Title: Kujaku no dansu, dare ga mita? / クジャクのダンス、誰が見た？
Rating: 2 / 10
Recommended for:
Those who are fans of the cast and don't mind watching a frustratingly slow and illogical suspense-mystery
* Potential spoilers ahead!
* Disclaimer: I have not read the original manga
Liked:
- I admit that my primary motivation for watching this was Matsuyama Kenichi and as expected, I felt that he did a decent job as Matsukaze. Surprisingly, I enjoyed his interaction with Hirose Suzu as their characters developed a comradeship which somehow evolved to being that of a father-and-daughter dynamic with some funny and heartwarming moments.
- The part when the Endo father-and-son pair were reunited after 22 years was so bittersweet but such a joy to watch because of Sakou Yoshi and Narita Ryo's acting. I also liked their interaction with Kamii (Isomura Hayato) who was a key driver of their hard-to-come-by reunion.
Disliked:
- I certainly did not expect to give such a low score to this drama because it did start off pretty promisingly - at least up to Ep 2. However, things spiraled downwards really quickly as the subsequent episodes felt like teasers with some miserable bread crumbs dropped along the way but nothing major or significant ever happened. This was further aggravated because of the fact that I was watching this one episode at a time and had to wait an entire week for each new release. If not for the fact that I really wanted to find out what was the truth and for the sake of watching Matsuyama, I would have dropped this around Ep 5 or 6. The pace then picked up considerably, in fact it felt like information overload in Ep 9. And yet, the ending was so underwhelming. How boring to learn the truth in this manner! What was even more damning was that there were so many questions which I felt were not properly addressed or the explanation felt unconvincing. This may have to do with the fact that the manga had not been completed until recently.
Just to name a number of them:
- Why on earth and how did Haruo even get started to re-investigate the old case and arrive at his conclusion that Kyoko was involved? In order to live as a father with pride and not lie to Komugi anymore?
- The Hayashikawa family murders - even though this case was a key event that set a lot of things going wrongly, what and how it happened felt like an afterthought from how the truth was presented in the last episode.
- Same thing goes for Matsukaze's father Kuze - was that all to it? Nothing to do with the family murders?
- Why did Endo Tomoya not reveal that he was called to go to the scene of the arson when he was arrested? And why did he do that anyway?
- Why did Haruo move the baby to the second floor and hide this fact from his colleagues? The action itself wasn't bad or wrong so I fail to understand why.
- Endo Rikiro could hear the baby's cries from outside the house but didn't hear the commotion between the Hayashikawa couple and Kyoko? Seriously?
- How on earth did Akazawa know nothing about Kyoko's secret life? She set up a company, probably put her baby son in childcare, became pregnant with another man's child and disappeared for a while to give birth! By the time she brought the baby Uta to the Hayashikawa residence, that was 6 months after her birth. That means she must have been living apart from Akazawa for at least a year or so. Wouldn't Akazawa have attempted to see his son during that period and simply let her do what she wanted? And if she was still legally married to Akazawa, what about the birth registration of Uta?
- I didn't quite get how Haruo managed to adopt Uta who was in a welfare home before she was about to be adopted by her money-crazy uncle. If there was a family member or relative, I struggle to understand how Haruo could have adopted Uta legally even with the forged birth papers because he was effectively a stranger. And wouldn't the fact that he was an interested party i.e. one of the investigators of the case make his adoption act seem a bit questionable? The police had no idea on the whereabouts of Uta who was the survivor of such a serious crime?
- Where and how did Kyoko and the lawyer Narukawa link up? Did I miss something?
- What was the reason for that letter Haruo left for Komugi? He foresaw that he was going to be killed for re-investigating the old case and wanted Komugi to expose her birth mother? Seriously?
In view of the above, unless you are going to watch when all the episodes have been released and don't mind the suspense being so half-baked, I would really suggest that you steer clear of this drama.
- Given that there was such a star-studded cast, I felt that the story did not allow them to shine as much as they could. It felt like a total waste of talent other than making everyone look suspicious up to Ep 8 but the ending was such a letdown. What was all that hoo-ha about if there wasn't really a mastermind or big baddie at the end of this journey?
- Nowadays, many dramas do not have a separate credits roll and simply integrate that into the ending scenes of an episode. The problem with doing this with this drama's theme song playing in the background was that the volume was not adjusted properly and often interfered with the scenes when characters were still speaking. The part when the singer was hitting the high-pitched notes simply was jarring to the ears. This really got into the way when viewing the episodes and inevitably caused me to be quite annoyed. That was a pity though because I do like the theme song itself but not when it prevented me from hearing what the characters were saying.
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