2015 winter j-drama: ouroboros
Starring the golden trio of Ikuta Toma, Oguri Shun and Ueno Juri, there's almost nothing that could go wrong...then again, these guys have also been guilty of some pretty mediocre stuff each.
Japanese revenge dramas could go either way. They never tend to rate that well - even my personal favourite Maou only rated about 12-13% all-up, which is explained both by their time slot and also probably by the general audience's preference for feel-good type dramas - but they can range from clever and heart-wrenching like Maou to inanely cheerful like Ryusei no Kizuna to rather bland like Alice no Toge.
Ouroboros starts off well-paced and well-developed, which is always a massive relief when the drama has enough budget to cover its ambitions. It's constructed like a police drama of the day, the first episode focusing on the death of salaryman Nishida which appeared at first like a suicide until it unravelled to reveal the underworld plots and police corruption behind it.
The case of the week is a little messy as it serves mainly to introduce our characters. Ultimately, what shines is the revenge story that drive our two main characters and underpin the overarching plot - their quest to find the people who destroyed their orphanage and their childhood 20 years ago, who had murdered the one person who created a family for them. In this time, one of them has become a well-regarded member of the police force with the local highest arrest rate under his belt. The other has become the leader of the local yakuza.
At the moment, Toma's Ryuuzaki Ikuo seems more like the main character we are all supposed to relate to, while Shun's Danno Tatsuya is the mysterious genius who runs the plot. They're a much more likeable pair than the two in Maou, aided perhaps by the bias of justice and kindness on their side. Their individual gestures of offering the little girl whose parents were killed gifts of solace were both sweet and flags the humanity that remains despite the deep anger they still carry with them 20 years on. What's more interesting is that it's the outwardly heartless Danno who gives the girl a teddy bear, while it's the outwardly harmless Ryuuzaki who smiles and whispers to her, "The bad person is gone...your enemy no longer exists."
Out of all the pretty faces in their ilk, Toma and Shun are amongst the more convincing actors, and now 8 years on having been the main characters for many a drama and movie, they carry their respective characters with a remarkable ease that makes the heightened drama more watchable. Shun always had a nice voice (he did a short stint as a voice actor after all), and it's always a pleasure watching him languidly snark in his velvety cool voice. I'm also less bothered by his lanky hair here than I am in Hanazakari which is a superficial trivia no one needs to know about. Toma makes what is usually a rather bland character likeable (I wish I could have said the same about Mukai in Saigo no Keikan), and Ryuuzaki has enough layers for him to bring out his acting chops.
The most amazing scene in the first episode was when he confronted the corrupted cop, and watching the innocent earnestness drain from his face, his eyes turning hard and unfeeling - it was a scene that could have been interpreted so many ways - anger, judgement, scorn, hatred, righteousness - but I think Toma's interpretation was perfect, just the complete lack of warmth and sympathy as he readied himself to execute a criminal.
There's not much to say at this point about Ueno's character except that she's consistently watchable. I expect that her father will feature quite strongly in this plot, as everything in J-drama tend to link up with each other in some way or another. I have high hopes that we will see some amazing acting from all three of them feeding off each other in a climax somewhere down the line, given how it's started off. And really, these guys are far more suited to doing something gritty like this than the pure love dramas.
As always, I have reservations about how the ending will proceed in a series based off a manga that is yet to end. Bloody Monday and Saigo no Keikan could find somewhere to pause, but when you throw out a bone like this in the first episode, you do expect the last episode to solve the mystery - and traditionally J-dramas have not been very convincing when they deviate from the original plot. Also from experience, suspense-type J-dramas tend to collapse in a heap around themselves in the last 2 episodes when they suddenly realise how much crap they have to build up and explain.
Still, Maou was not without its flaws but it is still one of my favourite J-dramas - and with Shun far more comfortable as the fire smoke-breathing yakuza than Ohno as the wronged lawyer, and Ueno infinitely more useful than whoever that girl was...I think I can accept a flawed drama, though I'm always hopeful for better.
