Review of Maou (Japanese Version)

Before I begin, let me reiterate this point again:

Do not read this post if you do not wish to know what happens in this story. There are lots of spoilers in this review. And that means the ending will be here for you to see as well. If you have not watched this drama, this may kill the suspense for you. And Maou, without the suspense, wouldn't be as exciting.

As I have yet to finish watching the Korean version of Maou (otherwise known as Mawang or The Devil), I will leave the comparison of both versions to another post. As such, this review is entirely on the Japanese version.

To put the story simply, this drama is about Naruse Ryo's (Ohno Satoshi) journey to seek revenge for his younger brother who died of a stabbing incident caused by Serizawa Naoto (Ikuma Toma) who was a delinquent back in his junior high days. Within the period of 11 years, Naruse has been watching Serizawa and tracking the movements of him, his family and those related to the incident in one way or another. As such, this is a revenge not only on Serizawa but also the people who caused the injustice suffered by Naruse, his late brother and mother.

This is a suspense story quite unlike what other dramas have been doing. In this case, the motive and the culprit are known beforehand whereas in most dramas, viewers are taken for a ride to guess the culprit. However, Maou doesn't disappoint, in the sense that it is not a senseless series of murders but it is a web of deceit and clever manipulations which ultimately achieves what Naruse wants. It means that Naruse doesn't have to do the dirty job himself and even if he's caught, he cannot be charged with anything. Of course, in some parts of the story, there are some coincidences which fall so nicely into place that you will doubt why Lady Luck is always on Naruse's side. More on that later.

What happened 11 years ago was a tragic accident but due to a couple of misjudgments or decisions along the way, everything went out of proportion. There are a lot of what ifs in this story. What if Serizawa Eisaku (Naoto's father) had chosen to let his son speak the truth instead of protecting him with the excuse of self-defence and letting Hideo (Naruse's brother) to take the blame? What if Serizawa had managed to apologize to Naruse 11 years ago? (He did go to look for Naruse at that time but couldn't find him.) What if Yamano (Hideo's friend) had spoken out against Serizawa since he had witnessed the incident? If any of the questions raised above went towards the other way, this might not have led to the current revenge attempt. As such, what comes around goes around. It is a matter of time before the dark past catches up with someone. In this case, Serizawa's unintentional mistake 11 years ago led to such serious repercussions today which he would never have dreamt of.

I wouldn't go into the details of the plot though but would like to raise some points which I thought are worth mentioning:

1) The most "coincidental" murder - Ikehata's falling to his death in a warehouse
Frankly speaking, this was the most unbelievable murder (or so-called accident) in the whole story. How was Naruse supposed to know that Ikehata would run to the second flour of the warehouse, step on a faulty flooring and fall to his death? I know he did something to "lure" Ikehata into the warehouse but surely he wouldn't have guessed how the latter was going to run away from the yakuza he hired? That's why I thought this will be No.1 among all the cases in the story when you are talking about Lady Luck being on Naruse's side.

2) Naruse being able to walk to the scrap disposal grounds despite being stabbed by Yamano in the last episode / Shiori running to the scrap disposal ground
Either Naruse has the best stamina to last throughout the journey or he has the strongest willpower to walk all the way to where his brother died. ^__^ I just don't get the meaning of running around or walking long distances when you could have easily hailed a cab or taken other modes of transport. Maybe it's because they wanted to intensify the atmosphere of the climax scene.

3) The biggest screw-up: saying the wrong character name
I can't remember which episode was it, but I remember clearly that Yoshinori (Gekidan Hitori) said Mai instead of Mari (his wife's name) while talking to Kasai (Tanaka Kei). I was a bit surprised to hear that and wonder how this mistake could have gone unnoticed. Well, if you have been reading the production blog of Maou, it seems that they were on a very tight schedule and this could have led to this blunder. Never mind about this, it's just a name. Thankfully, they didn't make a big mistake on the story.

The ending is definitely fitting for this dark story. It depends on how you view it. It can be a tragedy or a happy ending. I like how the tension built up over the episodes and when you come to the ending, all that pressure is released. I can't say whether I'm happy or sad to see this outcome but only one word comes to mind: peace. At least we won't see the saga between the two continuing. Most of the people involved are dead anyway.

