Bitter End

「事件の謎は、この舌が味わった！」

『神の舌を持つ男』

"I got a taste of this case's mystery!"

"The Man With the Tongue of God"

The best detective series about food that I know is still Kuitan. The comic, mind you, not the TV drama.

Tomonaga Ranmaru is known as the Man With the Tongue of God, as he can recognize any taste, and even analyze what's inside anything he licks. His gift is also his curse, as he can't even kiss a woman without the kiss turning into a cold breakdown of chemicals because of his taste buds. Ranmaru arrives one day in the remote village of Houzuki, where he falls in love with the local doctor. He decides to stay in the village, working as a masseur in the local inn, when his old companions finally trace him there The reunion is however not only with friends, but also with death, as once again, Ranmaru and his companions find themselves facing a mysterious murder. As Ranmaru's made a name for himself solving mysterious murders using his Tongue of God, he's asked to solve the murder on a local young man, whose body had been hidden inside a sink hole that recently appeared. Meanwhile, the local elderly are crying something about an ancient curse that is haunting the village, and they are blaming Ranmaru for the death. Can Ranmaru find out what's behind all this in the 2016 film Ranmaru Kami no Shita wo Motsu Otoko Sakagura Wakadanna Kaishi Jiken no Kage ni Hisomu Texas Otoko to Bohemian Okami, Soshite Bijin Muraisha wo Oitsumeru Nazo no Kagome Kagome Rouba Gundan To Sankenja no Mura no Noroi Ni 2 Sas Mania with Miyaken to Goddotan, Beroncho Adventure! Ryaku Shite... Ranmaru wa Nido Shinu. Houziki Death Road Hen ("Ranmaru - The Man With the Tongue of God - The Texas Man and The Bohemian Inn Hostess Lurking In The Shadows Behind The Mysterious Death Of The Young Sake Brewer, And The Army of Old Kagome-Kagome Women Who Are After The Beautiful Village Doctor, and The Village Curse Of The Three Sages, and A Two-Hour Suspense Drama, WITH Miyazaki Kenji and God Tongue, A Licking Adventure! In Short: Ranmaru Will Die Twice. Houzuki Death Road Chapter").

But the film is usually called Ranmaru. And you may have guessed from the title, but this is a comedy (parody) detective film.

Kami no Shita wo Motsu Otoko ("The Man With The Tongue of God") was a 2016 TV drama that I have not seen, though there were some names in the production team that caught my attention back then. First of all, the screenplay of the show was written by Sakurai Takeharu, who also wrote the screenplays for the films Kirin no Tsubasa and Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney, as well as for the Detective Conan films Private Eye in the Distant Sea, Sunflowers of Inferno and The Darkest Nightmare. Meanwhile, Tsutsumi Yukihiko signed for the direction of the show, and we know him as the brilliant mind behind the greatest Japanese comedy-mystery show, Trick (and he also did the first TV drama adaptation of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, as well as Keizoku among others). From some short trailers I saw, I gathered Kami no Shita wo Motsu Otoko was very much made in the spirit of Trick, so I was certainly curious to the series, but I never got around to it. The 2016 film Ranmaru is set after the series, but it conveniently starts with a five-minute recap of the series.

And... it's pretty bad. Perhaps it's because I didn't watch the series, but this film felt like nothing more but an inferior version of Trick. Everything is ripped from that series, only it's not performed as well. Tsutsumi Yukihiko's distinctive style of directing can be felt throughout, from the quick cuts to the snappy dialogue and non-secutor jokes, but it all feels... so forced in comparison to Trick. The main setting of the story for example (small village in the middle-of-nowhere, ancient village curse), with the villagers speaking with a thick accent: it's something we've seen this countless of times in Trick. The comedy too is almost cowardly compared to the bizarre comedy of Trick, as Ranmaru relies much more on actual pop culture references, and most of the time they make it a point to make sure the viewer got it. By pointing it out. Once or twice. Just to be sure. Which becomes very tedious after the first two times. There's a running joke for example about the characters recognizing that Ranmaru is dressed as Kindaichi Kousuke, but can't recall the name, so they cry out "That's Kin...Kin...Kin....." Which is kinda overkill if the joke's just that he's dressed as Kindaichi. Compare to Trick Special 3, which was completely a parody on Inugamike no Ichizoku, but without actually crying the name out to show how "subtle" the reference was.

