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MIU 404 | Episode 9 

He is damn fine eye candy in this whole drama. 

Okada Kenishi as  Kokonoe Yohito

Ok, ok, I finally remembered the name of the police procedural jdrama I started watching...but didn’t finish. again. I may have also started watching this when it came out and needed subs, then forgot to go back once the rest of the episodes came out. Police procedurals tend to be harder for me to follow, since they typically have a lot of specialized vocab (especially names of organizations, laws, etc.) and fast-paced action and dialogue.

So, MIU 404. It starts out as a basic police procedural with familiar dynamics: a detective who sticks to the rules and trusts no one, is forced to partner with a wild and inexperienced police officer in a new unit that is kind of like a rapid-investigative-response team. They work 24 hour shifts, responding to calls and gathering as much info and leads possible before handing it over to other departments to finish the case.

As soon as I started watching the first episode, I instantly remembered the soundtrack! I can’t describe music well, but several tracks have an interesting cadence that make them stand out. Take this one for example. Also, the theme song is Yonezu Kenshi’s Kanden, which is a delightfully energetic song. He is one of my favorite Japanese singers.

The actors for the main leads are Ayano Go and Hoshino Gen (I know him mainly from his singing tho). My first impression of the first episode was cautious interest, lol. Ayano Go’s character Ibuki Ai is extremely energetic, ostentatious, and over the top so I thought it would have more of that slapstick Japanese comedy that doesn’t really click with me. But it turns out that the hilarity of this show (so far) comes from the fact that he’s so over the top, but everyone else plays the straight man to his wild and erratic behavior. He’s the only one who barely knows the rules, doesn’t follow them very closely if he does, and acts mostly on instinct alone.

The other characters are...normal. lol. Well, Hoshino Gen’s character Shima Kazumi does have some baggage, but the others on the team are closer to real life - they know the rules, try to remain within the scope of their job, and the comedy for me is totally in seeing their expressions in reaction to whatever Ibuki is spouting at the moment. I swear, poor Shima is about to have an aneurysm halfway through their first day together and goes through a variety of excellent expressions like these: -_-  ( •_•)  and (¬_¬). to name a few. Kind of brought me back to the days I used to supervise/train people in a research lab, and all of his reactions were so on point.

If I remember, this one is said to take a social commentary approach and covers issues relevant in Japan currently. People have compared it to Unnatural (same scriptwriter apparently), which I liked as well, and was a forensic science investigative show as opposed to a straight up crime drama.

Before I end this, I’d like to say that I really liked the other rookie on the team, Kokonoe Yohito (played by Okada Kenshi who was only like 21 at the time), who actually got in through connections (his father is head of some police organization). He starts off super straight-laced, cool as a cucumber, strictly business, and apparently not much field experience. but he has occasional moments where his youth slips through, and near the end of the first episode he manages to stop before getting into a nasty car crash. I loved how freaked out he looked, and needed a moment to compose himself. That was just acted out so cleanly.

How to look fierce

I can search about it myself

kyu-chan,(✿˶˘ ³˘)~♡