WHAT IS THE SILENT SERVICE ABOUT?
The US and Japan secretly co-develop this nuclear sub called Seabat. It is so secret that in order to get a Japanese crew onto the Seabat, they stage a fake accident where a SDF submarine captained by Captain Kaieda sunk and the crew were declared dead but were in fact transferred to Seabat.
Kaieda commits mutiny, does not follow the original plan and declares Seabat to be an independent nation called Yamato which is the old name of Japan and FYI Yamato Nadeshiko refers a perfect woman from old Japan. Yamato is now seen as a terrorist and Kaieda seems to have a plan.
WHAT IS GOOD?
+ When I saw the Silent Service on Prime, I was excited to see what Prime money can do for jdoramas. Your normal tv stations don't have the money needed to tell a story of this scale.
+ Amazing cast with Osawa Takao as Kaieda and Tamaki Hiroshi as Kaieda's former crewman who is now Captain and does not trust Kaieda. You have Eguchi Yusuke as the Cabinet Secretary, Natsukawa Yui as Defence Minister, Mizukawa Asami as Tamaki Hiroshi's XO and Santamaria Yusuke as the sonar listening expert.
+ The show is about Japan's relationship with the US.
+ We get to see some nice submarine action scenes.
+ The pacing is pretty quick and I was eager to move to the next episode. However..
WHAT IS NOT GOOD
- Took me a while to understand what the hell was happening.
- I don't understand why someone who stole a sub is treated like a hero by this show and I still have no idea what his plan is. Kaieda is cool, calm and collected but what he did was wrong. Just because the Americans are trigger happy does not make him right.
- I just could not buy the story. Why people were acting the way they were. It did not feel real. The world and characters did not feel real. I kept waiting to find out why Kaieda thought stealing a nuclear sub would lead to world peace and how did the convince his whole crew to go along with whatever his plan is?
- I was expecting some great tactical manoeuvres from Captain Kaieda but the sea battles do not hold a candle to LOGH.
- There is political intrigue, commentary on US-Japan relations, the role of superpower nations in the world but the script is just not smart enough and seems to dumb thing down.
SUMMARY
I finished the 8 episodes quickly but I am left with an empty feeling. I love the look and effort they spent on this show but I am not that excited for season 2. Maybe I should watch the anime or read the manga to see what the story is about. It seems to be a popular manga so there must be a good story there. Then the question is what did they get wrong with the adaptation? The Silent Service is between meh and watchable because of the production values and the cast. I don't mind watching season 2 but would not care if season 2 never happened.
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