Cold Case 3 – コールドケース3 ～真実の扉～ [JP Drama 2020-2021]

[SnowBlob]

 

 

 

A remake of “Cold Case” US TV series. 

Episodes: 10 

Airing date: 5 December 2020 – 6 February 2021 (every Saturday)

Network: WOWOW

 

A group of detectives who specialised in dealing with cold cases.

 

Cast: 

The Detectives

Yo Yoshida as Yuri Ishikawa

 

Kento Nagayama as Shinjiro Takagi

 

Kenichi Takito as Daisuka Tachikawa

 

Ken Mitsuishi as Toru Kaneko

 

Tomokazu Miura as Hidetoshi Motoki 

 

Cr: Asianwiki

 

More details (in Japanese): https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/116505?area=ranking1 

 

For trailer please check this link below:

https://www.wowow.co.jp/common/player/index.php?pcd=116505_m6226894?TB_iframe=true&width=1000&height=520 

 

[SnowBlob]

Hello ~~ (for whoever is reading and watching this drama)

 

So happy to finally find out that they make Season 3 for this series. I watched S1 and S2 when S2 already finished airing and didn't think that they would make another season. But yayyy~~ they did. I haven't really seen the US version (probably did a few eps but a long time ago so I don't remember anything atm) so I can't compare the two. I must say I really enjoy the Japanese version very much and (probably just like the original version) I like how they sometimes show the characters in the past while interviewing or talking to them in the present. 

 

Season 3 still has the all squad back which I'm very happy about..so all throughout the 2 seasons they haven't really killed any main character yet and I love all the main characters (no one annoys me at all). It is still shot in a more sombre and darker mode which I think suits the overall theme. 

 

Anyway, ep 1 started with a heavy theme and one that I dislike the most - the death of a young boy (and possibly also being sexually assaulted). This kind of crime - sexual assault on children really makes my blood boil!!! More about the episode later when I manage to find time to write some more. 

 

For now, hope someone else is watching this with me..if not then... I'm just gonna enjoy this ride myself 

[SnowBlob]

Ep 1 overview (Case 1 Part 1)

 

Ep 1 started in 2010 with a press conference announcing the first successful heart transplant to a child in Japan, the child (let's call him Child A) was then called a 'magical child'. Fast forward to a time after the surgery, Child A with his parents went to learn how to bike and he was really eager in mastering the skill because he said the Father has promised him to do something when he could bike on his own. However, the father couldn't recall what he promised to do with him. On one final try, the father let go of Child A bike and we saw that he was able to do it all by himself. This scene in the past ended with Child A's dead body found in the trunk of a car. 

 

In 2020, there's a murder case involving an ex-convict? with history of sexually abusing children. This criminal was found dead after being pushed from his balcony. While the squad was looking into the crime scene, they received a phone call from Child A's father. The father demanded the detectives to capture the real perpetrator of the murderer. When the detectives said that the case was closed and that the justice system found the father to be the perpetrator, the father said that they got the wrong person and that he was innocent. He threatened to keep killing similar-type of criminals (child sexual predators) until they find the true murderer. 

 

The squad opened the old case again and started reinvestigating the case. Along the process, they went to interview and talk to a few people such as Child A's past homeroom teacher (who also had a history of indecently assaulting a child which led to him being fired from his job?), Child A's transplant doctor, Child A's mother, Child A's donor, and a male who used to kill stray cats in the past (he encountered child A once when he killed a cat and later on we found out this guy buried the child's bike). 

