Motokare no Yuigonjou

 Reiko Kenmochi (Haruka Ayase) is a keen-eyed spitfire of a lawyer who lives by only one credo: “I’ll only do it for the money!”. It’s this brash single-focused drive that gets her through her cases but also ruffles more than a few feathers among her peers, and when we first meet up with her, she’s being reprimanded by her superior for her overbearing behavior and has decided to leave the firm.

So it is that she has time on her hands when a mysterious new case appears before her, starting with the news that an old boyfriend of hers from years ago named Eiji Morikawa (Ikuta Toma) has suddenly died. They had broken up years ago and she had not thought of him since then. But she will soon be learning more about him than she ever knew!

No sooner has she heard the news when she is contacted by a Keitaro Shinoda (Yo Oizumi) about the death of her ex-boyfriend. Reiko doesn’t remember Shinoda but he tells her he was part of the college mystery club that both she and Eiji were in. He informs her that he had been in Eiji’s service as a sort of cook and steward when he suddenly passed away from pneumonia.
The problem, he tells her, has to do with Eiji’s will.

The problem, he tells her, has to do with Eiji’s will. Seems he was heir to a VAST pharmaceutical business  involving millions, millions that everyone wants a part of.  Besides promising things to past schoolmates and teachers, he’s also willed small fortunes to all of his exes, a group Reiko is keenly aware she is part of! But the confounding part of Eiji’s will is the final part…which wills the rest of his inheritance to the person who MURDERED him!

As Eiji passed away due to a cold, calling someone his murderer doesn’t make sense. But Shinoda says that as it was he who took Eiji out fishing in the cold weather which resulted in him getting sick in the first place, perhaps it can be said that he was the one who killed him. Reiko agrees to help Shinoda out as his lawyer when she learns she can get a huge chunk of his windfall, since she will already be there for the ex-girlfriend will-reading.

Crushingly, Reiko will find that unlike some of the other recipients (who get exotic homes and real estate), the only thing she is set to inherit is a dingy lawyer firm run by Eiji’s own lawyer, the kindly Murayama (Takashi Sasano). 

But on the other end of the will, the part about there being a murderer, things are looking more and more diabolical and suspicious, and Reiko is finding reasons to suspect  everyone involved in the will.  First there are Eiji’s  Father (Kenta Satoi) and Aunt (Hisako Manda), who are the ones who will directly benefit the most from his passing.

There is Eiji’s cousin Takumi (Jun Kaname, in another one of his classic arrogant rich boy roles)

 childhood friend/ family pet veterinarian Dojo (Toru Nomaguchi)…

and then there are the ex-girlfriends, whom, beside Reiko, including Asahi Haraguchi (Kanna Moriya) and Yukino Morikawa (Yuko Fueki) and a handful of others….

also the brash and outspoken cousin Sae (Nagisa Sekimizu) whom has had a crush on her cousin Eiji herself and unabashedly loathes seeing ANY of his exes getting ANYTHING in the will!

And last but not least, Eiji’s older brother Tomiharu (also played by Ikuta Toma) who has a multitude of reasons and grudges against his brother.

Reiko and Shinoda are doing everything they can to understand everyone’s motives, when Eiji’s lawyer is poisoned right in front of them!

 It’s now clear to everyone that there is INDEED a killer among them…but who can it be? At the moment they don’t know, but Reiko sees the clues are all there for her to decipher, and if she does things right, there may be a big payday for her after all!

Ahhh, another FANTASTIC role for Ms. Haruka Ayase who can now add the role of Reiko Kenmochi to her collection of Badass Chicks!!! 

She’s so cool, snappily cutting off people, talking back to overbearing bosses, clients and EVEN the POLICE, and when she is in “Eagle-Eye” mode, you see her keen brain taking note of every thing that is being said and done, storing it for the ultimate analysis!!!!

Also a thrill to see uber-pretty Nagisa Sekimizu back! really loved her in the role of Sakiyoshi in “Anonymous” and she’s stealing the scenes here as the seemingly “unrequited love” cousin with a huge chip on her shoulder!

 Motokare no Yuigonjou promises to be a good one!!!

PS:Seeing this scene with Ayase Haruka smiling in an elevator reminded me so much of a similar scene in her early drama "Hotaru No Hikari", the J-drama which has a special place in my heart for not only introducing me to Haruka but for jump-starting my J-drama interest! 

Haruka Ayase now:

...and way back in 2007!

