Monsters review

This will be a review of Monsters, starring Katori Shingo and Yamashita Tomohisa. Monsters played back in Fall 2012 and has 8 episodes.

Synopsis (From DramaWiki and  Jdramas Wordpress):

Hiratsuka Heihachi (Katori Shingo), a detective of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s First Investigative Division, is an oddball with his rude, petty, makeshift attitude and fuss over little things although he is always smiling and excrutiatingly gentlemanly in speech to everyone. Brazenly stepping into territory that others hate, he exposes their hidden faces and the true nature of human relations to solve cases. On the other hand, rookie detective Saionji Kosuke (Yamashita Tomohisa), the son of a very high profile distinguished family, is highly conscientious, untainted and upright. He is taken on probation by his coveted First Investigative Division, but the work he is given is overseen by Hiratsuka. The First Investigative Division’s Team Hiratsuka is a one-man department with Hiratsuka himself. While Hiratsuka is an unpopular person that no one in the division wishes to work under, he has somehow solved a great number of cases in succession. For that reason, the members of the division speculate that Hiratsuka might have ties with the dark side and Saionji is put under Hiratsuka in order to find evidence of his wrongdoing. However, the biggest reason why Hiratsuka solves cases is because he is the person that criminals hate the most.

 Cast:

• Katori Shingo as Hiratsuka Heihachi
• Yamashita Tomohisa as Saionji Kousuke
• Yanagihara Kanako as Takano Emi
• Endo Kenichi as Kaneda Hajime

Review

Story

Monsters, a drama about a detective duo with very different personalities. A veteran but a bit crazy detective is played by Katori Shingo, while a new and innocent detective is played by Yamapi.  The story in short is that this new detective, Saionji, must spy on Hiratsuka (Katori Shingo) and find out how he can be so good at finding criminals.

It is quite a simple set-up for a detective drama, as they usually are. Each episode is a new mystery. I expected that the story between Yamapi and Shingo would flourish more. Why is Hiratsuka so hated by other detectives but still allowed to work there? It seems there could be interesting information from his past. Sadly, the drama does not really go much deeper about the life of Hiratsuka and Saionji and is almost only about the cases.

Monsters was intended to be a hit. It has 2 well known actors and by the way it was filmed, I am sure that they thought it was going to be a hit. I thought that the cinematography was very well done. However, the ratings of this drama was low compared to their expectations. Is it really that bad? Well, I must say that while it was not very good, I think some people can still enjoy this for what it is.

For each cases, the criminal was almost all the time very obvious and often from the beginning. Even for me, who is terrible at this, was able to guess who it was. Thus, it had a very weak root story and weak cases mysteries. However, I think the point of this drama was not to find who is the criminal. Often, it was the evidence that was missing and Hiratsuka was able to find and expose that missing proof.  Knowing this, I think it was a little bit easier to enjoy the series. The drama does not a really good job at explaining this to the audience.

Acting

I think opinions will be mixed about the acting. I feel some will like Katori Shingo's acting and some will hate it. I feel it is also the same for Yamapi's acting. 

It was my first time to see Katori Shingo act. Here, he is playing quite a difficult role. He is playing a crazy character that is hated by everyone. Katori Shingo was very good at portraying this role, but I think it depends on personal preference if it is enjoyable or not. Some might like his very different personality or some might simply be annoyed by it.

I must confess that I am a Yamapi fan. As a Yamapi fan, I was very happy with his acting and thought that might be one of his best since Nobuta wo Produce. However, I saw some comments of people not liking his acting as well. The point of Yamashita's character is to be a total opposite of Katori's. I found that he was good at showing that they were completely different.

A consequence of this is that both characters have very extreme personalities. It is not realistic and even if the acting on the actors part was good, people might not like their personalities.  

Music

The music was really good. I enjoyed the main theme and the music played during the episodes.  I can feel by that music that they were aiming high for this one.

Recommendation 

If you liked this drama, I suggest you to watch the drama MR.BRAIN starring Kimura Takura and Ayase Haruka. It is similar because the main character has a crazy personality and is helped by an innocent and younger assistant. I found MR.BRAIN better because the case stories were more interesting.

Monsters was a bit of a disappointment. I felt they could have done something much better with it, especially with the story. However, if you are willing to give this one a try, I suggest watching the first episode. With the first episode, you will have a very good idea of the rest of the series.