 

Up to this point we know a few things:

- Child A's body was found in his parent's car's trunk - they happened to find it when the father was about to drive the car to look for him

- The bike was missing at first and then later found buried by the stray-cat killer

- There's a possibility that Child A was sexually assaulted 

 

Along the main case, a case involving boxing teacher who most likely sexually assaulted many children under his care was brought up to light. However, they were struggling to find any witness. It was pointed out that it was really hard to find witnesses because they must feel ashamed especially if they already have family etc. As it turns out, Det Takagi's older brother was suspected to be one of the victims. Det Takagi later tried to ask his brother if this was truly the case, only to find his brother became really defensive and refused to answer any further questions. (note: his brother is married with a son). Previously, it has been shown that Det Takagi seemed to have no sympathy to the first victim (the one being pushed down the balcony) and later on showed much contempt to Child A's ex-teacher due to his history of sexually assaulting and grooming children. After coming back from his brother's house (still being mad and all), he went to Child A's ex-homeroom teacher and asked him a few question in relation to child's grooming - how he did it etc. Takagi got very angry and later punched the teacher several times. 

 

Skip to the next scene (still on that very night), our squad received a call of another murder case - they thought it was done by Child A's father. They also received a report of something peculiar - the doctor of Child A's donor (not Child A's transplant doctor) killed himself soon after he harvested the organ from the donor. They went to the crime scene to find Child A's homeroom teacher dead body - also suspected falling from the balcony. The squad quickly went upstair to his apartment, and when they entered the apartment, they found Det Takagi there, also bleeding from his head and later collapsed. 

 

The episode ended with Det Takagi being hauled into an ambulance and with the rest of the squad looking worried. 

 

To be continued to ep 2 

[40somethingahjumma]

@SnowBlob

Is this a J version of New Tricks? The British crime series.

I'm guessing that the FL is the team leader.

[SnowBlob]

@40somethingahjummaYour guess is right that the FL is the leader of the 4-person squad..although one of the ahjussis is the boss (i suppose he is in charged of other investigation teams too).

 

I just looked up New Tricks..and no I dont think it is from that TV series. LOL..def the ahjussis were not retirees. It is def a remake of the US TV show of the same name.

[SilverMoonTea]

@SnowBlobsorry to hijack your thread, but do you remember what is his role in the 2016 Cold Case episode? Lols.. Is he a murderer? 🤣

 

[SnowBlob]

@SilverMoonTea i can see he s current oppa now but unfortunately...LOL... Since i even struggled to recall what dramas i watched this year without help..let alone remembering a certain character (and one who only appeared in 1 or 2 eps ). You can check it out and just watch that particular ep since ur oppa is there? Hehehehhe and who knows you ll decide to watch the entire drama 

[40somethingahjumma]

I've finished the second season... can't find the first anywhere at the moment. 

But yes, very similar to the original US version. Follows the same format of flashbacks and overlaying the past version of characters over the present. All in all a decent police procedural. Immensely watchable. Actors are a good fit for their roles.

I kind of remember why I stopped watching after a while because it got a bit bleak and depressing. The cases are well constructed and the OST is very memorable for the most part. I enjoy the historical titbits the most out of this.

 

I'll start on the third season once the second episode gets uploaded.

But it's getting close to Christmas and so I'll have to do a bit of food prep for that. So I'll have to slow down on the drama viewing for a bit.

[SnowBlob]

@40somethingahjumma glad you liked the second season. I have a strong feeling that this drama isnt gonna be subbed at lightning speed since it's not that popular. I checked yesterday night and it's still not subbed. Now that you mentioned about the original was getting bleaker for you... I wondet whether that's in a sense of the crimes being more and more disturbing or the crimes being unable to be solved completely? This third season started with the 'possible' type of crime which I really hates but I hope the season will not show these types of heavy crimes throughout 

[SnowBlob]

Ep 2 Overview/Recap (contain spoiler) - Case 2 (Heartbeat part 2)

 

The episode started with the scene in the past (I missed the year) where by the 8-year-old child whose heart was being donated (let's call him Child B) went riding his bike before he got into an accident. The scene then turned into his funeral where a few doctors attended. 

 

In the present, the team found out that Det Takagi wasn't the one who threw the homeroom teacher body over the balcony. The detective, after hitting the teacher, also got hit and knocked out by Child A's father. So it was Child A's father again who killed the teacher.

