Thoughts about "Shouri no houteishiki" Ep 1 (spoiler alert!)

This is probably yet another example of how the viewers have to sit through not-so-interesting filler cases before getting to the best parts of the story.

To begin with, the filler case featured in this episode was quite predictable. There wasn't much doubt about who did what bad things or how the case was probably headed towards an "ideal" resolution although I can never fathom why people are expected to have a conscience and confess/admit to their guilt when there is no evidence or material facts to confront them. And it was sort of expected that no matter how the case turned out, Kagura Ran (Shida Mirai) would be spurred to restart her career as a lawyer so as to help her friend Saotome Hana (Kitano Kii) overturn her murder conviction later on. As such, it is likely that you have to sit through a good 4 or 5 episodes with these "easy" cases until the main plot that connects Ran, Hana and Kurosawa Jin (Kazama Shunsuke) takes centrestage.

Secondly, the story structure and settings aren't believable or realistic. Ignoring the fact about Ran being a former child actor and later becoming a lawyer (this is fine since child actors can go on to switch jobs when they grow up), the other arrangements seem so odd. Kurosawa impersonating Ran to create a blog and write all sorts of untruths purportedly from Ran - shouldn't this be a criminal offence? As a lawyer, Ran not taking legal action against him or seeking an injunction to stop him from doing this going forward just doesn't sound right. Her subsequent actions of going along with him and following his plans or that the overly simplistic assumption that the responses of the witnesses and accused will be according to his script also seems too far-fetched. Much as I get that this is for dramatic effects, it is hard to feel engaged while watching this when there are so many loopholes that I can see even if I am not legally trained.

And this obsession with doing a wall display of the information found about individuals involved in a case - I simply cannot see why this is still done to this date. I mean, Kurosawa doesn't seem to have put up a strong security system to prevent anyone from simply walking into that secret room and seeing all his findings. And yet he's sort-of letting Ran using his place as a base/office to meet clients? If you want to have a secret room or something, at least keep the room locked up or the display hidden by some secret wall.

Last but not least, the acting is a bit hard to stomach especially in the case of Kazama. I know he's doing it on purpose to suppress the tone of his voice and talk in that manner but it was so jarring to the ears and the pretentious nature of this acting was such a eyesore. I don't know how long he has to do this but hopefully as his character is more developed and his back story is revealed, his acting can be a bit more natural. 

Likewise for Shida, I get it that Ran is probably not the sharp, stern lawyer with a lot of presence but even during her consultations with her clients, she came across as lacking in confidence and didn't have a firm stand. Somehow, it is very unsettling if you are to consult a lawyer who behaves like her. However, it is still early days so perhaps Ran will go through a transformation as time goes by.

In summary, I would say that I wasn't satisfied with this episode but will give it a couple of episodes to see if things get better. As such, it will be a matter of which comes first - my patience running out or the story heating up fast enough to make me stay on.