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Trayis

Kansas City, Missouri

Trayis

Kansas City, Missouri
Galileo Season 2 japanese drama review
Completed
Galileo Season 2
7 people found this review helpful
by Trayis
Feb 7, 2014
11 of 11 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 10.0
Galileo 2, of course, is the sequel to the highly popular Galileo series that ran in 2007. A show about an esteemed physics professor who aides the police in solving crimes with supernatural or impossible means using the science of physics. The first season was a masterpiece with the way it created these imaginative crimes that had you scratching your head the entire episode up until the reveal. And this season captured much of what made the first season great, but was not able to fully replicate the greatness of the first season. The story flows exactly the same as the first season's. Manabu Yukawa, played by Masaharu Fukuyama, hears about a crime that recently happens and then proceeds to turn down the request for help until he hears the impossible feat it took to commit the crime. He then goes on his spiel about how "nothing is impossible" and thus begins his investigation. Then he does his famous bit of vandalizing the nearest surface with scientific formulas with whatever material he can use once he's solved the trick to perpetrating the crime. And it's always entertaining. You sit on the edge of your seat waiting for that moment to happen every episode! But this season had a few differences. First the female lead in the first season, Kaoru Utsumi, played by Kou Shibasaki, was replaced. In comes a detective named Misa Kishitani, played by Yuriko Yoshitaka, a young brash female who follows her instincts and intuition and wants to pursue justice to the umpteenth degree. Not the first time we've seen this character in s detective show, but still could make things interesting. The problem is that Kishitani provides little to nothing to the show other than occasional comic relief and lots of headaches in between. She really is essential in solving only ONE crime during the entire 11 episodes. While Yukawa and Utsumi had this great chemistry and work well in tandem, Kishitani and Yukawa are like skin and sandpaper. Her arguments with Kuribayashi aren't entertaining either. I found myself actively rooting for Yukawa to yell at her to 'shut up' numerous times during the show. She serves to hinder the show more than to help. Besides that character fail, they do a great job at casting superstar talent to grace their show. Lots of top-notch actors and actresses play victims and perpetrators throughout the series. I marked out when I saw that the villain from Legal High made a guest appearance in the series. He was so entertaining. Another BIG problem I have with this season is them spoiling the perpetrators early in episodes. I love the 'whodunnit' mentality of Japanese crime shows. And the fact that they show who commits each crime before the reveal sucks, but I still like how they don't spoil the method. A small consolation prize I suppose. I also hate that a few of the crimes were weren't as good as some other suggested ones that were never shown. Hell, in the last episode, after solving the crime, the prospective new one was more interesting than the one they just solved! All in all, it was a great sequel to Galileo. It keeps the format and creates more interesting crimes to solve. Much more innovative crimes than what we see in most crime shows. But this season didn't quite capture the magic of the first season. Plus the two leads seriously lacked chemistry. Definitely a must watch for people who've watched and loved the first season. Even if you haven't, you should watch it. But for those who have seen the first Galileo, you'll find that this one isn't as great as the first one.
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