I have been very keen about watching this drama primarily because of two reasons i.e. the story and Matsuoka Masahiro. Being a longtime fan of TOKIO and Mabo in particular, I try to watch his dramas as much as possible but sometimes due to time constraints or lack of access to certain titles, it hasn't always been easy. You can then imagine my surprise and excitement when I suddenly saw this title on my Netflix landing page one day without prior warning especially since it wasn't in my list of suggested upcoming titles after all. Given that there are only 10 episodes which last about 30+ minutes each (shorter than the norm of 45 mins), it was a breeze to sit through and I managed to finish everything in 2 days. As for the story, I like plots which are thought-provoking so this is right up my alley.
Before you proceed further, just a gentle reminder that if you don't want to read any spoilers, you may wish to skip this review and come back when you have finished this drama.
For a start, the premise of the story is very simple and straightforward. Between the mortal world where we human beings live in and the afterlife for the departed, there is this place called Shiyakusho i.e. directly translated as Death Public Office. For the sake of clarity, I believe that the English title was abbreviated to remove the word "public" in case people wonder what "public office" meant. To put it simply, the name "shiyakusho" refers to this "in-between" or "transit station" for the dead before they move on to the afterlife and can also be considered as a pun on the real life term 市役所 (pronounced as shiyakusho too) but this means city public office where people conduct various government transactions such as registering births, marriage and change of addresses. Going forward, the mention of shiyakusho in this review will be with reference to the version for the dead as featured in this drama.
In the shiyakusho, people who passed away due to various reasons are supposed to fill in some forms for the paperwork required to move on to the afterlife at designated departments depending on how they died. False declarations or misrepresentations don't work here as the staff can see information of the deceased's lives on their systems and won't be able to proceed with the paperwork if the declaration does not match the facts. Once this is done, the deceased will then be ushered to the gate of Nirvana where they can be reborn if they are sent to Heaven. Conversely, if they are sent to Hell, they will be punished for their sins and if these are serious enough, they will be sent to the purgatory where there will be no chance of being reborn and the soul must wander in darkness forever. Failure to complete this process within 49 days will also result in the deceased's soul being sent to the purgatory. Up to this point, it's quite clear that the system is largely based on Buddhism and its ideas of the afterlife.
From Eps 1 to 4, you will be able to see different cases of the deceased coming to this shiyakusho and how they come to terms with their lives and deaths before moving on to the afterlife. Through the eyes of a deceased university student Miki Michiru (Kuroshima Yuina), the whole system is explained as various deceased move through the process.
From Ep 5 onwards, that is where you begin to find out more about the staff there and the stories when they were still alive. Much as I would like to go into details here, that would probably spoil the fun for you especially if you haven't read the manga before just like me. What I can say though, prepare some tissues from the second half of the drama.
As of the point when the drama was shown and even up till now, the manga series is still being serialised. This can usually pose a problem for the adaptations because the ending either has to be at some point in the manga i.e. inconclusive or the story will head in a different direction from the manga so that the drama/movie can be "finished" in a sense. What I liked about this drama adaptation is that the story wasn't not put to a forced end and the presence of still unanswered questions and unexplored parts wasn't a big issue since the drama had a pretty open ending (room for future sequels?). And I was also thankful that the story didn't try to steer the story towards a direction totally different from the manga just to have a proper conclusion. As such, while some may be concerned that the drama may lead to nowhere by the end or that the story will head to an undesired direction, you can rest assured that it won't be the case.
I may be biased but I really liked Matsuoka's performance as Shimura especially towards the end when his background story was revealed. Of course, most of the drama showed him as a monotonous, somewhat cynical despite his polite demeanour and at times, creepy person but when you find out what happened to him, his behaviour and mannerisms then made sense. As such, viewers may not take to his character so readily at first but he should grow on you over time. Denden and Kiyohara Sho were fantastic as well especially in their respective episodes but it was a pity that Matsumoto Marika's character Nishikawa didn't get her background story featured this time. As for Kuroshima Yuina's character, she didn't leave much of an impression on me since I felt that she was like a "guide" to help viewers find out how the shiyakusho functions.
Considering that the manga had 14 volumes of material by the time this drama was aired in 2019, the time is about right for a sequel since the manga is already at volume 25 as of April this year. However, given that the series hasn't concluded, I feel that it might not be the best timing since the biggest question of what happened to Shimura's family (if still unrevealed in the manga) doesn't have an answer. As such, while I'm hopeful for a sequel to have a proper ending to the drama, perhaps it will take a bit more time to materialise.
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