 

The squad found out that the doctor who operated on Child B following his accident (let's call him Doctor C), committed suicide not long after Child B died (and this doctor also the one shown attended the funeral and left unable to leave a flower on Child B's coffin). So the squad interviewed 2 doctors in the past (who were also shown attending Child B's funeral). First was the boss from whom they got the lead to the second doctor (let's call him Resident D) shown in the funeral. When the team went to interview this second doctor, turned out he quitted his job as a doctor and worked  in (can't remember where). After being pressured, Resident D revealed that during the operation to save Child B's life following his accident, Doctor C decided to stop trying to save him. Doctor C said that if he continued with his effort to save Child B's life, at best Child B would be in a vegetative state. So instead of that, why not let Child B became brain dead and then his organs could be harvested and in turn saved a lot of lives. Resident D opposed to this idea but got pushed down instead. 

 

Resident D also revealed that at first the Child B's father was supportive of his child's organ being harvested but later seemed to have a hard time parting with his child's harvested heart. (I think) that scene also what made Doctor C regretted his decision and therefore later on he took his life. 

 

So next, the squad turned their attention to Child B's parents. They have been divorced and the mother remarried with a son. The mother told the squad that Child B's father figured out that Child A was the recipient of Child B's heart. He got another job and moved to the area where Child A lived. Child B's mother said the father thought Child A was his son and he was obsessed with Child A. 

 

The squad managed to bring Child B's father for voluntary questioning. Child B father said that he didn't kill Child A. He did check on Child A and watched him as he learnt how to ride his bike. Later on, when they were talking, Child A said things that Child B and his father only knew - yes you guessed it right, it was about the promise Child A had been mentioning to Child A's father and no wonder Child A's father had no idea what that promise was. Turned out, Child B's father was also not the killer of Child A.

 

Having no new suspect, the squad decided to continue looking into Child B's father and the stray-cat killer. When visiting Child A's mother, the female detective was shown photographs of the crimes (I'm guess it's where Child A was sexually assaulted TT_TT). Child A's mother said she found these after the incident in her husband's box? That's why although she initially believed that her husband didn't kill their own son, she doubted him later on. BUT, forensic revealed the prints on the photos didn't belong to Child A's father but rather the stray-cat killer! Dum dum dum...

 

The squad went to visit the house of the stray-cat killer and took him to the station.  Child A's father went to the stray-cat killer's house too after he was taken by the police only to be greeted by cat killer's mother. 

 

During the interrogation in the station, we found out that the stray-cat killer was also abused as a child! And that he didn't kill Child A but he did what was told by the real killer to take photos? and to bury Child A's bike. It turned out, the real perpetrator was the cat killer's father. 

 

The squad quickly went to find cat killer's father whereabout and called his office. His office said he's out with a visitor. They quickly deduced that this visitor must be Child A's father (who found out about his whereabout through his wife I think). So the whole squad went to find them both - with Child A's father who was about to kill stray cat killer's father. Thankfully, Child A's father listened to the female detective reasoning and let the real killer go. Both men were arrested. When the real murderer was about to be put into police's car, Child B's father came and stabbed the real perpetrator with a knife. In the end, the three men were arrested. 

 

The end scene showed the female detective seeing Child A and Child B, both riding their bikes and went over the rainbow (this was Child B's father's promise to his son that he would take him to see the end of the rainbow when he went biking next). 

 

Note: of course the ep also showed the story of detective Takagi's brother. In the end, the brother seemingly agreed to testify about his abuse and came to the police station. 

 

 

[SnowBlob]

My thoughts on ep 1 and 2

 

First of all, if this season contains mostly this kind of crime in its future episodes, I will not stay around for long. I found this case to be pretty disturbing. I hate sexual crimes and I hate it even more when they are done to the children!!! There's no word to describe how evil the people who prey on the children and use them to satisfy their evil desires. And obviously, this sexual crime on children is the main theme of this first case (which was divided into two parts).

