he's doing HER a favor by using her alibi breaking skills at the end. Which I guess it is since Kuroba's so gung-ho about using her brains to crack the cases, but still...

Will say that this special is just cram-packed full of secondary characters to keep track of: Rin Takanashi, Shotaro Mamiya,Shono Hayama, Yuma Yamato, Wakana Matsumoto, Akiko Hinagata, etc, etc, Egads, with all of them running around, this special felt more like an extended variety show sketch than a drama episode proper, and quite often felt like a mess!

Rin Takanashi

Shono Hayama

Wakana Matsumoto

Akiko Hinagata

Yuma Yamato

Ryosuke Yamamoto

Really, there was like 3 different arcs going on at the same time, and none of them particularly gripping or imaginative (come on, invisible ink as a crime method is something a 3rd grader would come up with!), and after all that brouhaha, still left the conclusion open-ended to leave room for more sequels (or even new series)…very exhausting!

So yeah….was glad to see the old gang again, and love that Minami is really curating her backlog of enduring characters, however unless they’re going to tighten up the cast and plot devices, it might be best to leave this one to stand on its own….

(Would love to see Hamabe reprise her role of Mami Shirasawa of “Talio Fukushu Daiko no Futari” - now, THAT would be something to see!!!

Notes On "Utsubora"

Recently wrapped up the dark noir/erotica WOWOW drama "Utsubora" (Moray Eel) and had some thoughts on it...

I was captivated by this story of a faded writer named Mizorogi (Yukiya Kitamura) who, upon the suicide of a woman named Aki (Atsuko Maeda) whom he had stolen a manuscript and plagiarized as his own, is confronted by an identical woman named Sakura (also Maeda) claiming to be the woman's twin sister. 

Captivating and mysterious, the woman takes over Mizorogi's life in both his writing and "under the sheets" as they eventually engage in a sordid romantic tryst, even as he struggles to uncover if this woman is truly a twin sister, or the deceased victim herself seemingly back from the grave!

Meanwhile Mizorogi's own editor Tsuji (Fujiwara Kisetsu) himself is starting to doubt that the recent stories he is penning have come from his own hand. And when talking to fellow authors like Yatabe (Ikkei Watanabe) and Nomiya (Akiko Hinagata), they seem to share the same opinion!

And while all this is going on, the police detectives (Hajime Okayama,Kohei Takeda) are not far behind, concerned because not only does the deceased Aki have no credentials to prove who she is, neither does the mysterious Sakura! They suspect foul play, and if, as they suspect, Sakura is simply Aki pretending to be her own twin...then who is the dead person lying in the morgue?

A GRIPPING drama that had me on my toes throughout its ENTIRE run with its twists and turns, and a SPECTACULAR performance by Atsuko Maeda who simply SLAYED as the dual roles of both the deceased writer Aki and her brooding twin counterpart Sakura!

A really great cast- when was the last time I saw Akiko Hinagata in anything? LOL!

Ooh, and also MUST mention the always adorable Yuna Taira, here as the naive niece of Mizorogi, the eternally cheerful and wide-eyed waif Koyomi...who, behind her happy smile holds some dark secrets of her own!

I wasn't planning on writing an after-viewing wrap up for this one,(while engaging, I found the conclusion a bit underwhelming)  but I found I just could not stop thinking about Utsubora even days after finishing it! Finally had to jot down my thoughts and in the end did a write up proper!

WOWOW certainly are becoming the kings of the murky, dark and desperate dramas!!!

Props to them for keeping me on my toes with these fresh ideas and concepts!