Monsters

Japanese (Original) title: MONSTERS

8 episodes
Aired on TBS
From 2012 October to December

Main cast:

Katori Shingo as Hiratsuka Heihachi

Yamashita Tomohisa as Saionji Kousuke

Yanagihara Kanako as Takano Emi

Endo Kenichi as Kaneda Hajime

Notes:
- The official poster is so awful that I can't use it. So instead, you have this ->
- I'm more Without a trace/Criminal minds than CSI. And I don't like Detective Conan. So, if you do, don't listen to my opinion on detective series.

Review: -

Title: All murderers are monsters but this title implies more horror or disturbing whereas the drama is actually very clean. The voiceover says something about the ones who track murderers being also monsters...??? I didn't get it

Boy: He's a detective with mad deductive skills. He gathered all clues and in the third act, puts everything together. He has no consideration for anything or anyone. His only motivation seems to arrest murderers. His social behaviour is rude though he is extremely civil spoken.

Other boy: He's the Watson, the Hastings. He's an enthusiastic young policeman.

Plot: Every episode, a murder case is resolved. If the series wasn't only 8 episodes, I would have quit it because it's really repetitive. Except for the first and last episodes, there are always two suspects with one of them telegraphed as the murderer. The motive is established easily. The question is how it was done and the answer always revolve around manipulating the place or/and time of death.

Problem is I'm pretty sure the police can tell if it's a real crime scene and tell quite precisely the time of death when it happened a couple of hours ago. Especially if the victim has been stabbed... What about blood spilling?

So the structure of the episodes, the murder weapons, the motives (career advancement or preservation) are nearly identical episode after episode. Moreover, all victims are men, and only four suspects are women (including two in the first episode which have four suspects), an imbalance that I can't explain.

Other characters: Of course, the narrow minded police officer who's always wrong. Other boy's girlfriend that we only see in the first two episodes.

Most egregious cliché: Genius detective paired with naive sidekick.

Funny factor? It's trying.

Bottom line: This isn't my cup of tea. What I like in detective stories, it's being kept guessing, uncovering secrets and motivations. Focusing only on the how is intellectually interesting (superficially because it often requires suspension of disbelief) but doesn't get you as much emotionally invested as the who and why.