Haru Turns ON

Haru as Agent Todo in ON

Just started watching the crime drama ON, and what a strange and surreal show it is! The show stars actress HARU as a special agent named Hinako Todo, who has an uncanny ability to remember every  case she’s reviewed down to the dates and names, making her a veritable database of knowledge in the field.

Her team is comprised of leader Iwao (Atsuro Watabe), Kurashima (Jun Kaname) and a hot-headed detective named Shoji (Yu Yokoyama). Together they make up the violent crimes detective unit at the station.

Hinako Todo (Haru)

Atsushi Iwao (Atsuro Watabe)

Keiichiro Kurashima (Jun Kaname)

Yasuhisa Shoji (Yu Yokoyama)

When we meet up with the team, they are investigating a murder of a man who has been killed under unusual circumstances- his wounds are almost exactly like the ones on a girl he is suspected of murdering some three years earlier.

They investigate into possible perpetrators of the crime, and what Todo and Shoji find is that there are a number of similar cases where accused murderers are slain by the exact same method they supposedly killed their victims.

And as they dig deeper, it begins to seem like the victim did the injuries to HIMSELF. Normally a person’s self preserving instincts would stop you from strangling your own self or stabbing yourself multiple times in the heart, but what if there was some way to turn that off? Forensic Scientist Ishigami (Mieko Harada) thinks this may just be what's happening!

with Forensic scientist Taeko Ishigami (Mieko Harada)

Investigating further, they find that there may be people who have psychological “triggers” in their psyche that, when activated, send them into violent killing mode, bringing harm to innocent people around them and possibly even against their own selves.

Confronting a Killer

There is a sinister Mental Health clinic that seems to be keeping track of the psychologically triggered murders and both the director of the hospital (Ken Mitsuishi) and his assistant (Kento Hayashi) seem suspect. What do they have to do with all these killings? 

Tamotsu Nakajima (Kento Hayashi)

And then there’s main character Hinako herself.  Though expressively cheerful and happy in her job and at the station with her fellow detectives, her nights are spent in a lifeless, depressed drawl. She also has a disturbing penchant for bloody crime scenes, almost delighting in investigating them, and even when a close friend of hers is killed, she still places observing the crime scene above any personal loss, a trait that bugs her partner Shoji to no end. What secrets is she hiding?

"How Curious!"

I began watching this show purely for the sake of Haru, whom I had begun to develop quite a crush on in the Satoshi Ohno drama “Sekai Ichi Muzukashii Koi” and so far Haru has been a joy to watch. I’m really liking this actress! The story of ON, however, hmmm, it’s going to take me some time to really get into this show, it is so ‘out there” with their theories (the one about a criminal giving himself his mortal wounds just by imagining them is kind of a stretch) and the way the killers instantly turn psychotic when triggered seems hard to swallow… But the story of Hinako and her past intrigues me to continue watching this one. 

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com