now that is one messed up revenge...
As mentioned earlier, I'm watching Kindaichi Shonen no Jikembo III, a straight mystery series (that, until the other dorama mystery series I've seen-Trick, Kurosagi, Fugoh Keiji, Remote, etc.-actually is a straightout mystery series, as opposed to using the mysteries as window dressing) starring a rather young and endearingly dorky Matsujun.
I'll do a proper writeup when I finish(I just finished ep 5 of 9) but for now, I'm rather impressed by how messed up the conclusion to the mystery in eps 4-5 is.
In the mansion where the story takes place, there's a legend that, decades ago, a corrupt man came to town and ruined another man and stole his fiancee. The woman married the jerk and had 3 kids by him, then 20 or so years later, she got her revenge by having all 4 of them commit suicide. Me, I think the better revenge would be killing him once you had a kid so you'd get everything, but hey...
Cut forward to modern day, and and the current owner is married to the former fiancee of his rival, who committed suicide 25 years ago when the current jerk claimed credit for the discovery of a new species of butterfly. They have three kids-2 daughters and a son they raised like a girl (for a bit of trivia, the son is played by the actor who played Noda in Gokusen...he also had a rather messed up role in the third Trick series, which starred Nakama Yukie, also of Gokusen.) As always happens in mysteries, a killer strikes just as they meet Kindaichi, and someone starts killing them off, starting with the 2 daughters and the modern jerk.
The big reveal? The killer is the son of the fiancee and the dead guy(who didn't actually die, but spent 20 years in a coma after trying to hang himself and THEN died) who was raised by...someone not his mother. They don't really say and it's utterly irrelevant anyway. The real kicker? Her idea of revenge (according to her, the only revenge she could take) was to artificially inseminate herself with her comatose fiance's child three times so that their children would inherit everything. Now, apparently, her first kid was ok with the idea of killing his half sisters, but his "real" sisters? Now that's a whole new pit of emo angst, and in a flash of emo self hatred, he grabs a knife and stabs himself in the gut. Not to be outdone, mom grabs a random sharp thing and runs to him, telling everyone to let them die together and telling girly son to live, then she knocks over a lamp to start a fire.
Of course, once outside, Kindaichi resembles his hero complex and rushes back inside to save the day. Girly son is right behind him, so that he can have his moment of glory when his mother asks why he did that and say "Because i'm your son, and it's a son's duty to protect his mother." Mom still seems too depressed about being robbed of a dramatic death to be suitably impressed, though. Girly son ends up with his girlfriend, though, and I rather fear for their children...I mean...those are some questionable genetics he's passing on...
I'll do a proper writeup when I finish(I just finished ep 5 of 9) but for now, I'm rather impressed by how messed up the conclusion to the mystery in eps 4-5 is.
In the mansion where the story takes place, there's a legend that, decades ago, a corrupt man came to town and ruined another man and stole his fiancee. The woman married the jerk and had 3 kids by him, then 20 or so years later, she got her revenge by having all 4 of them commit suicide. Me, I think the better revenge would be killing him once you had a kid so you'd get everything, but hey...
Cut forward to modern day, and and the current owner is married to the former fiancee of his rival, who committed suicide 25 years ago when the current jerk claimed credit for the discovery of a new species of butterfly. They have three kids-2 daughters and a son they raised like a girl (for a bit of trivia, the son is played by the actor who played Noda in Gokusen...he also had a rather messed up role in the third Trick series, which starred Nakama Yukie, also of Gokusen.) As always happens in mysteries, a killer strikes just as they meet Kindaichi, and someone starts killing them off, starting with the 2 daughters and the modern jerk.
The big reveal? The killer is the son of the fiancee and the dead guy(who didn't actually die, but spent 20 years in a coma after trying to hang himself and THEN died) who was raised by...someone not his mother. They don't really say and it's utterly irrelevant anyway. The real kicker? Her idea of revenge (according to her, the only revenge she could take) was to artificially inseminate herself with her comatose fiance's child three times so that their children would inherit everything. Now, apparently, her first kid was ok with the idea of killing his half sisters, but his "real" sisters? Now that's a whole new pit of emo angst, and in a flash of emo self hatred, he grabs a knife and stabs himself in the gut. Not to be outdone, mom grabs a random sharp thing and runs to him, telling everyone to let them die together and telling girly son to live, then she knocks over a lamp to start a fire.
Of course, once outside, Kindaichi resembles his hero complex and rushes back inside to save the day. Girly son is right behind him, so that he can have his moment of glory when his mother asks why he did that and say "Because i'm your son, and it's a son's duty to protect his mother." Mom still seems too depressed about being robbed of a dramatic death to be suitably impressed, though. Girly son ends up with his girlfriend, though, and I rather fear for their children...I mean...those are some questionable genetics he's passing on...