Saturday, July 01, 2023

Seigi no Tenbin jdorama review

WOWOW's Shoutai proved that Kame could act if given the right script so I decided to try NHK's Seigi no Tenbin. Plus Nao is the main actress who is in my good books after Ryojin no Ono. Seigi no Tenbin is a legal drama with Kame playing Takano, a surgeon who becomes a lawyer. Anyone who can become a surgeon and a lawyer must have a crazy reason for doing so.  Takano is recruited to Shidanzaka Law Office to be in charge and rebuild the room 1 criminal investigation section. 

I am happy to accept the premise. Room 1 is the lowest billing section of Shindanzaka Law Office. What plans do Takano have to increase the billing? Go defend the riches criminals and corporate clients? Increase the quota for minimal billable hours?

No, Takano insults everyone and then gets all the other lawyers to help him with one case which he of course successfully solves. Am I the only one seeing this disconnect between reviving Room 1 and Takano's actions? Winning a series of criminal cases does not make that much difference in billings.

The second problem is that there a bunch of lawyers in room 1including Nao but they act more like paralegals helping Takano and are made to be dumb to make Takano look smart. This is the other part that I do not buy as well. Instead of making them to be this underdog team I want to support, I was thinking how did they become lawyers in the first place and they are annoyingly bad especially Nao's character. Should not Takano's job be to hire good lawyers for room 1?

Ultimate, my complaints don't matter as much because Takano's main reason for being there was to uncover what happened to Oshima Yuko. The whole Room 1 was a means to an end but I could not get into the show. I had no reason to care about any of the characters. I finished it because it was only 5 episodes but its just bad.

Between Seigi no Tenbin and Shouri no Houteishiki, it seems like its not easy to get decent legal jdoramas. Too much time spent on the gimmick and not enough on the writing. The last legal shows I enjoyed were Zainin no Uso and Akuma no Bengonin. Not do not watch bad, just meh don't waste your time. My favourite thing about Seigi no Tenbin was seeing Yamaguchi Tomoko after so long.

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