And this could be forgiven if the core mystery plot was good, but man, I've seldom seen a full-length mystery film with such a horrible plot! The one murder that happens in the whole story is so boring it doesn't manage to carry the whole film (the death just isn't interesting enough), and the way the murderer is revealed is utterly ridiculous and lazy, as the murderer basically left their calling card, complete with name and telephone number, at the scene of the crime, with the direction making sure the viewer absolutely caught that. Now I think about it, it's precisely the same as how the jokes go in this film. It assumes the viewer can't figure anything out on their own, so every joke and clue is horribly obvious, and they still dwell on it for ages. The gimmick of Ranmaru being able to taste and recognize everything is also rendered completely irrelevant because of the clue, as taste has absolutely nothing to do with it!

While the Trick films might not have been super-complex mystery films, they were always entertaining from start to finish, with multiple smaller, simple mysteries to solve, that eventually chained into one longer story. The Columbo method, in essence. But there's only one driving mystery in Ranmaru, and it's a bad one too, so the whole film collapses because of that. And one could argue that as it's more meant to be a comedy/parody film, the mystery plot doesn't need to be that strong, but the problem is that the comedy elements of Ranmaru are also pretty disappointing.

So yeah, Ranmaru was a pretty disappointing mystery film considering the main production staff members. I had expected more of it as a comedy film, and more of it as a mystery film. It's not good at either of those genres, and it undermines its own premise by doing next to doing with the taste-gimmick. Avoid at all costs.

Original Japanese title(s): 『RANMARU 神の舌を持つ男 酒蔵若旦那怪死事件の影に潜むテキサス男とボヘミアン女将、そして美人村医者を追い詰める謎のかごめかごめ老婆軍団と三賢者の村の呪いに2サスマニアwithミヤケンとゴッドタン、ベロンチョアドベンチャー! 略して…蘭丸は二度死ぬ。鬼灯デスロード編』

The Last Trick

I am GOD'S CHILD
この腐敗した世界に堕とされた
How do I live on such a field?
こんなもののために生まれたんじゃない

「月光」 (鬼束ちひろ）

I am GOD’S CHILD
Put upon this decayed Earth
How do I live on such a field?
This isn’t why I was born...

"Moonlight" (Onitsuka Chihiro)

Full disclosure: I am a Trick fanboy.

Trick was one of the first Japanese TV series I ever watched, but it is still one of my favorite series ever. It started out as a late-night mystery series in 2000 with a distinct sense of bizarre comedy directed by Tsutsumi Yukihiko (also known for the original Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo series, Keizoku and the 20th Century Boys films). Over the course of the first season, the (incompetent) physics professor Ueda Jirou and the unsuccesful magician Yamada Naoko worked together worked against each other somehow managed to unmask fake psychics / supernatural phenomena / strange cults and solve the most bizarre impossible murders. It also drew heavily from the Kindaichi Kousuke series, with many episodes set in remote mountain villages with closed communities, with a bit of Higashino Keigo (scientific mysteries), a bit of Awasaka Tsumao (magic tricks) and John Dickson Carr (the supernatural). But more importantly, this was not a serious show.

