Namonaki Doku (2013)

“As long as it’s a place where people inhabit poison seeps in there that’s because we, ourselves are the poison” _ (Sugimura Soburo).

As a huge fan of twisted dramas, whenever I am looking for hardcore mystery; I always run to Japanese productions because they’re so professional at making those types of stories. Namonaki Doku is a mystery drama alright but it can never be considered an intense mystery.

The drama is divided into two big stories; the first one takes the five first episodes while the second one takes the rest of the drama. Namonaki Doku can be differently judged basing on the two stories which obviously contain two unrelated mysteries. The mystery build up in the first part was quite disappointing since it got a little amount of the run time and contained some slow events, but the facts revealing at the end was exciting and a bit surprising. As for the second part, the built up was impressive and rather interesting to follow that’s because the second mystery was deeper and relatively more twisted than the first one. However, its fact reveal wasn’t very outstanding.

Mystery in this drama flew like cool water; it can rarely make you jump of your seat despite the fact that it had a respectable amount of twists and turns. I am not saying that’s a bad thing but being used to hardcore mystery/suspense dramas; Namonaki Doku felt a bit unusual for me at first but at the end of the day, I realized that calm mysteries without many major flips and turns can also be thought-provoking in its own way, mainly because this drama handled some great psychological relations through its mystery built up.

This drama’s set of characters changed a bit between the first and the second story but our main lead was left untouched. Sugumura Soburo is nothing like other male leads in mystery dramas; he’s so honest and timid, he’s the kind of character that you can never imagine him solving other people’s problems and getting involved in big mysteries. That’s what characterizes this drama: An honest heartwarming man purifying poison in a non-sly way. The rest of the characters were pretty alright even if some of them weren’t very necessary for the story’s development. The acting was acceptable as a whole but some actors failed to deliver feelings especially in the first story.

Now let’s talk about the stunning music! It outclasses any other mystery drama’s music. I had to mention this strength point; the violin and the instrumental soundtracks were amazingly played at the right moment that I had to replay those parts.

As a last thought, I would say that Namonaki Doku is exclusively made for mystery dramas lovers but even so, I am sure that not all of them will appreciate it, essentially because it had a slow built up and it’s not considered an intense mystery.

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I think this drama is worth watching. I was having a second thought before i give it a try since i read some good and bad review about this drama. However, i'm glad i watched it, i really enjoy the drama. The acting is good, the music is great, personally i love the ending theme song.

The story might build up slowly buy every detail worth mentioned, i think the scriptwriter of this drama did a great job on it, i got hooked in from 2nd episode, i feel like this drama has potential and it didn't make me regret at all.

This drama is so realistic, i think this fact really make me get hook in with the story easily since you can see those things happen in your daily life as well if you have a careful look around you. This drama cover pretty much everything that could happen to you if you live in this kind of society where people get hurt by society and people around you.

The male lead was brilliant, he is so realistic, even though he isn't someone you will see in you real life that easily because this kind of people will get forgotten and overlook from the center of society you live in.

I would recommend this drama to mystery drama fan and to those who aren't as well since this drama has a lot of drama and family issue related going on throughout the whole story.

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