Sunday, February 10, 2019

Nusumareta Kao

Nusumareta Kao is a WOWOW police dorama starring Tamaki Hiroshi with an angle I've never heard of before; Tamaki Hiroshi is a recogniser, a police officer with an incredible memory of faces who just loiters all over Tokyo trying to catch people on the wanted list.


While I'm pretty sure this form of policing is not very efficient nor effective, I will accept any premise as long as it leads me to an interesting story.

WHAT I LIKED

+ Great psychology thriller on such a stressful job which is basically trying to find a needle in a haystack.
+ How the ability to remember any face can be a curse. The toll of searching for faces every single day.
+ The camaraderie between the three recognisers who have to keep each other sane and in good spirits is fun to watch.

+ Directing is pretty good. Its got a different look from your usual WOWOW shows but its got the 'movie' look.
+ Interesting watching people get caught while they are going about their daily lives.
+ Ito Ayumi!
+ Great subtitles by HPriest.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

- The final conspiracy did not make any sense nor did the show try to make any of it. Its like someone put two completely unrelated buzzwords together when they are totally unrelated. It killed a lot of my enthusiasm for the story.

- The action scene at the police van in the episode made the two policemen look like complete idiots. Generally, actions scenes are kind of meh.

SUMMARY

Watchable WOWOW show that does most things right. This 5 episode series can be gotten from nyaa and the subs from d-addicts.

9 comments:

Amelda said...

Sounds good. I'll check it out, thanks!

Btw there is an interesting article about super recognisers here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/11/super-recognisers-police-the-people-who-never-forget-a-face

I'm not sure how exactly these recognisers are deployed in various countries, but I think CCTV might play a bigger role than getting the poor fellas to just walk around...

Sonna~ said...

I was just about to ask you if you watched this. I've only seen the first episode but I'm eager to see others.

Anonymous said...

While I'm only mid way through it, it hasn't been much more than I memorize faces and straight up confront the criminals with no plan or plot at all.

Akiramike said...

@Amelda: Thanks for the interesting article on recognisers. It definitely makes Nusumareta Kao more interesting.

@Anon: Its pretty much different from your usual police shows in that they don't do any investigations. Just like the article, that's their only job but its something that very few people can do.

Anonymous said...

The younger recognizer does suprisingly decent job for an idol in whatever I see him.

Akiramike said...

@anon: The younger recognizer certainly did not come off as idolish. He certainly did a decent job.

Antspace said...

Hi Mike, I'm back checking your reviews to see if there are decent series lately. Good to see you're still at it :-)
This was the first drama I watched in ages.
I really liked this show in the beginning, but it kinda fell apart halfway.
The gritty trippy atmosphere was pretty cool throughout.

Akiramike said...

@Antspace: Good to see you back! I hope you can find something you really like!

Amelda said...

Just finished this and gotta agree with Antspace. The show does combine gritty and trippy in a weirdly hypnotic way which suits the theme of cops just obsessing over faces day and night. But as Akiramike mentioned in his review, the conspiracy involving the PSB and the Chinese mafia, not to mention Sunami-san, seemed to come from nowhere. And starting from episode 3, the recognisers were hardly doing any recognising, and were instead being pursued all over the damned place by several sinister yet strangely ineffectual heavies. And don't get me started on the Tamaki Hiroshi character, who is one of the most useless protagonists I've ever encountered in a j-drama. I dunno whether the fault lies with the TV adaptation or the original novel, but I think this was a missed opportunity - it could have been an interesting exploration of what recognisers do and how it relates to identity and the justice system. Oh well. Still better than a lot of dramas out there though.