Last Man: Zenmo no Sosakan

Masaharu Fukuyama stars as Hiromi Minami  a blind former profiler turned detective working for the FBI in America, who has come back to Japan to create a joint FBI/Japan Task Force.

A veritable Zatoichi, Minami’s blindness has given him a set of skills that help him with his sleuthing and give him the upper hand above his workmates: heightened hearing that can sense the slightest footstep and  a sense of smell that can detect the slightest scent upon a suspect, as well as an infallible brain that puts all of the clues and comes up with the perfect answer, a skill that his pointman to the team, Shintaro Godo (Yo Oizumi) realizes firsthand when Minami deduces everything about him at their very first meeting!

Minami is gung-ho about joining the Japan Police Department and is eager to forge new partnerships, but the station agents have their reservations about the eccentric if affable man suddenly added to their team.

Led by the initial investigator Madoka Sakura (Yo Yoshida), she is curt and abrupt with her conversations with Minami, not seeing how this man can bring anything to their ongoing investigation, a case following a string of deadly bombings happening sporadically throughout Japan.

Neither more forthcoming are the other detectives including Izumi (Ren Nagase),Hasegawa (Tomoya Oku)  or the hot-headed Manome (Satoru Matsuo), who watch from the side to see if this guy can prove himself.

The only one who seems to understand Minami and welcomes him to the Japan precinct is rookie Yuki Agatsuma (Mio Imada), who embraces Minami’s observations and predictions. She seems to be the only one not jaded, but we will find she has a history with Minami that even he may not realize…

Asking Yuki to join them on the site investigation

!

When the bomber strikes again, while the rest of the squad head down together, Agatsuma is added to Minami’s team of him and Shintaro Godo! Welcome to our new power trio!

Her involvement will become clear when she is instructed to download a program onto her laptop.  With a camera and earpiece affixed to his ear, Minami can broadcast his “sight” to an app on Yuki’s laptop, and with her instruction, becomes his “eyes” through the earpiece. In this way Minami can canvass the bomb scene and use his special skills to nail down the perpetrator!

So far, Last Man: Zenmo no Sosakan seems to be another “Quirky Detective with Odd Skill” series like so many others (including some of Fukuyama's own like “Galileo”, but with the sense of smell, reminding me more of the Hiroshi Abe crime drama “The Sniffer”…

Still, the characters here are very well-developed, and even in just the first episode, we are given slivers of backstory to many of the main characters already, and makes you want to learn more!

I really like the Mio Imada character and her relation with Minami, and hope they develop stories like this to keep me interested, as I feel the show will eventually and inevitably turn into another “Corrupt Upper Level Cops/Politicians” show, which they’re already hinting at.

Takaya Kamikawa

Nonetheless, looks like an interesting one to check out each week!

PS: Mmm, who's THIS cutie serving up as Hotel Help "Namba"?

 Credits say her name is "Ourin" and that she's a former singer/idol...VERY easy on the eyes!

Just another reason to check in each week! LOL

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com