Double Cheat Itsuwari no Keikan Episodes 1~3

Jdorama remakes are a very common thing. GTO has been remade once to poor effect and the great Shiroi Kyoto has been remade 5 times which reminds me that I don't think I ever finished watching the Okada Junichi one but the Karasawa Toshiaki one is perfect and does not need a remake.

Double Cheat has Mukai Osamu playing a police officer who works at a police box who goes after scammers and cheats and repays their victims. If you think a show about a good swindler going after bad swindlers sounds familiar, that is because it is the very same plot of Kurosagi, which was a Johnny sponsored movie and dorama series that I never liked because it was not very believable.

Episode 1 felt like a remake of Kurosagi. Mukai Osamu cheats a swindler who cheats an old lady from 1000 yen when he claims to be a president of a company who got lost. Mukai Osamu then claimed to be the old lady's son and would give the swindler more money but needed the 1000 yen to get his car from the car park.

I did not like the deja vu of episode 1 especially with the bad guy who fell too easily for his own trick. They do explain by saying scammers don't expect to get scammed and I would have given up if not for Mukai Osamu and Uchida Rio.

I like Uchida Rio from Raise de wa Chanto Shimasu and in Double Cheat she is a former bank worker turned police detective. She is demon with a calculator and her job is to check for discrepancies between accounting books and she chaces after scams where Mukai Osamu scams the bad guy in the end. Uchida Rio is not the most convincing police detective but she is not meant to be.

You know you are old when Densha is no longer playing main character roles and is now playing boss roles. This dude has come a long way from Densha Otoko.

Episode 2 has a lot better and more interesting as it was about scholarship money scams with Eiji from KDO as the bad guy.

Episode 3 was about fake restaurant scams and Mukai Osamu's plan was quite exciting. There's also the mystery of why Mukai Osamu who was an elite cop from Section 2 went to a police box and why he is scamming the bad guys.

Exactly like Kurosagi he is looking for a master scammer named Yamagami. I am convinced that the producer of Double Cheat said Kurosagi is full of crap, let's do a better version of it and not have to pay any licensing fees for the manga!

There is one thing that you have to accept to watch Double Cheat and that is somehow this guy who works at a police box has time to go around dress up and scam the scammers. I have heard plenty of stories about working hours in Japan and how difficult it is to get time off.

I am not giving Double Cheat a watchable rating yet but it is slowly growing on me. No English subs according to fansubwiki but big thanks to glumlily for uploading the jp subs at avistaz. If you like scam shows are are a fan of Mukai Osamu or Uchida Rio, it is worth checking out.