Well, both Naruse and Serizawa died. I was sort-of expecting Serizawa to die first and Naruse would probably kill himself or something. However, the ending proved me half-correct. Indeed, Naruse killed Serizawa (but it was an accident and exactly in the same fashion as what happened between Serizawa and Hideo) but this time, it was with a gun. And Naruse's ultimate motive for taking revenge was for Serizawa to be filled with rage and kill him so that he can join his mother and Hideo in death. In conclusion, Naruse wanted to commit suicide in the first place but not without dragging Serizawa through living hell first. Although they both gained each other's forgiveness, it was too late since both of them achieved this consensus only through death. And it was such an anti-climax for Naruse to die from the stab wound afflicted by Yamano. Maybe suicide for Naruse might be a more "elaborate" and "dramatic" ending to this story.

I don't know if you feel the same way but the final scene of Shiori seeing something from Hideo's harmonica just gives the impression that TBS is trying to milk every single dollar out of its viewers. If you want to see what Shiori saw, buy the DVD box. I don't know how many people will actually buy the DVD for that scene but it just reeks of dirty marketing from the TV station. Maou is not exactly that bad in terms of ratings with an average of 11.51%, its theme song doing well on Oricon and critical reviews are pretty good. So why is the TV station so desperate to boost the sales of the DVD box by introducing such a teaser? I've never seen such a gimmick for dramas so it just makes me amazed at TBS being so daring to do such a thing.

With regards to the debate on whether Ohno Satoshi and Ikuta Toma is the better actor, I would choose Ohno. The gap between their performances lie in the nature of their characters. Ohno has the advantage of showing extremes which test a lot of his acting skills i.e. good vs. evil and remorseful vs. insistent on going the wrong path. Ohno and Ikuta have their strengths when it comes to acting but in this case, their roles cause a slight difference in the depth of their acting.

I just pity Ohno who has his first leading role in a drama and yet his character dies at the end. How inauspicious! ^__^ Hopefully, his performance in Maou will open up new roles for him in future. Someone has got to realise that this guy has more potential than he appears to have as he's always outshone by his fellow teammates. Thankfully, TBS made the right gamble this time to bring Ohno into the limelight. Likewise for Ikuta who has been doing a lot of comedian roles, this will show that he has what it takes to handle serious roles.

As for the female lead Shiori played by Kobayashi Ryoko, I get irritated when I see her being infatuated with Naruse and saying "Naruse-san" with such a sweet voice and expression. However, it is also a saving grace that she has a baby face or else her pairing with Ohno will seem odd if she appears too mature. I've never seen her acting before so I won't talk much about her performance since I don't have much of a basis for comparision. I guess her role irks me more than her appearance.

This drama is suitable if you:

1) are a fan of Ohno or Ikuta
2) like suspense dramas
3) have not watched the Korean version yet (chances are, you will be more critical of the Japanese version if you watched the Korean version first. Actually, I'm already starting to pick out flaws from this version while I'm watching the Korean version. These two versions are quite different in some areas.)
4) can accept tragic endings where almost everyone dies

And my ratings for this drama goes like this...
Story: 9 out of 10 (intriguing story, unexpected twists)
Acting: 8.5 out of 10 (great performance by the two leads and supporting characters)
Theme song: 7 out of 10 (truth was OK, not particularly outstanding though. the BGM is great.)
Visual effects / Scenery: 6 out of 10 (not much scenery, a lot of scenes take place at night, the general colour theme is quite dark, in my opinion)
Teamwork / Chemistry: 6.5 out of 10 (the two leads don't have that many showdown scenes, their interaction only increases in the later part, there isn't much romance going on too. the so-called love triangle isn't apparent too)

Total: 37 out of 50

Viewership ratings data as follows:
1) 14.0%
2) 12.6%
3) 9.2%
4) 10.1%
5) 10.9%
6) 7.6% *Opening Ceremony of Beijing Olympics
7) 12.1%
8) 11.5%
9) 11.5%
10) 12.3%
11) 14.1%

Average: 11.51%