Trick has always a playground for everyone involved in the production. From the actors to the people behind the camera, everyone is encouraged to try to make the show as funny and hammy as possible and the result is that Trick, as a series, has developed a very distinct 'grammar' during its run. From intentional overacting to copious amounts of wordplay, pop culture references to non-sequitur jokes, from off-angle camera shots, 'waving' camera shots to abrupt scene cuts, every Trick production is just one gigantic gag for everyone. This was arguably less apparent in the first season, but in the subsequent two TV series, and a series of theatrical releases and TV specials, it had became very clear that Trick was not a mystery show featuring comedy, but a comedy featuring mystery.

Trick series
Trick (TV) [2000]
Trick 2 (TV) [2002]
Trick - The Movie (film) [2002]
Trick ~Troisième partie~ (TV) [2003]
Trick - TV Special (TV) [2005]
Trick - The Movie 2 (film) [2006]
Trick - TV Special 2 (TV) [2010]
Trick -  Youth Chapter (novel) [2010]
Trick DS (game) [2010]
Trick - Psychic Battle Royale (film 3) [2010]
Trick - TV Special 3 (TV) [2014]
Trick - Last Stage (film 4) [2014]

After the third season of the TV series, Trick returned several times for TV specials and theatrical releases, but 2014 marks the end of the quirky adventures of Ueda and Yamada. I reviewed the third Trick TV special in January, which served as the companion piece to the final Trick production, the fourth theatrical release aptly titled Trick - Last Stage. Ueda Jirou, well known as a debunker of the occult, is asked to help mediate in a conflict between a trading company and a small village in the Republic of Equatorial Sungai. The company has bought the mining rights for rare earth elements there, but the local villagers, led by a powerful shaman, refuse to move away. Ueda is to show the villagers that the shaman is just a fake and convince the locals to move. His "assistent" Yamada Naoko is dragged along too of course, but this time, Ueda and Yamada seem to be facing someone with true powers. And what about Yamada's dreams of the end of the world she's been having lately?

The last movie is hard to rate. First of all, I have to admit I was quite disappointed by the main mystery plot of the shaman. While Trick has never been about super-hard-to-figure crimes and murders, the ones shown here were very easy, especially considering this is supposed to be the final entry in such a beloved series. Heck, some of the tricks used for the murder were just rehashes of some old episodes! Also, Trick has always been about strange cults and their leaders, but this time the shaman and the local villagers were very... normal, which almost felt unnatural for this series.

The comedy also seemed to be toned down a bit compared to the releases of the last few years. While still a funny movie, Trick - Last Stage never reaches the parody chaos of Trick TV special 3 for example and it sure isn't even close to the outlandish psychic all star cast like the third Trick film had, or there's not even a catchy phrase like the second film (yoroshiku ne!). In a way though, I do have to say I sorta appreciated the fact director Tsutsumi went a different direction than the full-out comedy of those productions, which fits with Last Stage being the last Trick production and the film's tone does kinda resemble the slightly more humble, serious tone the original TV series had. That said, I thought the first fifteen, thirty minutes were great with tons of new visual gags we had not seen earlier in any Trick production. It just lost momentum when focus switched to the mystery plot proper.

Buut the wrap-up of the mystery plot does connect to themes and questions raised in the very first season in a meaningful manner. While Trick always has a dark ending to each case with a bad aftertaste, the overall themes were not as important for the tone of the series in recent productions, so I was glad Last Stage revisited the more 'meaninful' themes of earlier TV series.

As a ending to the complete series, I have to say I was very content with Trick - Last Stage though. There were little references to earlier series and films (and even the spin-off TV series) spread all over the film, which helped construct the idea of this being the last Trick, but like I said, I thought the film was kinda boring as the (disappointing) mystery plot unfolded. But then the last twenty minutes kick in, and wow! This is how you do an ending to a great series. I wonder how much director Tsutsumi had thought about ending this series, but I absolutely loved what he came up with for arguably his most representative work. The ending works so well in the context of the series and it's almost cheating they used Gekkou, the original ending theme, to play with our emotions. My feelings for this movie went [first twenty minutes= ah, this is funny] -> [bulk of the film = it's kinda bland, isn't it？] -> [last twenty minutes = this is the greatest thing ever I think I need to cryyyyyyyy].

