This was made 23 years ago and, man, it still holds up! Heck, it even feels quite contemporary. For instance, there is a transgender character who is played as a perfectly normal person whom the main characters had known as a female child at school, but now accept as a male adult without missing a beat. They simply accept that the girl had surgery and is now a man, and move on to other issues as the story progresses in this episode (the trans person appears as a supporting character in ep 5).

But it isn't just this character who feels contemporary, it's the sensibility of the entire show in general. This is achieved with a lot of fun, tricky camera work that keeps the narrative pulsing with a vibrant, visual appeal, as well as with the use of constant, witty dialogue. Indeed, the entire vibe of the show is fun in a quirky, original sort of way.

And the main characters are all highly charismatic and enormously likable. Yet it isn't just the main characters; because in this show, even the side characters draw you into the screen. It must be said that while each episode plays as a crime procedural with the main character setting out to solve a different crime, the real pleasure is not found in watching him solve the crimes, but in watching him and the rest of the cast be charming as hell.

Moreover, the actors playing these charming characters all do a wonderful job. In fact, a lot of the fun in this show is watching these actors 23 years ago before they became super famous in Japan. To wit: Ken Watanabe, Tomoya Nagasa, Yasuke Kubozuka and Issei Takahashi. There's a reason such fine actors all chose to be in this show, and that is because it has a terrific script, talented directors and exceptional cinematographers. In short, the show is a winner.