Title: Hero
Starring: Kimura Takuya, Matsu Takako, Abe Hiroshi, Otsuka Nene, Katsumura Masanobu
Genre: Legal Drama, Comedy
Episodes: 11
Year: 08 January 2001 to 19 March 2001
Plot: Kohei Kuryu is a former juvenile delinquent that drops out of junior high and goes on to earn a high school equivalency diploma. After passing the law board exams, Kuryu becomes a prosecutor. Not your typical prosecutor, which is quickly seen through the clothes that he wears, Kuryu possesses quick instincts and a kind of cleverness that only someone raised on the streets could have.
Although earning a reputation as a bad apple, the influence from Kuryu’s strong pursuit of justice slowly begins to change things around him.
Review:
Most of my TV time nowadays spent on dorama, I’ve watched 6 Japanese dramas in almost 2 weeks! And that’s a record for me, yes I’m hooked, most of them are Kimura Takuya’s and a couple of Abe Hiroshi whom I knew from this series, Hero. Kuryu Keohei wasn’t accepted well at his new division in Tokyo, coming from a countryside. From the very first day, his colleagues didn’t like him, the way he’s dressed, the unprofessional method he’s handling cases as detective more of as a prosecutor, and he isn’t a university graduate. Amamiya, Kuryu’s assistant, was the most doubtful one about Kuryu being a professional prosecutor. Although he shows no interest nor seriousness about any case he’s working on, yet eventually he solved it brilliantly despite the matter that it takes quite a long time to prosecute, because Kuryu doesn’t do things by the book.
The cast was a big winning point for this series, it’s the best cast I’ve ever seen so far in one show. Most legal dramas are so serious, Hero unlikely took a different approach by mixing humor to the ingredients to avoid the boredom that such a genre mostly has, and the cases in Hero were a variety of big scandals like a political corruption to tiny ones like panties thief, thus a funny touch was there in every episode, they were hilarious, I haven’t laughed out loud like that for such a long time. Abe Hiroshi, Katsumura Masanobu, and Kohinata Fumiyo were the funniest, I mean those guys just spotting the camera on them makes me roll on the floor.
If you’re a big fan of Kimura Takuya works then this is one of his best shows he had ever done, Matsu Takako and Abe Hiroshi were awesome too. Hero is a mix of a bunch of genres like romance, mystery, and comedy delivered amazingly not by its predicted plot but by its solid cast’s performance.
Did you know that Utada Hikaru appeared as a waitress in episode 8 for only 14 seconds?!
