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