It follows the pathologist Mikoto Misumi, played by Ishihara Satomi, who is part of a team that works on autopsies to uncover the truth behind mysterious deaths. In a sense, it bears a passing resemblance to the 2009 TV drama Voice. That series followed the student pathologist Kanako Kunboaki, played by Ishihara Satomi, who was part of a team that worked on autopsies to uncover the truth behind mysterious deaths.
You could, if you wanted to, pretend that Unnatural is a sequel to Voice (if you ignored the different name and change in character) but there'd be very little point and would distract from the merits of Unnatural which is by far the better of the two.
For a start, I love the characters. Every single one, even the minor but regular characters, is well written and well performed. Ishihara Satomi acts her socks off in the best role of her career. Ichikawa Mikako stars as her co-worker and is equally good. The chemistry the two have is so natural that it almost seems improvised.
The rest of the cast are great but that could be because with scripts as good as these, everyone raised their game. Add in some great direction and there’s little to dislike about this series. Unless you don’t care for procedural police dramas. In which case, you probably stopped reading this review in the second paragraph.
I recommend this without any reservations. Well, there is one: this came out in January-March 2018 and got a lot of praise at the time, so there’s a good chance you’ve already seen it.
Oh, and what was Voice like? It’s like an amateur dramatic version of Unnatural with more happy endings.
This is a technical bit from Voice (2009)
And this is a technical bit from Unnatural. A bit of a step up.
