Preview of "Akutou"

Title: Akutou
Official website: here
Broadcast by: FujiTV
O.A. Timeslot: 30 November 2012, 9pm
Cast: Takizawa Hideaki, Kitano Kii, Kaname Jun, Oosugi Ren, Toda Keiko, Okuda Eiji and Watari Tetsuya

Story
Former police officer Saeki Shuuichi (Takizawa Hideaki) is now a private detective at Hope Detective Agency and tasked to conduct an investigation on Sakagami Yoichi (Kaname Jun). The clients are actually a couple whose son was killed by Sakagami 11 years ago and they want to know more about this man before they decide whether to forgive him for his deed. Shuuichi has no choice but to take up this case at the orders of agency boss Kogure (Watari Tetsuya) and the admin staff Someya (Toda Keiko) as the agency is in financial trouble although he would prefer not to.

Shuuichi can understand totally what the couple is going through because he has a similar experience where his beloved elder sister was raped and killed 15 years ago while on her way home after buying a birthday cake for him. The thought of his sister being left to die in a dark and abandoned house with her school uniform ripped to pieces makes it extremely difficult for Shuuichi to forgive those criminals responsible for this. As a result of this deep pain caused to him and his family, Shuuichi's father Junichiro (Oosugi Ren) who used to be a police officer as well, was fired from his job when he got angry at a rapist and shoved his gun into that rapist's mouth.

At the end of his investigation, Shuuichi shares his personal view that Sakagami should not be forgiven with his clients which results in a tragedy just one week later...

Another case comes Shuuichi's way in the form of a young man who wants to find his mother after she left his  younger brother to die when he was just one year old and the young man three years old then. The experience of seeing his brother's corpse while surviving on raw rice and the paper in magazines left the young man so bitter that he wants to see for himself whether his mother can still live happily despite what she had done.

While investigating this case, Shuuichi comes to find one of the culprits for his sister's death i.e. Tadokoro Kenji who now owns a ramen shop. During a visit to a club which Tadokoro frequents, Shuuichi happens to get acquainted with the club's bartender Haruka who becomes a warm presence in his life and even celebrates Shuuichi's birthday with him for the first time since his sister's death.

The following day, Terada, another man involved in the death of Shuuichi's sister, is found dead beside a river. It is later found that Tadokoro had killed Terada because the latter threatened to expose the truth and demanded for money. Just when Shuuichi is satisfied to know that two out of the three men who killed his sister had suffered a tragic fate, he is shocked to find Haruka missing. When Shuuichi decides to leave the agency, Kogure then tells him that he should finish his last job first i.e. look for Enomoto Kazuya, the mastermind in Shuuichi's sister's murder...