Review of Akechi Kogoro vs. Kindaichi Kosuke Drama SP

Cast:

Matsuoka Masahiro, Nagase Tomoya, Uchiyama Rina, Hirata Mitsuru, Horikita Maki, Yo Kimiko, Zaizen Naomi etc.

This is a 2-hr special from TV Asahi shown on 26 Feb 05 featuring two famous detectives Akechi Kogoro and Kindaichi Kosuke. Besides the two leads played by Matsuoka Masahiro and Nagase Tomoya, there are a number of familiar faces like Zaizen Naomi and Uchiyama Rina.

Again, I won't go into details on the case which personally, I feel that is lacking in something. Somehow, what I didn't like was the ending where you find that most if not all of the parties of interest are involved in the case as the criminals. Well, that's probably the main grouse I have on this drama.

It's fun to see Matsuoka and Nagase together in the same drama since they belong to TOKIO and are known to be buddies. Although the title suggests a battle between the two detectives, I don't feel any sense of rivalry between them. It's more of a case of both of them working together to solve the problem. Besides, it's more of the case about Akechi disliking Kindaichi for his unconventional image and way of doing things. What's also interesting is their contrast in image, Kindaichi being unkept and quite frivolous but Akechi being image-conscious and cool. Matsuoka gets to drive a cool sports car, has a big bungalow to live in and has a dog named Kobayashi-kun but Nagase lives in a messy place, wears clothes not fitting the modern setting.

I watched a Kindaichi Kosuke drama SP (review also in this forum) before watching this. Sad to say, Nagase does not perform as well as Inagaki Goro Goro where he has more room to develop the same role. Although I understand that the emphasis is to contrast Kindaichi with Akechi, I get the feeling that the developments of the case take centrestage and the two detectives don't get as much airtime as they should. Unlike Goro who has almost undivided attention right from the beginning to the end, the two leads don't have a chance to show what they are capable of so it's quite a pity. Other than that, the production quality is pretty good considering that it's a once off project and the Wide Gekijou airs every Sat on TV Asahi. If they do something of this scale every week, it's going to drain a lot of resources for the TV station.