07 May 2014

ATARU Review

Title: ATARU
Genre: Comedy, Mystery, Police
Episodes: 11 + 2 SP
Broadcast period: 2012-Apr to 2012-Jun
Cast: Nakai Masahiro, Kitamura Kazuki, Kuriyama Chiaki and Tamamori Yuta.

Arriving from America a Japanese guy (Nakai Masahiro) with autism gets lost from his guardian, overhears the news on TV of a man dying in a blast seen as a suicide, and decides to go visit the murder scene. There he encounters police woman Ebina Maiko (Kuriyama Chiaki) who is pretty famous as the ‘face of the police’ since she is doing add for the police. Wanting to be recognized as a real police woman she wants to solve the case believes it was a murder, and not a suicide case. Her friend and superior Sawa Shunichi (Kitamura Kazuki) keeps telling her not, since she might get fired, and he with her because he had recommended her for that position.
The guy and Ebina meet and somehow he keeps giving her hints of how to deal with the case, by telling her hints, ending up solving cases that even the police were unable to figure out. At the same time his guardian is desperately trying to find him since he is more than just a man with autism…

I really found this quite interesting even though the main story was a bit boring, each side story was kind of fun. The main cast was hilarious and the humor was awesome, and not to mention well-acted. Playing an autistic is not easy, and I was kind of blown away by him at the beginning, because I remember him as a tough guy, but then I remembered that there is no other actor able to pull that role off except for Nakai. I don’t really like the characters, but that is a person-to-person kind of feel, since I felt they were too ridiculous, kind of reminded me of MR. BRAIN drama few years back. Then again, I think they tried to make it a bit more light hearted than it usually is, and just add more light/heart to the side stories.
To sum up: a good fun drama, with quite the interesting story.

☆☆☆½ / 3½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥½ / 3½ out of 5 hearts

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