But as you can guess, Trick - Last Stage only works if you have invested the time / emotions by watching preferably everything in the franchise, so that is three TV seasons, three TV specials, a novel, a videogame, two spin-off TV series and the four films. Then you'll get a satisfying ending to the series. You won't even get half of the satisfaction out of this movie if this is the first time you watch Trick, as the bulk of the film is really quite bland.

I do recommend Trick - Last Stage to every fan of the franchise, but I guess I wouldn't need to tell them to watch this series finale. It is for a large part slightly disappointing as a mystery-comedy film, but the little references and throwbacks in the film, as well as the last scene really makes this a must-see. For those who want a funny, but more focused mystery plot, you're better off with the companion piece to this film. But I am perhaps finally ready to say goodbye to the wonderful team of Ueda and Yamada and who knows, Trick has always been known for its quirkiness, so maybe, in a future...

And never forget. "Don't fear supernatural phenomena. Don't be afraid! Come on! Supernatural phenomena!"

Original Japanese title(s): 『劇場版トリック　ラストステージ』

Trick & Magic

「理由」をもっと喋り続けて

私が眠れるまで

「月光」 （鬼束ちひろ）

Tell me about your reasons

Until I'm able to sleep

"Moonlight" (Onitsuka Chihiro)

To put this review in context immediately, I absolutely worship the TV drama Trick. It is the most awesome series to have graced Japanese TV screens, as well as the silver screen and as such, this review might be slanted a bit towards the very positive.

Trick started as a late-night mystery series in 2000, about a(n incompetent) physics professor Ueda Jirou and an unsuccesful magician Yamada Naoko teaming up debunking supernatural phenomena and solving murders. It drew heavily from the Kindaichi Kousuke series, with many episodes set in remote mountain villages with closed communities, with a bit of Higashino Keigo (scientific mysteries), a bit of Awasaka Tsumao (magic tricks) and John Dickson Carr (the supernatural). But, most importantly, it was conceived as a cartoonish comedy-mystery.

Trick soon grew as a series, as well as a phenomenom, and it soon become a series that certainly took up the appearance of a dark, horror mystery, but was essentially a playground for everyone involved in its production. Actors are encouraged to overact, to overplay their role as characters in a mystery series. You're not the focus of the scene and just standing in the background? Don't worry, you're allowed to do whatever you want there. Heck, even the camerawork is in on it, with enigmatic, yet hypnotic movements during scenes that would normally be taken motionless, and shots purposedly taken off center. Every single scene of every episode, special and film is full with little gags and stuff, but miraculously, it never feels (too) chaotic.

But Trick isn't just a comedy. Because despite all the chaos, despite all the things done for laughs, it's actually a good mystery show! There's always an interesting plot, it's always structured properly and there are the essential hints for the viewer to solve the mystery. One could easily take the same plot and make a super-serious, dark mystery out of it. But, that wouldn't be Trick. Trick is a parody of mystery, of itself and other TV dramas, a playground for the production team, but also a great mystery drama. It is very cartoonish though, so those who prefer serious detective fiction, stay away from Trick, but I myself consider it a masterpiece.

And this year marks the end of Trick. Four years ago, I was lucky enough to be in Japan when they celebrated the series' 10th anniversary with a new movie and other productions, but no such luck this time. The series is to end with the fourth movie, which is running now, but last week a TV special was broadcast set just before the movie, marking Trick's last outing on the TV screen. The head of the Mizugami clan has died, and his three daughters (and their family) all expect a gigantic inheritance. Unbeknownst to them, the Mizugami fortune has shrunk dramatically of late unfortunately and the family is left with very little.

