Minami Hamabe Back with New "Alibi Breaker" Special

 I fell in love with Minami Hamabe in her stint as the rascally troublemaking idol Junko Kuroba in the 2019 drama “Pure” (which I wrote about here), but it was her next drama “Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu” which really showcased her as a rising star to watch! 

As it was the first full drama I watched with Minami, (Pure was a mere 3 episodes) I’ve always had a sentimental attachment to the Alibi-breaking Tokino Mitani, and so when it was announced that Hamabe would be returning for a reunion speical, I was dying to check it out!

All the regulars from the 2020 series have returned as well, with Ken Yasuda back as the irritable detective Yoshiyuki Saji and Ryo Narita as the bumbling detective Yuma Tokai, also Tokio Emoto and Masanobu Katsumura, reconstructing the old team to once again take on new crimes and new alibis to break...

Ryo Narita

Shotaru Mmiya

Masanobu Katsumura

Tokio Emoto

WELL, after just finishing watching the special , I must admit to being mostly...underwhelmed. For some reason they decided to start the show with Saji being an absolute PILL to Junko, starting things off on a bad foot, at least in MY viewing experience! Secretly using Kuroba to 'solve" his cases is one thing, but forbidding her from offering her services (even deleting her webpage) to the public is a jerk move, in my opinion.

Was waiting for the moment where he slinks back to her and asks for her help, instead  it's almost framed like he's doing HER a favor by using her alibi breaking skills at the end. Which I guess it is since Kuroba's so gung-ho about using her brains to crack the cases, but still...

Will say that this special is just cram-packed full of secondary characters to keep track of: Rin Takanashi, Shotaro Mamiya,Shono Hayama, Yuma Yamato, Wakana Matsumoto, Akiko Hinagata, etc, etc, Egads, with all of them running around, this special felt more like an extended variety show sketch than a drama episode proper, and quite often felt like a mess!

Rin Takanashi

Shono Hayama

Wakana Matsumoto

Akiko Hinagata

Yuma Yamato

Ryosuke Yamamoto

Really, there was like 3 different arcs going on at the same time, and none of them particularly gripping or imaginative (come on, invisible ink as a crime method is something a 3rd grader would come up with!), and after all that brouhaha, still left the conclusion open-ended to leave room for more sequels (or even new series)…very exhausting!

So yeah….was glad to see the old gang again, and love that Minami is really curating her backlog of enduring characters, however unless they’re going to tighten up the cast and plot devices, it might be best to leave this one to stand on its own….

(Would love to see Hamabe reprise her role of Mami Shirasawa of “Talio Fukushu Daiko no Futari” - now, THAT would be something to see!!!

Notes on "Destiny"

Story of a girl named Kanade Nishimura whose Father suddenly and mysteriously committed suicide when she was in middle school. Because of this, she grew up as a shy and introverted person who shunned friendship, til she meets a group of friendly students who take her under their wing and accept her as one of their group!

Starring Satomi Ishihara in the lead role as Kanade, this is another cast of starts, with Kazuya Kamenashi as Masaki Nogi, Emma Miyazawa as Tomomi Mori, Minami Tanaka as Kaori Oikawa, and Yuma Yamato as Yuko Umeda....

This group will eventually bring Kanade out of her shell, and for the first time, will experience comradeship and bonding with others. "Let's be friends forever" one says, and they all agree!

Sadly, this will not last, and the partnership shatters when one of the group is killed in an accident. Moreover, one of them, Nogi, who was present at the scene of the accident, disappears after the funeral, seemingly never to be seen again....

Fast forward to the present day as Kanade is working as a lawyer for the Prosecuting Office. She seems content with the life and even has a romantic partner Takashi Okuda (Masanobu Ando).

But when she crosses paths with that same man who had disappeared from their lives after the time of the accident. And as she tries to discover where he has been and what he has done, the truth about not only the death of her college friend but of her own father’s suicide will come to light…

Only seen the first episode which mostly set-up the story without revealing much, but I dunno, this one doesn’t grab me at all. May be the slow pace and meandering style, but I found myself trailing off a few times during the show! Will watch a few more to see where this goes, but I’m already getting 100 Man Kai Ieba Yokatta vibes from this,  and THAT one was a dreary and dragged out murder mystery which I really had to slog through.  Nonetheless, it seems this one's already a HUGE hit, so MY lukewarm response is DEFINITELY in the minority... will love to be proved wrong in my initial analysis!

Posted by zdorama @zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Birth of A Villain: Elaiza Ikeda is “Doronjo”

In the vein of Disney’s recent rebranding their classic super villains like Cruella and Maleficent into sympathetic anti-heroes, we have the “origin” of Yatterman Arch-Nemesis Doronjo, with actress Elaiza Ikeda as the titular character...

And just like the Disney re-imaginings, her character has been reworked so as to be completely unrecognizable from the iconic character! “There is NO WAY that this girl is going to become the outlandish cigarette smoking cartoon character we know.” is what I thought throughout the show!

In this revisionist drama, Nao "Dorokawa" (Elaiza) and Aika Hijirakawa (Hirona Yamazaki) are boxing athletes with a bitter feud between them, giving I guess a back history of resentment between them from the start. Gan Takaiwada is here as part of some "Criminal Apprehension" team which will eventually become Yatterman central(?)  They've even got Yuma Yamato and Wataru Ichinose as Doronjo's motley minions Boyaky and Tonzura, so the key figures are all here...just not like we remember them!

The future Doronjo: Elaiza Ikeda

Yuma Yamato and Wataru Ichinose as Boyaky and Tonzura

Daichi Kaneko and Hirona Yamazaki as the future Yatterman Team

Still, there are a LOT of interesting elements going on and I can’t say I’m not interested in seeing where this is all going!! Gotta say, I'm optimistic for this one!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com