Just watched the Special last night and I do know that I should watch the special first before embarking on the drama itself. Actually, there's nothing much on the special except that is how you found out these few things:
1) Where Strawberry Night comes from and how it becomes the prominent title of the show
2) Reiko's dark and traumatic past, and why she acts like being haunted by something at times
3) Reiko's arch enemies in the detective world
Spoilers alert!
First and foremost, Reiko (Yuko Takeuchi), works as a female detective and the leader of the Team 10 of First Division MPD. Like I mentioned in the previous post for 1st episode of Strawberry Night, females are being looked down upon in the working condition (not sure if this is generally true in Japan at a modern era like now) but her bosses have been giving her hard time every now and then, even the forensic guy teases her! Anyways, that doesn't mean she's not competent.
Well, there must be a reason for Reiko, being a female, getting promoted to be a leader of the team, or in other words, Shunin. She's known to follow her intuitions as a detective by all.
So my guess was correct (referring to the previous post). They used mainly the same flashbacks in the special and 1st episode, so in fact, we won't miss much actually even if we don't watch the Special. But since this is a pretty good investigation drama, I'd recommend it to people who likes the genre. Reiko was indeed a victim of an assault and rape case, thus answering the reasons why she looked restless, especially when she's alone at night, walking along the park. Seems that the past still haunts her every now and then.
Reiko's dark past and the detective who inspired her to become one
Reiko's great partner, Kikuta...too bad he doesn't appear much of a help in the Special drama. He is for some unclear reason, ordered to work at desk, and not frontline. I was looking forward for his scenes, but it's minimal in the Special. However, you can feel or see the chemistry he's having with Reiko.
The title of the show comes from the case they are working on in the Special. And a major turn of event was definitely the one where one of the newbies in Reiko's team, got killed in line of duty. Besides having a dark past scarring her for life, Reiko has another burden of feeling guilty for not taking good care of the newbie.
Overall thoughts:
I like how Yuko portrays Reiko. She's someone who doesn't like to lose, very competitive among the other comrades and I find her despise towards some other Team Leaders kinda hilarious at times. Though sometimes a bit exaggerated, I can totally understand her hatred especially if the other enemy is Iron Guy (below). Takeda Tetsuya is such a delight to watch. His way of handling cases, using backdoors to get rid of his partner (solo investigation is not allowed), giving out money to yakuzaa, etc...for information and not afraid to resort to violence makes the character interesting, but at times, you feel annoyed too.
His constant bickering with Reiko can get pretty serious sometimes. Somehow it makes me wonder if the MPD world is as portrayed. Are the different teams really this competitive when it comes to cracking cases?
Overall, there IS a slight twist in the end. The culprit was never really who I thought it'd be. The show is filled with suspense and detective fans, you might wanna dig this. I don't think it's gonna disappoint much at the moment. I'm loving it at least. xD
Rating: 8/10
Hayashi Kento did make a bit of a breakthrough from his serious role this time
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