However, the Mizugami inheritance doesn't exist out of just direct financial means. A little box is also left to the family, which is supposed to hold a hint pointing to the whereabouts of a buried treasure. The box is cursed though, so the family decides to ask the famous physics professor Ueda Jirou (and his assistant Yamada Naoko) to help them, knowing that he is an authority on debunking the supernatural (and not knowing that he's actually a fairly incompetent detective and quite scared of the supernatural). But the presence of Ueda isn't enough to prevent a series of murders among the Mizugami clan...

Trick has always borrowed a lot from Yokomizo Seishi's Kindaichi Kousuke series (like in the second season pilot), but this special was the most blatant example, probably, as it parodies his masterpiece Inugamike no Ichizoku. The fight for the inheritance, the three daughters, a masked grandson, murders... heck, there are even (multiple pairs of) legs sticking out of a lake (....you'll have to read the book or watch the movies to get that). And just to make it completely clear, the whole story is set in the village of Okomizo.

And I almost died of laughter as I was watching this.

As a mystery story, this special was actually quite good. Sure, the rough outline is based on Inugamike no Ichizoku (and it has some good, original takes on the tropes from the book too!), but the treasure hunt plot is completely original (and also makes the story even more Trick-like) and actually quite good; the hints are laid done very well. There's also a simple locked room murder which on its own might not be very impressive, but as is often with Trick, it's the sum of the parts, the synergy between the seperate parts that really brings out the magic of its plot. Trick stories often consists of multiple murders / seemingly supernatural crimes, usually with fairly simple magic tricks behind them, but it is the way they are sewn together, i.e. how the story is written, that really matters here. And it usually works really well in Trick.

The third TV special is essentially not very different from any other Trick production though. But is that  a bad thing? It's the first Trick production in four years, and we all expect a certain atmosphere from the series and this special delivers precisely that. Like I said, Trick is a playground, and it doesn't really matter if the rough outlines might seem familiar, because it is the way the playground is used that is important. And it never bores me.

In a way, Trick, as a comedy mystery, is something director Tsutsumi Yukihiko had been working towards for a long time. Some characteristics of Trick can be found in his TV drama adaptation of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo (musical cues, enigmatic dynamic camera work, light-hearted tone followed by horror/drama) and Keizoku added in rapid-fire dialogues and non-sequitor humor, but it really came together in Trick and you can just see everyone having a great time here. I have been planning to write something on Tsutsumi's detective drama series here for years now, but maybe I'll actually get around to it this year...

Oh, and this was the first time I actually saw the actress Asakura Aki. I know her voice quite well as Kirigamine Ryou from the Houkago wa Mystery to Tomo ni radio drama, so I was quite surprised when I heard a familar voice in the special (and yes, I had trouble getting the mental image of Kirigamine Ryou out of my head).

All in all, a great special, and I look forward to the last movie!

Original Japanese title(s): 『トリック　新作スペシャル３』

『なぜベストを尽くさないのか』

「時が経つことに怯えて泣いてた変わりゆく人の心に」
 Garnet Crow, 『夢みたあとで』

"Scared of the passing of time and of how people's hearts change, I cried"
Garnet Crow, "After seeing my dream"

Ignoring whether the product is good or not, you'll have to admit that Japanese companies are quite good at cross-marketing their products. When the Detective Conan movie was released, some convenience stores had special Detective Conan promotions, while other chains sold exclusive Conan DVD's. The upcoming Odoru Daisousasen movie is accompanied by a videogame and probably more stuff.

And strangely enough, to promote movies based on television drama, they usually broadcast a special episode, which is nearly as long as the movie they're supposed to be promoting. The previous Trick special was as long as the Trick movie it was supposed to promote, and about the same for the Galileo special and movie. They might as well release two movies. Or two specials.