 

Another thing I found disturbing was the photographs!!!! I would be thankful if the drama decided not to show the photographs and only infer to them!! Ok, the photos themselves didn't show anything graphic at all - but you could imagine what's going on in the background while seeing the photos and that just made them really...... really... disturbing. I'm guessing the photos weren't showing the child when he was being killed..but rather when the sexual assault was being done to him. Please tell me I am wrong and I'd thank you for that coz I would be able to sleep better.  

 

I found it sad also that at the end of the day, the real criminal got arrested, but look who got arrested too! The father of the murdered boy who got wrongly accused as his own son's murderer (and he also already completed his sentence and got out of jail -... only to be arrested again) and another father whose murdered boy got his son's heart from. 

 

I still love the squad and the overall presentation. And I had forgotten that really nice bit at the end of each case, where our detectives would usually see the victim/s doing something that made them happy as if they're still alive. That's a really nice touch. And at the end of this case, it's comforting to see that Child A, after going through the horrible incident, was seen smiling and riding his bike happily~ but it still didn't make it that much better for me when I think about what he was going through at that very very horrendous moment. 

 

Just sad. So very sad. 

 

[40somethingahjumma]

Well, @SnowBlobYou've got me watching my first J drama in 3 years I think.  

I've finished the first two episodes of S3 and it was pretty decent. What a tragic story of child abuse and revenge. Not only did I feel for the "Miracle Child" but also for the mother... who thought her husband was guilty and for the dad... who was wrongly accused and convicted of the crime. It's really really sad that he had to kill child sex offenders to get the attention of the police to have this crime reinvestigated. There were many layers to this including the obsessive father of the donor child. That was all kinds of wrong. I understand the survivor's guilt but his fixation that his son was still living vicariously through Daikiri made me uncomfortable and the way he secretly spent time with the boy didn't sit right with me even if his motives were good.

 

I have mixed feelings about Takagi's involvement in the case. Rightfully he probably should have been taken off the case. But it's a drama and empathy is more important. Heh. But they wanted to use his brother's case to highlight a particular issue and I get that.

 

Anyway, I hope this doesn't take away from the importance of the organ transplantation even if it leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.

[SnowBlob]

@40somethingahjumma LOL..welcome back to JDramaLand~

Glad you mentioned about donor child's father~ I had the same kind of uncomfortable feeling at first when I watched how he was so obsessed with the child who received his son's heart. Although I could understand why he was like that because it was 'proven' in this case that truly the heart had its own memory and since that memory belonged exclusively to him and his dead son, he really thought the recipient was the embodiment of his dead child (now I'm not sure whether it's true that transplanted heart could actually such memory since I haven't done any research in this area but it's an interesting concept nonetheless). 

I forgot to say...WOW..you finished watching season 2 in the blink of an eye! 

[SnowBlob]

Episode 3 Recap/Overview

 

Characters in the order of the entrance:

A - the male victim

B - the actress 

C - the actress' current personal assistant

 

The episode started in 1961 where a body of a man was dumped then buried. The person who dug the whole and buried him also tossed an item and buried it along with the body. 

 

In the present time, the squad found the body and realised that the statute of limitations for the case is expired already. They also found the item (I still don't know what it actually is) with a special marking and later on also figured out the identity of the man (A). A was an aspiring actor back then and his younger brother filed a missing person report when A disappeared. Later the squad informed the brother about finding A's dead body. After talking to the younger brother, the squad found out that A might have been in a relationship with a very famous actress back then (B) and prior to his disappearance, A seemed to have troubling issue with B. 

 

Det Ishikawa and Takagi went to see B, who just got her a role in a production after a long time. They didn't end up interviewing her but found out that she had dementia. Her personal assistant currently is an old man who was also part of her past (C). They rescheduled the meeting to the next day. The meeting was finally held and when confronted, B denied any involvement with A in the past and said that she's not the murderer and she also knew that because she went abroad for 30 something years, if she were the murderer, then it would mean the statute of limitations is not up yet. 

