Title: Mamono / 魔物
Rating: 7 / 10
Recommended for:
For those who fancy the fatal attraction-type of romance involving an older woman and a younger man and/or are fans of Asou Kumiko, Shiono Akihisa and Kita Kana
* Potential spoilers ahead!
Liked:
- As the drama was only 8 episodes long, the story didn't take too long to ignite the sizzling and fatal romance. At least for the first 3 episodes, this felt like a really mind-blowing rollercoaster romance until the deadly parts of this intense attraction surfaced as quickly in the second half of the drama. The ending was handled pretty well too especially the part of who-killed-the-guy making more sense than what was hinted at initially. I may have been concerned about this drama being draggy before I started watching it but thankfully, my worries were unfounded.
- The onscreen chemistry between Asou and Shiono was absolutely sizzling right from the onset and way better than I expected initially. As the romance soured due to the domestic violence inflicted by the guy, the tension between them changed and was very compelling to watch. Even the love-hate marriage which Shiono and Kita's characters were stuck in was interesting to observe from the sidelines.
While Shiono may not have left much of an impression on me with his past works which I saw before, I think this drama made me remember him in a good way. Likewise for Asou, I've seen her works many times to date but this was probably the first time that I thought she looked and acted very different from her past roles. Kita was pretty good at showing the multiple facades of her character and I thought she balanced these aspects well enough to make it believable.
Disliked:
- This being a Japan-Korea joint production, I can understand if there's a need to include Korean influences and elements into the drama. However, inserting the names of Korean dishes into the sub titles for each episode just felt out of place and sometimes did not really gel with the main developments of that episode. As such, while I don't see an issue with featuring Korean elements in the story (despite this being set in Japan), it is best not to try too hard and end up spoiling the vibe in the drama.
- As the story was heavily centered on the two pairings i.e. Ayame-Iteya and Kanon-Iteya, the other characters felt more like an afterthought and didn't make as much of an impact, at least to me. I would have thought that the relationships between the Nada family members would be quite interesting to delve into but the story barely scrapped the surface of that aspect.
- While this was supposed to address the important question of who killed who that resulted in Ayame becoming the accused in a murder trial, I thought that the police's investigative work was slipshod. Ultimately, it depended on someone's confession for the truth to be out rather than the police doing what they were supposed to do. I would have expected the police to be able to force Ayame's side into a corner with more compelling evidence and facts to prove her guilt but alas, this didn't happen.
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