Perhaps I was expecting too much from this drama right from the start so it was hard not to feel quite underwhelmed with what was dished out. However, I wouldn't say that it was bad...just that not as good as I thought it should have been.
The story begins with an assault case allegedly committed by Kamizuru Ryoko (Amami Yuki) when she was still a lawyer. The odd thing though is, she claimed that she couldn't remember why she did that or if she actually did that. Details of the case were rather sketchy during the flashback scenes so the victim's identity wasn't even made known. Despite this, Ryoko was "cut off" by Isama Keisuke (Nakamura Tooru) who is the president of Isama Group for which she had been its legal advisor. This suggests that the case had a detrimental effect not only on her career as a lawyer and had implications on the company she represented. Work-related trouble or a personal vendetta?
Fast forward to the current day, the viewers are then treated to a dazzling galore of cos-playing scenes featuring Ryoko as part of her work as a private detective with the backend support by her partner Takayama Nobuhiko (Matsushita Kouhei). At present, it is not clear how things came to this state, how they met or what they hope to achieve through this detective work. As such, it can get really bewildering to see them going about their "missions" without any context or idea of where all these are heading to.
Another aspect which bothered me was the "deja vu elements" which naturally led me to make comparisons. For example, the cosplaying done by Ryoko kept reminding me of Daako (Nagasawa Masami) in "Confidence Man JP" but Amami simply didn't have the luxury of time and detail that could convey the extent of her effort or how these were integral to the progression of the storyline. Likewise, the part about a lawyer-turned-detective got me comparing this drama with Ayase Haruka's "Motokare no yuigonjou". Although Ayase's character was not officially a private detective, there were similarities between what she did and what Ryoko did here. I don't know if it's the editing that made everything feel so rushed and disjointed but it did come across as the drama was being very ambitious in trying to do everything but ended up not excelling in any aspect.
It may be too premature to write this off so I'll give it a few more episodes before deciding whether to watch this till the end. I can only hope that the story gets better. Or at least make the filler cases more interesting until we get to the meat of the story.
In terms of acting, I'm a bit undecided about the chemistry about Amami and Matsushita for now given that the story at this stage hardly gave a clue as to their characters' relationship dynamics. Are they allies or going to be foes in future? What kind of secrets are they hiding from each other especially since it looks like Takayama is not fully aware of what happened in Ryoko's case in the past? It may be fun to see them bickering at times while at work but it feels like their interactions for now are just very superficial and scraping the surface only.
In summary, it may be good to manage expectations before you head into watching this. Perhaps my biggest mistake was to hope for too much just because Amami is headlining this drama. If it's a case of the best is yet to come, I'm OK with sticking this out. The thing is, how long will it take to get to the best parts of this drama? As someone who hasn't read the original material, I do not have an idea of what lies ahead. If the filler episodes going forward are still so all over the place, I'm sorry to say that I may have to give up despite my liking for Amami and Matsushita.
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