Anyway, I had seen the awesome Trick movie earlier this week, but the Trick week was still not over as the second Trick TV special was broadcast yesterday. Which was OK. It was definitely a Trick story, even more so than the movie, with a more contained story and less big action scenes. But that was the 'problem' maybe, having seen the grander scale story of the movie, I just couldn't help being somewhat underwhelmed by the special. If I'd seen the movie and the special in reverse order, I would've liked it more. I should've watched it in the special-movie order, I gathered from the dialogue, but that's strange as the movie debuted a week before the special was even broadcast.

And then there was the Trick game for the DS. Having played the horrible, horrible DS game of Galileo, I was kinda weary to purchase this game, until I discovered WorkJam had developed the game, the developer responsible for the current Detective Jinguuji Saburou games. Which are awesome.

So with a relieved heart, I purchased my copy of Trick DS and I am glad I did. As it was truly a fun game. Short, very short, but it was like playing an episode of Trick myself. The dialogue and story, while not written by the original writer, feel like they were lifted out of the series. The music is in fact the same as the series and the game even has the same opening animation. The story progress mimics the Trick tradition perfectly, with lots of problems which are solved one after another in relatively short time, but which together make up one big problem.

And the sleuth system... is actually quite interesting. In my years of gaming, I have seen my share of translating detectives to games. Games like Detective Jinguuji Saburou hardly let you think, but focus on telling a story. A game like Detective Conan - The Mirapolis Investigation tries letting the player deduce the culprit, but fails horribly by being so easy. The Keyword system in Detective Conan & Kindachi Shounen no Jikenbo was OK, but the story progression was not always as good (as well as the Conan-part being longer, but more tedious). The system Trick uses is somewhat similar to the system of the latter game, but a lot more fun.

It works by offering a problem that needs to be solved ("How did the killer get away?"), which can be solved by a combination of key elements (Items, circumstances, location, persons). The cool part is that every time you combine elements, a hypothesis is made. While most hypotheses are just unbelievable, others are at least plausible and thus make you think. You then bring your hypothesis to the confrontation scenes, where you'll have to defend your hypothesis; this being different from the system in Detectve Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, as you have no idea whether your ideas are correct until you've actually tested them in the confrontations. In terms of difficulty, the system is somewhere near the Gyakuten Saiban system, the latter being more difficult as it does not offer hypotheses, but it's still an interesting system.

Translating detectives to games is not always easy and while I think the Gyakuten Saiban series does it excellently, I'm very content with this system of WorkJam and I really hope to see it more often in their games. I'm also very surprised to see such a fun system in a game based on a drama, but as I'm a big fanboy, I'm just very pleasantly surprised.

Now make me my Furuhata Ninzaburou game, WorkJam. Do it.　

Original Japanese title(s):　『TRICK 新作スペシャル2』、 『TRICK DS版 ～隠し神の棲む館～』、『名探偵コナンと金田一少年の事件簿　めぐり合う二人の名探偵』、『逆転裁判』

「お前のやったことは、ぜんぶ全てスリッとお見通しだ！」

「通信教育で空手を学んでいたんだ」
『トリック』

"I learned karate through correspondence courses."
"Trick"

Having deleted several drafts of this post in a row, I give up on trying to write a comprehensible summary of the Trick franchise. What started out like a comedic detective series is nowadays more a bizarre comedy with detective-elements, but it's still, together with Furuhata Ninzaburou, my favorite Japanese drama. As a detective drama, it's somewhat like Jonathan Creek as it features a magician solving crimes, but that's as far as the comparison goes. Trick is all about comedy, with just a bit left for mystery. You shouldn't even think too much about the mysteries.

What's so difficult to explain about Trick is in fact the bizarre comedy. Besides the 'normal' comedy derived from text and story, the screen is so much an element of Trick's distinctive flavor, with crazy angles, cuts to other scenes and running jokes in the background, it's something you have to see to understand. And this year is the 10th anniversary of the Trick franchise and a new movie was released some days ago. Which I had been looking forward to ever since I saw the trailer.