Japanese revenge dramas could go either way. They never tend to rate that well - even my personal favourite Maou only rated about 12-13% all-up, which is explained both by their time slot and also probably by the general audience's preference for feel-good type dramas - but they can range from clever and heart-wrenching like Maou to inanely cheerful like Ryusei no Kizuna to rather bland like Alice no Toge.
Ouroboros starts off well-paced and well-developed, which is always a massive relief when the drama has enough budget to cover its ambitions. It's constructed like a police drama of the day, the first episode focusing on the death of salaryman Nishida which appeared at first like a suicide until it unravelled to reveal the underworld plots and police corruption behind it.
The case of the week is a little messy as it serves mainly to introduce our characters. Ultimately, what shines is the revenge story that drive our two main characters and underpin the overarching plot - their quest to find the people who destroyed their orphanage and their childhood 20 years ago, who had murdered the one person who created a family for them. In this time, one of them has become a well-regarded member of the police force with the local highest arrest rate under his belt. The other has become the leader of the local yakuza.
At the moment, Toma's Ryuuzaki Ikuo seems more like the main character we are all supposed to relate to, while Shun's Danno Tatsuya is the mysterious genius who runs the plot. They're a much more likeable pair than the two in Maou, aided perhaps by the bias of justice and kindness on their side. Their individual gestures of offering the little girl whose parents were killed gifts of solace were both sweet and flags the humanity that remains despite the deep anger they still carry with them 20 years on. What's more interesting is that it's the outwardly heartless Danno who gives the girl a teddy bear, while it's the outwardly harmless Ryuuzaki who smiles and whispers to her, "The bad person is gone...your enemy no longer exists."
Out of all the pretty faces in their ilk, Toma and Shun are amongst the more convincing actors, and now 8 years on having been the main characters for many a drama and movie, they carry their respective characters with a remarkable ease that makes the heightened drama more watchable. Shun always had a nice voice (he did a short stint as a voice actor after all), and it's always a pleasure watching him languidly snark in his velvety cool voice. I'm also less bothered by his lanky hair here than I am in Hanazakari which is a superficial trivia no one needs to know about. Toma makes what is usually a rather bland character likeable (I wish I could have said the same about Mukai in Saigo no Keikan), and Ryuuzaki has enough layers for him to bring out his acting chops.
The most amazing scene in the first episode was when he confronted the corrupted cop, and watching the innocent earnestness drain from his face, his eyes turning hard and unfeeling - it was a scene that could have been interpreted so many ways - anger, judgement, scorn, hatred, righteousness - but I think Toma's interpretation was perfect, just the complete lack of warmth and sympathy as he readied himself to execute a criminal.
There's not much to say at this point about Ueno's character except that she's consistently watchable. I expect that her father will feature quite strongly in this plot, as everything in J-drama tend to link up with each other in some way or another. I have high hopes that we will see some amazing acting from all three of them feeding off each other in a climax somewhere down the line, given how it's started off. And really, these guys are far more suited to doing something gritty like this than the pure love dramas.
As always, I have reservations about how the ending will proceed in a series based off a manga that is yet to end. Bloody Monday and Saigo no Keikan could find somewhere to pause, but when you throw out a bone like this in the first episode, you do expect the last episode to solve the mystery - and traditionally J-dramas have not been very convincing when they deviate from the original plot. Also from experience, suspense-type J-dramas tend to collapse in a heap around themselves in the last 2 episodes when they suddenly realise how much crap they have to build up and explain.
Still, Maou was not without its flaws but it is still one of my favourite J-dramas - and with Shun far more comfortable as the fire smoke-breathing yakuza than Ohno as the wronged lawyer, and Ueno infinitely more useful than whoever that girl was...I think I can accept a flawed drama, though I'm always hopeful for better.