 

Meanwhile, the other two detectives, Det Kaneko and Tachikawa went to visit B's personal assistant in the past, a woman who now is running her own night club? Contrary to B, she insisted that A indeed had a relationship with B and that A was actually her to begin with. However, due to B's new role as a 'dirty woman', B went to toy with A and then observed her suffering as she was dumped. 

 

After talking to a director who related to them in the past, the squad found out that the item was gifted to C by a late famous director. This prompted the squad to go and ask C to come to the station for questioning. Prior to leaving with the detectives, C assured B that he would be back because the statute of limitations is already up. 

 

In the station, C straightforwardly confessed that he was the murderer and that A was his casual drinking buddy (and then I couldn't remember what his reason was for killing A). Meanwhile, B was not waiting for C to return and when she heard the doorbell rang, she quickly went to open the door while calling for C's name only to find out Det Ishikawa and Takagi at the door. They once again confronted her and said that C was protecting her and that B was the real murderer. B went silent before we see in the flashback that one night after previewing her own movie in a cinema which was the point when B started to get interested in C (after seeing him crying while watching the movie), C drove her home. B invited C to stay for coffee, which C agreed to. While they're talking and drinking coffee, A suddenly knocked on the door and being drunk and angry because B had dumped him, he forced his way in. A saw C in B's house and A further got angry. A said to C to publish the pictures of A sleeping with B (which he showed to them). He also flaunted the negatives and B was struggling to get them from A. A said that B was not breaking up with him or otherwise he would publish the photos which prompted B to strike A's head with an ashtray. A was dead. When B wanted to surrender herself to the police, C interrupted by saying that B should continue to shine as an actress and that he would take care of A's body. Before burying A, C then tossed the item with A's body, this was so that if the body was ever found, the police would suspect C instead of B. 

 

So after a few more questioning and confronting, the case is solved. Both B and C would receive their due sentences but B was relieved to know that C wouldn't get any hard ones. 

 

[SnowBlob]

For me, episode 3 is a mediocre one. There isn't any twist really and since the beginning I kind of suspected that the actress was the true murderer. Of course I thought the old guy (current personal assistant) was a strong contender too but it wouldn't be fun if it were him since then the perpetrator couldn't be punished. As the matter of fact, I couldn't remember if any perpetrators in S1 and S2 couldn't get punished because of the statute of limitations. Pretty sure there would be, but if there are, then there wouldn't be many? 

 

Also, it feels mediocre to me because I honestly couldn't sympathise with anyone in this episode - I didn't sympathise with the victim nor the perpetrator nor the accomplice. Shrugs. At first, the victim seemed to be quite innocent, only later we found out he wasn't that good of a guy either. The perpetrator was just selfish and the accomplice was ... well... he's in love with the perpetrator so what can you say. Still, I'm glad that justice was served in the end.

 

Another thing was because the way it was solved seems to me to be so so too. At first when the actress vehemently denied her involvement, I was wondering how the squad would break her statement. Then, she just later confessed...because suddenly her dementia occurred during the questioning...and then after playing the "don't-you-feel-bad-for-your-accomplice" card, she opened up and told the truth. Hmmmm...

 

Hopefully, ep 4 will be a better one than this one. Looks interesting...as it looks like it's about bombing. 

[SnowBlob]

Episode 4 Recap

 

Music Box

 

This episode started in possibly the present where we're shown a person was making a music-box bomb. 

Jumped to the "past", in 2018, a worker in a big store got killed by the explosion from a music-box bomb. 

Back to the present, the squad was called to attend an explosion in a sports club which seriously injured one fire-fighter (but the fire fighter wasn't dead, he's hospitalised). While the squad was attending this crime scene, they got a call informing them that another explosion happened elsewhere (now pardon me, I watched this yesterday and I already forgot about the sequences). 

