Kazama Kimichika: Kyojo Zero (2023)

"Know Thyself"

As a 'cop show' it was just kind of average for me ... but as an expose into the human mind, it was fascinating and introspective.

The first couple of episodes were slow but from episode 3 it started to turn into so much more than I expected. It takes you through a gamut of emotions around some very emotive topics ... child abuse, spouse abuse, elder abuse, dementia, young lives cut short etc ... all the while peeling back the shadow layers of the minds of the police graduates who want to become detectives and shine a light on the drivers of human behaviour - both theirs and the people they are investigating. Ego and self-delusion ... weapons of mass destruction that reverberate across society and generations.

Kazama's training method is very interesting ... his "Dojo" was not so much about solving cases (thought it did do that) as it was about solving 'people'. Kazama's powers of perception are phenomenal to say the least ... if you survived him, you definitely come out a transformed and better human being and a better police officer / detective.

While watching it I was reminded of the inscription on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi ... "Know thyself" ... it is a very loaded, two word statement ... one which I thought had ample play in this series. Everyone's life was touched by a shadowed or hidden heaviness ... quiet desperation bleeding out of the edges of the shadowed self ... no one is immune ... not even a semblance of 'control' (like Kazama's) or lack thereof (like Kenji's) mitigates its covert permeation into everything and anything they do or say ... it may be held back for a time, but if unaddressed there will come a tipping point of no return where that shadow self unleashes itself ... often having a devastating domino effect on the lives of others around them. Kazama challenges his learner detective's world view through concepts of 'blind acceptance' ... how often do we blindly accept what we see and hear and never question it ... and equally, how often do we blindly accept our own justifications / rationalisations about ourselves and our world view without ever challenging it?

Kazama was like some kind of Kamisama ... every case seemed tailored made for each one of his 'learner' detectives ... kind of corny in a way but I didn't mind this seemingly impossible correlation because, through those 'tailor made' cases, these police officers got to face their 'shadowed' selves, and their 'shadowed' past. Before Kazama, they did NOT know themselves very well or to their full extent ... they were totally ignorant of aspects of themselves or were in denial of it or were so traumatised by it that it was 'blocked' from memory. However, once they faced it, accepted it and incorporated that knowledge into their here and now lives, they became better people, better detectives and more open to their own ongoing personal evolution, more open to the lives and drivers of others ... and that is a good thing .. it makes for a better detective and a better human being ... a double plus.

The series gives much pause for reflection about the human condition. It was sad to see the remnants of one's life being left behind or discarded ... the beautiful flower gardens, abandoned and withered ... the photographs of dreams and hopes now stained with the rusty colour of blood, no longer to be looked upon with expectation, joy and determination to succeed ... a ring, loaded with wonderful memories of times passed but never to grace the hand of the one who it was given to ... photos of a woman whose mind was so vibrant and in love but was hardly a shadow of its former functionality, and yet that woman gave her murderous husband her final cogent thought before passing ... 'a get out of jail' card by deleting that last message ... ahhh so sad, so poignant ... as I thought of all these things, I burst into tears the same time Kazama did ... being human is a bloody tough gig.

Symbolism throughout was very well done and poignant ... like a child literally branded by both parents "ma Ma" ... Tono's flower bed restored to its colourful glory - a visual reminder of the potential and the shortness of life, here one day and gone the next. The cinematography with all the muted interiors, reflective surfaces ... symbolic of how we 'mute' aspects of our minds, of our lived experiences ... how what we see is often not the 'original' thing but a reflection of the original from some other thing/person ... how the lack of clarifying light on the 'real thing' impacts what and how we see things around us and ipso facto how we respond / react to it.

The OST was beautiful and melancholy at the same time ... it suited the story well ... though I did not understand the lyrics.

The final scenes of the last episode shows a sudden ominous breeze in the trees at the police academy, a "here one second gone the next" Tozaki asks "Where is my sister?" ... all those murders to get an answer to this question? Does the answer lie within Kazama's own shadow past? I wonder.

I really liked this series ... from a slow beginning it took me into a deep dive of the human mind ... a poignant and reflective and at times deeply sad story ... worth the time to watch imo.

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