Air Dates: June 5 to June 26, Thursdays at 12:35 am on TV Tokyo
Main Cast:
Aki Takajo as Aki Takajo
Shigemitsu Ogi as Takagi
Aoi Tatsumi as Shiro
Shingo Yukota as Asahi
Was looking for a different kind of drama and stumbled upon this, usually these are my kind of shows as it's only 4 episodes and they're only 22 minutes each so when you add up the total time it's like watching a shortish movie. The above cast was the entire cast, smallest one I've ever seen for a drama but then again it was such a short series would have been hard to introduce many more characters.
Aki plays a character also named Aki so that'll make it easier for me to write and for you to follow. Aki is somewhat of a rookie on the police force who applies for the SP: Special Police Unit. She goes through vigorous training and testing for the position but despite her young age and inexperience ends up passing and becomes a member of the SP. However we learn throughout the series she didn't exactly pass like she thought she had, actually during the process Aki had been brainwashed which wiped away all her memories. Her mentor during this time was Takagi who was also her supervisor after she joined the SP. He was the one responsible for wiping away her memory but besides that he had instilled in her that she had killed her father, not sure the reason for that but think it was to make Aki full of guilt so she wouldn't disobey Takagi who said he would keep it a secret.
Aki's first mission is to transport a man named Shiro to a savepoint, we were never sure until the end what his status was, a good or bad guy? Also we never learned until the end why Aki needed to transport Shiro to a savepoint. only he and Takagi knew and neither one was telling Aki who though was a bit curious was also brainwashed still and showing not too much emotions during this time. Aki did act kind of robotic or like a machine during most of the drama but guess that was because of the brainwashing and probably that's how SP members are supposed to be.
The reason Shiro needed to be protected is that he was being hunted down by another mysterious man named Asahi, he was another person we never learn about until the very end. Asahi catches up twice with Aki and Shiro but the first time she managed to fend him off and she was able to escape with Shiro. The second time they weren't so lucky as Asahi talking with Aki realized she had been brainwashed and managed to say things that confused her already confused mind. During this incident he managed to wrestle her gun away from her, now it was Asahi holding Aki and Shiro as a hostage.
However Asahi wasn't the bad guy like Takagi had said he was, he was actually an ex-member of the SP who had gone through the same experiences that Aki had. Through his talking Aki was slowly recovering her mind and the effect of the brainwashing was slowly disappearing. Shiro then explained to Aki what was really happening and much of it had to do with her father who was deceased but wasn't killed by Aki as she had been duped to believe. Bit complicated but there's a rare form of methane in the Sea of Japan, it has a tremendous power, so tremendous it would be able to supply most of the energy that Japan needs. However it's a very difficult and dangerous procedure to get the methane, over the years no one had developed a way to extract the methane safely and profitably until Aki's father developed a plan. And that's the basic plot of the drama, it was all about getting the plan for extracting methane from the sea which we didn't learn until the very end like almost everything else.
Aki's father had broken up the plan into three parts, Shiro had one, Takagi had one and the final one had been imprinted on the back of Aki in a shape that looked like a bar code. But even though Aki had been told all of this and even though her brainwashing was losing it's effect she still completed her mission and delivered Shiro to Takagi at the savepoint. There Takagi tortured him to get his part of the plan but Shiro wouldn't admit anything and just when it appears as though he's going to break down and admit Aki comes to his rescue. She's finally recovered her memory and realized how she's been led along as Takagi's puppet. It was a fierce battle but finally Aki was able to subdue Takagi and she was able to flee safely with Shiro where they met up once again with Asahi. Not positive of what happened during that final meeting, did they give him the plans for the methane extraction or did they keep it and were going to deliver it to the government? Wrapped up too quickly which is a problem with short dramas like this. Just doing an edit right now and hadn't mentioned this but the reason Takagi wanted the plans were of course because of money, he had a deal with the Americans as if the Japanese were able to supply most of their power the Americans would stand to lose a substantial amount of money.
Those were the major points which occurred in this drama, I do like these shorter, late night shows more than the regular prime time dramas but for once wish this had gone on for an extra episode or two, many more blanks could have been filled in. All the action took place in one day except for the flashback scenes and there were plenty of them. All in all it was an okay watch, nothing spectacular as it could have been much better if it had gone on for an extra show or two but if you're a Aki fan then you'd probably really like this show, she's really in just about every scene. Final rating for this short drama will be an 7.5/10, worth a view and it's quite easy to watch all the four episodes in a row as the total time is only 1 1/2 hours. Next two posts have a mega amount of Aki screenshots from the show, her acting was okay but not great but then again think her character was supposed to be quite stoic and machine like, she did a passable job then in doing those things.
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