Wednesday 3 October 2012

Just finished: Tokkan

Well this highly enjoyable series ends with a bit of an odd ending. I'll be honest, as I was translating I was afraid that I was missing something very important, because the various bits of the story didn't seem to fit together.

In the final episode, the Tokkan faced disciplinary proceedings after the person he was investigating attempted suicide. As this story unfolds, there's something about a senile old woman owning the mortgage, an unborn child, something about whether or not a message was a suicide note. In the end, none of these seemed to matter, since the charges were dropped anyway. Maybe there was something to link them, but like I said, I could've missed it. I really need to start studying Japanese properly again.


But enough about me. The series was an enjoyable crime show, where the crimes were of a less deadly type than usual. Inoue Mao was great, and it was nice to see the development from muttering incompetent to someone who can at least raise their voice and look people in the eye when necessary.


And that's the main theme of the series: how she grows because as she leaves the safety of her desk and goes out to deal with real people. No one else seemed to change much, but that was okay since it wasn't their story.

1 comment:

  1. Just finished watching this series a while back and enjoyed it. I wasn't totally sold on the occupation of the characters, but I one thing I do like about Japanese TV is their attempt to make a series about unlikely jobs (or any job, really.)

    (Spoilers ahead)

    Sometimes things are tied up too neatly, but this seemed to be in keeping with the series. The wife had an affair with the loan shark who who talked her into taking her husband's deed and selling it to his aunt, who was in the latter stages of Alzheimer's. Then she got pregnant. The suicide note was a real one, but directed at his wife, and not the Tokkan. I think the reason she seemed so upset at the beginning was that she knew the note was for her.

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