 

The squad scrambled to find the identity of the bomber. Surprisingly, it was pretty easy as he left his real name when buying the stuff for making the music box as well as (something in relation to where he lived). So now the squad task is to find where he is while protecting possible targets (the targets' photos were on display in his house so they knew who to protect). Among the targets were the bomber's younger brother. 

 

After doing some digging and interviewing, the squad managed to piece together the relationships between the bomber and most of the victims. One victim was his ex-HR-manager who notified him that he had been fired. Another victim was his daughter's doctor (who refused to treat her better and in the end the daughter passed away). It turned out that the fire fighter had nothing to do with the bomber because the bomber was originally targeting the younger brother who supposedly attended the sports club (the younger brother didn't attend that very day because of another appointment). The shop attendant was killed because she was suggesting that flip-phone was not gonna last/be popular anymore? because the existence of smartphones (and the bomber was the one who made the flip - phones and because they're not selling well anymore he had to be fired). 

 

The squad together with the younger brother managed to find him in an old church where the pews were made by the bomber's late father. He was sitting in the chapel when the squad approached him. The big boss went to talk to him and after he said the things he wanted to say, he acted as he wanted to open the music box he's currently holding. The big boss said that the bomber wouldn't want to destroy the music box (which was also made by his late father). The bomber said that no he wouldn't do that - and he opened the box which contained a photograph (no bomb there). But then he inferred that someone else would open the box with a bomb in it. 

 

The squad was caught by surprised and the lady detective informed the two other detectives who happened to be guarding the younger brother's wife and daughter (the daughter was having a piano recital) and they scrammed out of the car. In the meantime, we saw that the daughter was somehow gifted a music box and while waiting for her turn, she was slowly opening up the music box. Back to the chapel, the squad there heard the sound of explosion coming through their phone. 

 

Those detectives hurried to the recital place where we're shown the two detectives were unharmed. The younger brother searched anxiously before he found his wife and daughter...

Spoiler

by an ambulance and it seems that they're all safe. 

 

The episode ended without any flashback to the dead characters in the past.

[SnowBlob]

Episode 4 had a few interesting things (which also happened in the past but the first time in this season):

• The episode started seemingly in the present 
• The 'cold case' happened pretty recently in 2018 
• The end didn't have the scenes where one of more of our detectives saw the alive or dead characters in their past form 
• The criminal was already revealed since the start of the episode 

one unclear thing: 

Spoiler

So how were the daughter and the wife unharmed? The explosion definitely happened and the last time we saw the daughter opened the music box. Sure the two detectives rushed but we're shown that they were still outside the building when the music box was opened and plus when we saw them later, they were unharmed and pretty clean (no dust nothing) while the mother and daughter seemed to have a few things here and there. 

 

[SnowBlob]

Ep 5 (no recap because too tired and too busy atm :p) 

 

I like how ep 5 ends with a 'happy' ending. The abductee turned out to still be alive and she's reunited with her fiancé. But I couldn't help but feeling that this was not quite a happy ending. Nothing was happy about the situation she must go through. It was horrible and it must be traumatic enough I just hope she'll be able to overcome it so it won't affect her future negatively. 

 

I felt a slight uneasiness when watching this episode. It's a heavy episode and it's pretty dark in the way the perpetrator treated his victim. Couldn't imagine what the victims went through being locked up in darkness for months on end with no hope of escaping (and some stopped fighting for living and just simply died). 

 

 

[liddi]

Wow! I didn't even realise a 3rd season is released - thanks for the thread @SnowBlob! I loved S1, which I find to be an excellent adaptation of the original (which I love love love), but that spark was somehow missing in S2. Will try and take a look at S3 and see if it revisits the magic that elevated itself to becoming the standard that I hold other adaptations since. If it does, I might try and complete S2...

