Monday, February 10, 2014

Erena Ono: Tank Top Fighter drama episodes 1 & 2 recap


Air Dates: April 25th to June 20th, 2013 on TBS/MBS at 12:58 am

Main Cast: 

Erena Ono as Kai
Umika Kawashima as Riku
Yoko Mitsuya as lawyer Rei Inami
Aoi Nakamura as Kuu


  These are my kind of dramas, short ones that air late night, the last few years these have been among the best shows to air and so far this one is no different as it's been a really solid watch. The episodes are only 24 minutes each so they're all two-parters, haven't finished it yet but think it ends off with a 3-parter so going to review two episodes at a time because of that.



 Kai(Erena) and Riku(Umika) are two sisters who are currently enrolled in college, we see Kai attending most episodes but haven't seen Riku once in a class. One day their world is destroyed as their father is arrested for murder and the theft of 100 million yen which hasn't been recovered. Hasn't come out thriguh the first 5 episodes where the money disappeared to or why their father committed the murder, if in fact he did, meanwhile he's been locked up in prison and the sisters are not allowed to visit him. Shortly after hearing the news the sisters are visited by a lawyer named Rei who claims she is on their side and knew their father, that's what she says but watching the show it's debatable whether she really knows him or not. She explains to the sisters that before they can visit their father they must repay the 100 million yen or the family who it was stolen from will sue them. The girls not knowing much about legal matters have believed what the lawyer was telling them but they have no way to pay the money back. But there is a way according to Rei as the pair could become 'bounty hunters' and capture criminals before the police do, she has a list of 4 criminals whose total bounty is worth 100 million and that would clear their debt if they can capture all of them.



 Riku happens to be a computer whiz and she'll stay at their apartment getting data and trying to find out where the criminal is while Kai will be out in the streets following her leads and trying to capture the culprit, she also happens to be very good at fighting hence the show's title. Their first target is a man called Ota who has a bounty of 20 million yen on him but seems to have disappeared. Kai meets his old girlfriend Asami who says she was abused by Ota and is scared that something will happen to her and it does as one night a gang of goons break into her residence and try to kidnap her. Kai just happened to be in the area and stopped the kidnapping, she is a fighter as she managed to take out the gang all by herself. However this Asami person isn't who she said she was, the real Asami had been killed and this new one had taken her identity, for what reason was a bit confusing to the viewer and the sisters.



 Actually this new Asami was really Ota who had undergone surgery and now was a female, in a climatic finish Kai fought both Ota and his mother and looked like she was going to somehow lose to them but out of nowhere her college friend Kuu had arrived in the scene. He stepped in and prevented Kai from getting too seriously hurt which enabled her to regain her strength and she ended up defeating Ota/Asami and his mother. One target down and now the sisters debt has shrunk to 80 million, three more bounties to get and they get a bit more difficult all the time. One note about Ota, after he was arrested by the 'police' he was severely tortured he ended up getting killed, he wasn't at a police station so this starts to raise some questions about the lawyer Rei and exactly who are these bounties she's after and also are the police really after these criminals too.
 That's about it for the first 2 episodes, few more things occur which you can view in the next post which has a mega amount of screenshots from these two episodes. Hopefully there aren't too many spoilers so far but have found this drama has started off on the right foot, sometimes it's confusing but that could just be me.



No comments:

Post a Comment