Review of ATARU Ep 1

Before the season started, this drama attracted a fair bit of attention due to a number of reasons. First of all, it would be Nakai Masahiro of SMAP who rarely acts in dramas so whenever he does, it's regarded as a hard-to-come-by opportunity to see him in action. I was very impressed with what I saw in "Suna no Utsuwa" years ago so it would be of no surprise that there are many others who feel the same way. Secondly, the setting of this drama is rather different. Among the various detective combinations offered this season, you have a very unlikely combination of a guy who doesn't communicate by speaking but is unusually intelligent and observant with a female detective who's eager to break the stereotype image of her being a mere decoration in the police force and her male superior who seems to have a hidden agenda in trying to keep her in the investigation unit. Last but not least, there is a background story about Ataru aka Chokozai which will be gradually unveiled as the drama progresses so this would be something that could pull in viewers for the long term.

At the beginning of this episode, we hear a man speaking in English to Ataru (Nakai) at the airport and repeating the same instructions to the latter before he can accept what's being said. When the man leaves Ataru for a brief moment, Ataru has actually wandered off somewhere. This is where my first doubt comes up. Did the man leave Ataru alone on purpose? If Ataru is important to him and he knows that there is a likelihood that Ataru might not stay in the same spot where the man told him to wait, would he even have dared to leave Ataru alone? Subsequently, when it's shown that the man even goes to the US military to broadcast over their radio channel that they are looking for Ataru, it lends more credit to this notion that Ataru has a significant importance to the man and whichever organisation he belongs to.

At the same time when Ataru is on his little exploration tour of Tokyo, an explosion happens in a factory which kills an employee there. Ebina Maiko (Kuriyama Chiaki) strongly thinks that there is something suspicious about this case but her superior Sawa Shunichi is dismissive of this. Ebina gets even more worked up when her male colleagues keep reminding her that she was asked to join their unit for the purpose of being a promotional tool and they do not expect her to be capable of doing any real detective work. This does remind me of what happened to Takeuchi Yuko in "Strawberry Night" but I think Takeuchi's character Himekawa had it worse than Ebina. Anyway, back to the story, Ebina is so angry over this type of treatment that she decides to check things out on her own. And that marks her first meeting with Ataru who had spent the night at the crime scene. Ataru gives her a string of letters and numbers which baffles Ebina. He also makes her notice a Taiwan-made nail there. These two are actually the leads to solving the case but Ebina only finds out about their importance later on in this episode.

There is no lack of humour in this episode, not just between Ebina and Sawa who keep fighting over the case and whether she will be allowed to quit her job. Ataru doesn't say anything properly throughout except for the "updated shimashita" which means that he accepts what is said to him and will follow the instruction but his interaction with Ebina is rather hillarious. Ataru displays his strong liking for certain things e.g. this fictitious detective series titled "Synchronised Swimming Detective" which he must watch at a certain time and insisting on drinking a particular brand of soup. Ebina's attempt to convince Ataru that curry udon soup is the same curry soup that he had asked for was a good example of how difficult it was for Ataru to accept something he doesn't want and that it had to be constantly drilled into Ataru's head before he can accept it as it is.

Frankly speaking, the case itself wasn't so interesting. It wasn't too difficult to see that the case wasn't an accident nor suicide but what was more infuriating was that the culprit had never been featured very prominently in the run-up to the finale. All of a sudden, the truth is shoved in the face of the viewer without a warning or clue to guess from in the first place. I certainly hope that this wouldn't happen for future episodes. To tell the truth, I'm not too keen on the episodic stories that Ataru has to offer. What I would like to find out will be how he was sent overseas, why did this happen, what exactly was he trained for and why did he come back to Japan. I guess that if I want to find out the answers to these questions, I'll have to stick with this drama for a while.

Another key story which needs to explored is why Ebina's mother. On the surface, it looks like her mother committed suicide but Sawa apparently knows something about that and it's suspicious that he's trying so hard to prevent Ebina from quitting. On the other hand, Ebina's father and younger brother seem to be hiding something as well but I may be wrong though. Looks like this case might not be a suicide after all.

First impressions after watching this episode:

- I expected this to be a tight story with developments at a lightning speed but I think they took too much time to solve the case.

- There are too many questions raised with just one episode about Ataru, Ebina and Sawa. The problem I foresee is, if the scriptwriter gets too carried away with throwing questions to the viewers, how to answer them convincingly before the drama ends will be a big challenge.

- Unless the drama tempts me with more significant and juicy revelations about Ataru at a regular pace, I am not too sure if I can really watch the entire drama. Like I always say, episodic dramas tend not to attract me to stay for the long term so it remains to be seen how my interest level will be after a few episodes.