Tantei no Tantei

I haven't watched a lot of J-Dramas lately so I thought I'd watch another and decided to choose a drama from a familiar actor.

TANTEI NO TANTEI (Detective vs. Detectives) is a 2015 suspense drama, which stars Kitagawa Keiko as the protagonist Sasaki Rena, who lost her imouto after being murdered by a stalker and became a detective to hunt the detective responsible for leading the stalker to her sister. Also starring are Kawaguchi Haruna as Minemori Kotoha who is Sasaki's sidekick and Iura Arata as Suma Yasuomi, head of Suma Research and Sasaki's boss.

Sasaki is sort of a cliche character for a female detective: intelligent, beautiful, strong, and with an attitude (Sasaki's is being aloof and looking resentful, which she is). And as always, there's that soft interior to the character. Not really bothered, I just noticed something, for a side note. Kitagawa Keiko seems fond of playing characters who are into investigation and research. Maybe she's staying away from "cute and heroine" roles.

Each episode were presented in a way as if all leading, directly or (mostly) indirectly, to the death of Sasaki Rena's younger sister. I'm not sure if Sasaki has just too much anger or if Kitagawa is playing the character in a little unusual way. Or maybe I'm just no longer used to Japanese acting. I must be watching too much K-Dramas.

I think my favourite character in Tantei no Tantei was Kirishima Sota (Fujioka Sean). He's also working at Suma Research and seemed to be one of the very few people that Sasaki could not easily dismiss.

I also like Kubozuka Yuma (Miura Takahiro), a police officer who used to resent Sasaki for allegedly interfering police investigations but later became helpful to her. Too bad though...

Tantei no Tantei has a dark ambiance so it may need some patience from the audience, especially those not fond of crime dramas.