So using my Ueda-like powers of persuasion, I dragged my own self-proclaimed beautiful and talented magician with me to the theater to see Trick: Psychic Battle Royale. Like the title subtly implies, the story revolves around several (self-proclaimed) psychics who fight for the title of the shaman kamihaeri. Among them are psychics who can not die, psychics who can read the future and psychics who can cast curses. And self-proclaimed magician Yamada, who once again tries to get her hands on money by pretending to be a psychic and as a magician herself, is capable of seeing through the tricks of the other fakes. And the scientist Ueda is of course there to... do stuff. Nothing new here.

Which is good. Trick has never been about doing something completely new, it's about strange people interacting with each other, with a mystery-subplot beneath. And this movie did it the best of all the Trick movies. The mystery subplot was not very impressive and some other stuff have been left unexplained, but that doesn't really matter. Even if you solved the mystery the moment it's shown on screen, you'll still get goosebumps when Yamada points her finger at the culprit to proclaim she has seen through all. Trick is just that awesome.

It is in fact quite amazing the bizarre comedy saves this from being just a casual detective with no redeeming qualities whatsover (yes, I am looking at you, Yonshimai Tanteidan) and actually transforms it in a fantastic series.

Oh, and the tie-in at the end to first episode of the first season? What. Was. That?　

Original Japanese title(s): 『劇場版TRICK 霊能力者バトルロイヤル』

「俺たちが知ってる真実なんてのはなぁ、ほんの一部だ。」

「真実なんてのはなぁ、ほんとは存在しないんだよ。あいまいな記憶の集合体で、それがぁ真実の顔をしてどうどうとのさばっているだけだ。」真山徹、『ケイゾク』

"The truth doesn't exist. Just vague collective memories posing as the truth.", Mayama Tooru, "Keizoku"

And as if to mock me, the next detective I watched after writing that last post did involve esotoric mumbo jumbo. And supernatural stuff. Somehow, I should've known things never turn out the way I hope them to be. Beautiful Dreamer.

Culprit: the 1999 Japanese TV-series Keizoku ("Continuing"), in which a career policewoman and top-of-the-class Tokyo University graduate (but oblivious to common sense), Shibata Jun, is assigned to an unit within the force responsible for handling old unsolved cases. As the Rules of Detection dictate, Shibata of course manages to solve cold case after case. Including the infamous 300 million yen robbery (But thinking it's too much trouble to go over the case again, they leave it be.).

The series begins brilliantly with Golden Age detective problems like locked room murders, disappearances and alibi deconstruction stories, all glued together through Tsutsumi Yukihiko's distinctive directing, with strange camera-angles and movement, great rapid-fire dialogue and non-sequitur humor between rookie Shibata and the hardboiled Mayama. Keizoku is an improvement on his older detective drama adaptation of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Young Kindaichi") and a foreboding of Tsutsumi's masterpiece detective-comedy Trick (which is so awesome, it's hard to explain. You really have to see it to understand the bizarre comedy there).

Too bad it all goes down-hill in the second half of Keizoku, where a case involving a strange serial murderer becomes the focus and it ends in a violent extravaganza of betrayal after betrayal, cops hunting cops and the appearence of a mindclouding, mindswapping, body-changing supervillain. Actually, I don't know precisely what that power was of the last criminal and according to the Keizoku: Phantom special, neither does the director, but it sure wasn't realistic. Of course, that was nothing compared to the Opening of the Gates of Hell in the Keizoku: Beautiful Dreamer movie. That was really trippy. I think Tsutsumi tried to do something different with the Japanese (detective) drama, but did it in a way which made it simply incomprehensible. And made a fairly good detective drama into a weird supernatural police series.

And to paraphrase Dr. Fell from The Hollow Man, I have no problems with detectives being improbable, as long as they are not impossible.

Today's song: 大野克夫バンド (Oono Katsuo Band) - 太陽にほえろ！メインテーマ (Taiyou ni Hoero! Main Theme ("'Howl at the Sun!' Main Theme"))