Kagi no Kakatta Heya (Japan, 2012, Mystery)

My first post! ^_^  Kaki no Kakatta Heya translates to "The Locked Room Murders", and it is about a security guy obsessed with locks who helps two lawyers solve "locked room" murders.  These cases seem impossible for a murder to take place and would instead be considered suicide if it weren't for these lawyers consulting this genius weird guy.  This drama is episodic, with each episode being a different mystery (except for the last two episodes, which is one big mystery, but that type of formula is pretty standard for mystery dramas).

Ohno from J-pop group Arashi is in this drama, and it's the first drama I've seen him in since "Maou".  He looks very good for his age, even though he's just in his early 30's.  It was quite entertaining for me to see him with his awesome lack-of-facial expression while playing the lock-obsessed genius weirdo.  He was exactly like this in "Maou" too, which kind of added to his creepiness because you (as the viewer) can't really tell what he's thinking.

Toda Erika is one of the lawyers that helps out with the cases.  I like her as an actress - I tend to not really like the characters she plays though.  She's always had that innocent girl-next-door look, which kind of type-casts her to innocent girl/kind-of-dumb roles ("Liar Game", anyone?).  She wasn't quite ditzy/dumb in this drama (of course not, she's a lawyer), but some of her antics tended to channel that naivety and innocence she portrayed in past characters.


Pros:

• Cases were good enough to keep you interested

• Pretty standard, solve-by-episode type of drama that will please any sort of mystery drama fan

 
Cons:

• No character development.  Kind of  understandable since it was an episodic drama, but it left me kind of dry, since I've seen mystery dramas of the same format but still had a good amount of character development.

• When Ohno's character solves a mystery, it's sort of unrealistic at points.  He tended to tell the criminal what EXACTLY they did, step-by-step, at what time, how they did it, what they were wearing, etc.  I know he's supposed to be a genius, but.... come on. O_o

• Ending left me hanging.  Some people probably wouldn't have minded an ending like this one.  But I like closure.  I hate having to ask myself a question at the end of a series like, "Wait, so does that mean he __________????" even though it might have seemed like it was implied.

Overall, it wasn't bad for a typical mystery drama to pass time.

MyDramaList Rating:  6/10 (Fine)