[SnowBlob]

@liddi Welcome~~ so glad to have another person on this thread  

I couldn't even remember the cases shown in S1 and S2 since I watched them ages ago. Up to ep 5, I just found a few cases to cause uneasiness in me.. but this comes from me who doesn't really like overly dark stuff (which you might be ok with). Let's see how you feel after watching ep 1 (and 2) of season 3. Let me know :) 

[SnowBlob]

Ep 6 (again no recap but below comment still contains spoiler)

 

So glad that the vice was only away from the team for one episode. I thought he was out for good. Although I enjoyed seeing the oldest detective took the responsibility as the 'boss' but I also like it when the 5 of them are together. yay~ 

 

This episode: another tragic case (why now I just realise most of the cases are tragic :( )I feel for these women. What were they to do? No one, not even the justice system stood up for them and even this time around, the police focused on finding the killer of the man who raped them. When they found out who it was, again who was being let down again...the rape victim. So I felt the frustration of the lady detective at the end of the episode, after all..it was because she kept pursuing the truth to find the killer that brought about the arrest of one of the women's beloved brother. And again, if the brother didn't kill the rapist back then, who knew what the rapist would do to all the victims who confronted him. So really in the end, there was no win situation for the victims in this scenario. 

 

Honestly, not looking forward to watching ep 7 because it seems the victim is a small girl.. it might be another unsettling case for me. But let's see. I might skip ep 7 and watch ep 8 (shrugs).

 

4 more eps to go~

[liddi]

@SnowBlob Thank you very much for the warm welcome. Half the fun of watching this adaptation is matching it with the episodes in the original and comparing them. Some eps affect me more than others, such as S1 Ep2's Memory (adapted from S1 Ep8 Fly Away) which still leaves me in tears every time I watch, reliving the same feelings of overwhelming helplessness and grief. Others such as Orion and Black Forest chill me just as its original counterparts did. I had trouble matching some of the S2 eps that I did watch, but with 7 seasons of the original, I don't necessarily remember the details of all the episodes all that well. Or it could well be a purely original script. Not sure.

 

Have watched S3 Eps 1-2, which is mainly adapted from the original's S4 Ep19 Offender, with an added plot of organ transplant and the involvement of the donor's father. The gross suffering of the bereaved family - wrongful incarceration of the father, breakdown of their marriage, having to go to such extremes to force the authorities to reopen his son's case and find the real killer - the injustice of it all still resonates with me just as the original (with the amazing Mitch Pileggi) did. The sickening horror as the garage shutter closes amid Daiki's bewildered face is haunting even now. Am not as convinced about the added plot of organ transplant and the unethical decision to play God and decide who lives and who dies, which ultimately fades into the background and serves nothing except to bring the two fathers together in their common goal for vengeance against the one who harmed their son. In some ways, I do feel that stretching the narrative over two eps drags the pace down in some ways. Nonetheless, a good beginning and I am invested to continue watching (and picking up where I left off in S2)

 

@SilverMoonTeaVery quickly. Ep3 was about a prosecutor who was murdered because he was investigating the truth behind trumped-up charges brought against a 17 year old boy who was accused of murdering a female college student. Nakamura Tomoya played Ishizuka Kazuya, the gay prostitute that the prosecutor tracked down because he was an eyewitness who saw the real murderers.

[ktcjdrama]

Hi all, feel like it’s been a while since I watched good crime investigation drama. Is it okay to just dive into season 3? Or should I find season 1 and start from there? It seems that the cases are independent of one another?

[liddi]

@ktcjdramaHi there! Most of the cases are standalones though there are some which are linked to earlier cases.

By all means, do watch. Recommend to start from S1, which introduces the characters in the team.

[SnowBlob]

@liddi I'm just amazed how you still remember on which season which episode each of the case shown in the original version (gasps). How could you still remember all of them???  I'm hopeless... don't even ask me anything from last episode of season 2..I will have no idea what they are about :P In saying that, since you remember very well, is it still as exciting when watching the J version as you'd already know who the true perpetrator/s on each episode? 

@ktcjdrama Welcome~~~~ and yes most of the eps are standalone so you really don't need to watch from season 1 (although there will be background stories that might carry to the next eps throughout each season). Let us know if you like this :)