Yakusoku: 16-Nen-me no Shinjitsu (2024)

Intriguing Detective Jdrama

Masterpiece!! Top tier investigation, detective drama with peak thrilled, plot twist and unpredictable.. It was well written plot with never ever ending suspense that makes you on the edge of your seat till the end.. Love it!! The monologue that tells the story and mind definitely makes you more drawn into it.. The tone voice give chills in a good way..

Also love how they make duo between sharp, intelligent detective with criminology, profiling detective.. It definitely gives more credit to story especially profiling moments scene.. The thrilling is real!! Both Nakamura Anne and Yokoyama Yu really have good chemistry in drama ^_^

Overall the drama satisfying at its finest!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ^_^

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Dark and loud

I'm sorry but this is far from the masterpiece. The story is nothing new, the acting is bad, the cinematography gloomy and the music all wrong. In short, not a masterpiece but a correct crime story.

A police detective comes back to her hometown for the first time sixteen years after her father was, in her opinion, wrongfully accused to be a serial killer. Now that she is back, she wants to re investigate her father's case. But even before she could do anything, the murders start again. Everything keeps pointing towards her group of high school best friends. As each of them is suspected, investigated and then released, more and more secrets are revealed.

This kind of second investigation by a wronged son/daughter out to prove their parent's innocence, are a dime a dozen. This one is no different from the lot. I don't know what to say about the plot beside that it is boring: the fact that two people are obsessed by the detective, Aoi, since forever is not very convincing because she is not a likeable character. The problem also lies with the actress who is bad at what she's supposed to be doing, i.e. acting! Coupled with a horrible haircut and wardrobe (exclusively black trouser suits: she wore nothing else throughout the drama!), she's not a character one could root for! She's also thrown into the hostile environment of her hometown's police station, where the policemen who arrested her father still work. She has special investigation superpower: she can visualize the criminal's behaviour just by having a good look at the crime scene. The chief commissioner tasks a detective to keep an eye on her and report back her every single movement. This detective does not trust her at all and is suspicious of everything she does. And even though he realizes that she's not as bad as he was led to believe, he still looks at her (and at everyone else) with a scornful expression full of disgust! That also could be due to the actor who is not particularly appealing when being serious! When he cracked a smile, finally in the last 5 min of the drama, he turned into a completely different person and became very attractive. The magic of a smile!

The writer managed to keep the suspense going though, by focusing the investigation only on her group of friends, it became quickly rather predictable and, again, unconvincing. There is a second investigation in the background of the main one, concerning a phone fraud and involving slight police corruption. Now that I think of it, police corruption seems not to be too frequent in j dramas or at least not as much as in k dramas where practically every time you see a policeman there is a corruption going on. Maybe I am wrong about j dramas: I have not seen many japanese cop shows. The unnecessary ending time skip "3 months later" was cringe inducing bad: it looked like the ending of an US cop show when the detectives walk together with determination into the future....

The cinematography is gloomy: washed of all colour,all in blacks and greys, really oppressive. The music is even worse. Even though the song which played over closing credits was quite good, the becgroung music score was completely wrong for an investigation plot like this one. Soaring violins, menacing loud score going crescendo is not a good fit for this drama. It fits better in a makjang kind of drama. I have already noticed this with j dramas and music: most of the time they do not fit together. Some may say, think outside the box, make the drama stand out but...no! When you hear music so loud it drowns dialogue, so loud you cannot concentrate o the plot, something is very wrong with it! The music is beautiful, don't get me wrong but it does not fit well, that's all.

Not bad but not outstanding either!

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