She's matured so much since then but still carries that twinkle in her eye and still remains one of my BIG favorite actresses EVER!

A Double Dose of Yoshida Yo

Regular readers of this blog know of my drooling attraction to svelte, sexy and stoic actress Yo Yoshida and it looks like the time has really come for her fans as we’ve got not one but TWO excellent dramas showcasing her awesome acting sensibilities!

First up we’ve got “Medical Team Lady Da Vinci No Shindan” which from the get go reminds me a lot of the Maki Horikita drama “Higanbana” with its’ crackerjack team of eccentric yet excelling women, only in this show it isn’t a police station where the girls do their detective work, but though the operating rooms of the Hospital.

Yoshida plays a neurosurgeon named Shiho Tachibana who withdraws from practice when she begins having fainting spells. She is then approached by an old colleague named Kitabatake Masayuki (Takahashi Katsunori) who says he is creating a super-team of doctors who can “Solve medical problems on one else can”.

She agrees to join up, but when she gets there, she finds that the rest of the team are cold and  unfriendly to this new outsider and it is only once she shows the others how capable she is do they grudgingly accept her.

The team is led by Yoko Iwakura (Ran Ito), a celebrity surgeon who even has her own television show who is used to being the center of the team, she and Tachibana will butt heads on more than one occasion!

We’ve got Aibu Saki in another one of her “Bitchy chick” roles (hmmm, seems she’s been playing a lot of these lately) as Yukino Nitta, a girl who is reserved and yet fascinated by Tachibana..

Pretty Yuko Fueki (whom you may recall stunned me with her looks way back in Otenki Oneesan) as Iwakura’s gushing second…

Satomi Ai (Kumiko Shirotori), a no-nonsense member who seems to ignore the power playing amongst the head doctors and just does what is need.

Saori Takizawa in yet ANOTHER one of her “man-hungry over 30 woman” roles, still looking as luscious as ever, as Yui Uematsu. Man, who would have thought Saori could make an entire career out of playing these desperate ladies? 

…and finally we have cute and cuddly Riho Yoshioka as Ayaka, the girl chosen to be Tachibana’s assistant and befuddled partner in crime.

Together these women team up to solve the hospital’s more bizarre cases, using their extensive knowledge of maladies, expert footwork and a whole lotta spirited speculation.

And then we’ve got a lot darker murder mystery type detective show featuring Yo as an able detective in the Japan remake of the successful American detective show COLD CASE.

As usual for WOWOW, this is a detective show that is a LOT darker than others, every scene seems to be drenched in this sickly greenish blue tint making everything seem bleak and dour, and from the get go things are grim, grim, grim.

In this show, Yoshida is once again heading a team of crackerjack agents, only this time they are gruff, seasoned detectives whom look upon this wisp of a woman as a curiosity more than a prime leader in her field, but they do work together to get things done.

First we have Tomokazu “Mr. Momoe” Miura as the head of the Cold Case department...

Mitsuishi “He Always plays the Dad” Ken:

Kenichi “That guy from Hanzawa Naoki” Takito...

..and Kento Nagayama as the young man assigned to the team who HATES having to work under a lady, LOL!

Like the CBS Cold Case series, this drama deals with a team assinged to solving old unsolved cases using modern CSI technology that didn’t exist back then to bring the criminals to light, and I was tickled when they showed a flashback to 20 years ago and the song they chose for the scene was “Namonaki Uta” by Mr. Children…GADS, has it been 20 YEARS already? LOL

So far I have to say I like Lady Da Vinci a bit more than Cold Case- not only is it a lot brighter in both tone and actual color, but Yoshida is allowed be goofy and cute, usually executing her detective work with a mischievous twinkle in her eye:

With Cold Case, it is so dense and so serrrrioooouuuusssssss.... I think y0u can easily see the "mood" of both shows by simply taking a look at these two screencaps!

Additionally, Cold Case is so similar to other generic Japanese Detective dramas, one wonders why they felt the need to secure the licensing for it. Wouldn’t it have been easy enough to create a cold case series of their own? I mean, it’s not like CBS has the lock on the cold case theme, even Aya Ueto’s Zettai Reido used the similar format of old unsolved cases resolved through modern means, right? 

Ah well, no matter what, i'm definitely gonna be watching both of these wholeheartedly, after all, more Yo Yoshida in my j-drama viewing life is ALWAYS a good thing!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com