A Masterful Juggling of Story Arcs in "One Day~Seiya no kara Sawagi "

A veritable ALL-STAR cast, headlined by Kazunari Ninomiya, Miki Nakatani and Takao Osawa, the new mystery/Suspense drama ONE DAY: SEIYA NO KARA SAWAGI follows three different people as their paths diverge and intersect after one fateful Christmas Eve where a man is brutally murdered at a popular gathering place in town.

There is local newscaster Kikyu Kurauchi (Nakatani), an intrepid reporter who is determined to investigate and expose the murder case- even as her news program is being threatened with replacement by a cooking show!

There is eccentric Tokio Tachiaoi (Osawa), a restaurant Chef whose Christmas plans are thwarted by a chance encounter with the murder suspect when a huge pot of demiglace gets knocked over during the altercation, throwing the restaurant’s plans and honor up in the air…

…and then there is the mysterious murder suspect himself, Seiji Suguroji (Ninomiya), a seemingly calm and collected man who wakes up in the plaza on the ground next to a dead man and no recollection of what has happened or how he got there!

Along with these three are people like Mansaku Mitsutani (Eguchi Yosuke), a hard-as-nails investigator who knows far more than he reveals- Upon arrival at the scene, he wrests the case away from main investigator Karen Karumiya (Wakana Matsumoto) though he is from an entirely different division…and may have ulterior motives for being there!

Mizuki Fuehana (Taishi Nagakawa) and Yuan Yahata (Anne Nakamura) are two components to the puzzle of whom we cannot be sure of where their alliances are. Both of them contact Suguroji in his attempts to evade the authorities, but are they there to help or hinder?

And finally, there is adorable Sako Tachiaoi (Riko Fukumoto), little sister of chef Tachiaoi and junior reporter for the same station which employs Kurauchi…and is in fact rumoured to replace her!

(Already fell in love with Riko as the irresistible RinRin in Trillion game, and here's yet another great role for her!)

 Other familiar faces we see are those of the likes of Shinya Kote, Yuki Sakurai, Kai Inowaki, Tomomi Maruyama, and even Koichi Sato! All of them are intertwined throughout the story...

From just the first episode, ONE DAY is VERY intriguing and I would LOVE to see how it all ties up! My only worry is: Will this all just come down to Corrupt Police/Politicians like ALL the other crime/suspense dramas end up?

Guess We'll have to watch and see......

PS: I was just marvelling to my friend about how many stars from my "Golden Age" of Jdrama watching are here: Osawa, Nakatani, Eguchi, Sato...all of whom were among my FIRST wave of actors and actresses I knew back in Mid 90's. Who knew they'd still be here headlining shows some 25+ years on!!!

Ups and Downs with IQ246

I’m already at episode 7 of the eccentric detective drama “IQ246”, and I’m still not even sure how much I like it… when I first heard of it and saw it was going to star  Oda Yuji as a genius mastermind and Tao Tsuchiya (the girl who recently stole my heart in Omukae Death) as his detective partner, I was expecting a fun romp a la Galileo…instead, what a got was more akin to Ayase Haruka and Kimura Takuya in Mr. Brain: a smarmy egocentric guy belittling his “not-so-bright”partner for slapstick humor.

IQ246 is the drama about a guy named Sharaku Homonji (Yuji Oda)  with, well, the IQ of 246. He is constantly getting involved in police crime scenes because he is bored with his mundane life and needs stimulation.

The Station doesn’t want him interfering so they appoint Soko Wato (Tao Tsuchiya) as his “bodyguard”, i.e. the babysitter who is supposed to keep tabs on him and keep him out of the Police work.

But they don't take her seriously and with the help of his able and almost secret-agent-skilled butler Kensei  (Dean Fujioka), he always eludes Wato and gets away.

I could understand if Tao’s character is supposed to be Sharaku’s teammate but it’s clearly Kensei who is Sharaku’s partner, as they are the ones going out to investigate the crime scenes together (usually after tricking Wato into going on errands and leaving her behind) and when she does show up, she is immediately sidelined into the ‘whiney” comedy relief”.

I could also understand if Soko’s role was meant to be the “police” side of the team, (i.e. what Yuriko Yoshitaka was in Galileo), but they already HAVE two detectives as main characters with Taneko Imaichi (Sei Matobu) and Jiro Yamada (Shuntaro Miyao) as the senior detectives on the scene.

So Tsuchiya’s character is totally redundant and ONLY there for comedic purposes. Very frustrating to see her in such ridiculous and slapstick situations, but I love her so much that I will have to see this drama through, and oh man I hope it gets better.

At least she is quite cute when either falling asleep after eating sweets, a running ‘gag” on the show….

Couple of side-characters worth mentioning is Miki Nakatani as the team’s super nerdy forensics doctor who has a mad crush on Sharaku and his sharp no-nonsense approach to deduction…. 

...and I must admit it’s a bit of a perk seeing pretty actress/model Yua Shinkawa appear each episode as the younger sister of Sharaku, whose role in this show seems to be to come out and look dazzling and then leave, LOL.

A goofy, goofy show with hairbrained crime scenarios worthy of “Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato De” (the kind where you go “how in the world could ANYONE deduce such a complicated murder plan from such mundane clues???) and indeed, they even make a joke reference to that old Sho Sakurai/Keiko Kitagawa drama when Sharaku says “I will solve the mystery after dinner!” and Soko looks at the camera and says to herself “that sounds familiar….” LOL

Well, we've got a few more episodes to go...just hoping things gel a bit, but no matter what i will have to say that this drama is worth watching for the tao Tsuchiya element alone...too cute!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com