TimiZero

The premise was interesting but too many plot detour and fillers. The romance was too fluffy with too many cliche and trope for a stereotyped couple. The first half was better but it started time-wasting from episode 6 onwards and what with that anticlimatic last episode? Should have been a spin off instead.

On the bright side, the comedy was okay and most of the negotiation works were entertaining enough to watch. If only they remove the cheap fluffy romance bait side-plot....but well.....

Never liked Akira's Onizuka. The only right thing about him was the blond hair.

Not so bad if you like Sorimachi's Onizuka. The production style (cinematography, acting, etc) is intentionally made similar to the old one, which I personally find nostalgic and easily feel connectable between the 2 long separated dramas.

As complex as Part 1 but at least you know the characters already and the basic mechanism of their special abilities. Still need full concentration when watching though.

The best part of this Part 1 is the cliffhanger at the end....LoL Other than that it was a bit complicated where you need full concentration just to get the basic idea of it. The slow pacing made things harder. You are discouraged to watch this after a tough day at work or when you're sleepy. Maybe prior knowledge of the source material could ease the watching experience a little.

Simple story, minimally funny, short duration, easily binge-able.

Overall a good story idea but they chose the "slice of life" direction, instead of pure melodrama. The drama was entertaining enough and easily binge-able with only 8 episodes. There were some feel good moments and interesting plot unfolding. The last episode was surprisingly funny. Although I personally think NHK would do better with this kind of plot in "slice of life" theme.

However the last case felt a bit preachy. The deal with the prosecutor about the yami-baito leader did not get resolved either.

Typical episodic Japanese law drama but not a bad one (albeit not so amazing either). Cases were mostly interesting and Shuri was so good with this kind of (ko-akuma) character.

1) I think Human Vapor got his fair share of screen time. I don't understand why many people cry over less Human Vapor. He's definitely not the main character in this.

2) The siblings side plot actually makes the series more interesting. In fact it paced up the series from the otherwise slow build up of the first 3 episodes. I don't get why people complaining that this was unnecessary. If you watch many Japanese media you will be anticipating their appearance (Hayashi and Hirose) since the names were already in the opening credit starting from the earlier episodes.

3) This was not a romance drama so the chemistry between the 2 main leads was not really mattered.

4) The police was not the Japanese-best considering this was written by Korean writers and produced by Netflix. Even they had to create a fictional alt-universe Tokyo Metropolitan Police....haha

Surprisingly I find this entertaining enough for me. The plot was nothing novel but it has that interesting movie-esque filming style and the action was just at the right dosage with the theme song cued in at the right time. Being in Jdrama format with shorter duration saved this series from the extended fillers and unnecessary side-plots.

Surprisingly also how people at MDL suddenly become overly critical with this. More in spoiler below...

That twist does not make sense...LOL It must be easier to corrupt a kind person, but it's impossible to educate a naive person. He couldn't become smart overnight just by reading diaries.

However I'm not a fan of the time slip mechanism. The twist that they swapped bodies did not make sense and they failed to make it believable since original Eito was not portrayed as someone smart. It was impossible for original Eito to experience the same thing and make the same decision as Kosei in previous life. It looked more like writers wanted to push the philosophical talk at the Jinja's staircase, thus the nonsense twist.

But I kind of "okay" with the ending. I take it they swapped body again after the door knocked on the head, so the one that was died was potentially the original Eito.

This is entertaining enough if you need an easy watch. It's short so you can binge watch this in one sitting. I loved how they paid attention to the technology correctness as well as rightly include the important events of the past decade. The business aspect of this drama is more intriguing than let say the overrated Trillion Game.

BTW The drama was good. It's family centered with some comedies (albeit over the top). However it will not that stand out if it is watched in 21st century. The scene transition was not the cleanest. They might also have screwed up some scene order in some episodes. The episodic style (with episode specific theme like the American sitcom) might not get appreciated anymore.

This is a good representation of the differences between 17 y.o in the 80s and 17 y.o of the gen-z and gen-alpha. The maturity was at another level so it was not surprising why people in the older days typically (of course not always) got married during their younger age. The newer gen will always be in confused state whenever they see/hear this situation....haha

The only good thing about this drama is its duration.

- Since the ML was portrayed as a not reliable, not smart man during his youth it is not convincing enough how he turned into Sherlock Holmes overnight near the end.
- The twist for the culprit was good but not realistic. In that era, I believe ghost felt more believable than plastic surgery.
- The final twist was WTF because it was so random. I guess it was just for the shocking factor, but no substance.
- The romance part was overused. Nothing new.
- ML knew the whereabouts and circumstances of FL all this while. He even knew the situation with the General, but why he needed to waste time doing investigation.
- Some part were left unexplained like why they did not get together during the lantern festival or maybe I missed something.

Very low effort drama. If you make screenshot, this drama look decent enough, on par with most C-Historical dramas. But the plot was lazily written. The investigation was merely plot of conveniences. All of sudden our investigator became Sherlock Holmes. More in spoiler:

Honestly I don't mind him and having him in this drama is why I picked it up in the first place. I did not aware that this was for Sunday so you might be right on the higher-up influence for the Ossan character here.