Orangevine

Do you remember how in the Korean original they had the main character eat uncooked ramen as a snack to show us how unhinged he is? I think that's the perfect simile for Kaibutsu. If Beyond Evil/Goemool is a filling richly flavoured dish with prime beef cuts and fresh green onion on top, then Kaibutsu is the dry noodles you eat uncooked while licking the red sauce straight from its plastic packet. I mean, if you are like me, stranded on a mountain top and starving, you'll enjoy the crunch. The less you expect from Kaibutsu, the more you'll find to enjoy like Yasuda Ken's acting and various small details.

Thanks))

I have high hopes for the future too. My standards are so high, even MIU didn't quite satisfy me X). But I still hope that soon we'll have dramas to watch where noone will have to discuss sexism in there cause there will be nothing to discuss.

Yeah, you are right - it's so easy to overlook that 2006 has been more than 15 years ago. Time flies. Sometimes I despair and resolve not to watch anything that has premiered before 2018. Still, 2006 is not 1986 and the second wave of feminism had been over by then (where women embraced toxic masculinity).

Anyway, the most egregious fault of this movie (for me) is the portrayal of the FL and her story arc.

How many male detectives join the force because they experienced trauma? Not that many; I'd argue J-dramas tend not to feature such characters at all (unlike, say, K-dramas). However, the only woman who joined the force did it because of a tragic event. It sort of underlines that no ordinary woman (whose world weren't shaken) would become a detective which is obviously bullshit.

There is also this (sick) implication that FL wanted to become stronger so she entered 'the male world'. As in 'women are weak' and 'men are strong' and the FL is audacious cause she wants to gain what she doesn't deserve (the power only strong people - aka men - are allowed to have). Maybe I'm reading too much into her silence when her male colleagues insult her. But for me it reads as her actually agreeing with them. She thinks that she's weak and her heroism comes from not giving up despite that.

Thus, we have a story of a person who goes to fight crime so that other people can be safe (and who keeps at it despite not being strong enough) but somehow the person is weak for a sole reason of being a woman.

So it figures that the FL can't defeat the villain on her own. In the end she's shown to be helpless (and in that fanservicey way - see how Bucky Barnes's suffering was shot in a fanservicey way in the Winter Soldier - it's the same thing) and she succeeds due to other factors out of her control. After all, the male audience should want to protect her rather than relate to her so it wouldn't be right if she defeated the villain by herself.

She's also obviously male-gazey hot and her toughness is there to make her more of a challenge to pursue rather than to make her truly tough.

In other words, the FL portrayal is condescending and fanservice-y to make the idea of female detective palatable to male audience.

I'm sorry if I'm taking cheap shots at someone's favourite franchise. I consume lots of stuff that won't stand any scrutiny so I don't want to sound like I'm talking from a high horse. It's just that the conflicts of female workers in male dominated fields are too close to home for me and my tolerance for related bullshit is very low.

The photos on the desk and his line about gambate are definitely meant to imply that he's a father. But I don't remember any other detailes from notes or script-book, I'm afraid. He's such a sweet character - I wish he had a bit more of a screen time.

Haha X) I always thought, though, that Crime and Punishment can be enjoyed as a proper detective story so I let myself be lured by Caramazov Brothers. And I shouldn't have!

Thanks))

Ahah, yeah, Hoshino Gen and Ayano Go playing high school graduates would be a stretch X)

And poor Shima in the first ep - he tried so hard to get along with Ibuki XD It's too bad XD

Some more funny trivia from the blu-ray: the scene where Suda and another character (name removed for spoilers) scream from a top of a bridge was Suda's idea. He offered his co-star to scream during the rehearsal so that the co-star would relax. The crew really liked that and they decided to add the scene to the actual episode. (It's a classic Suda, if you ask me)

In the ep 4 where the melon pan song plays during the climax, the original plan was for Shima and Ibuki to wear melon pan uniform and to pretend to be sellers of melon pan. But it looked too silly and the crew decided to go with melon pan song instead (the song was suggested by Hoshino Gen who thoutgh it would have been lovely for a melon pan car to have its own song. Now that's a classic Hoshino Gen XD).

In the ep 5 where Kokonoe ends his speed deduction with the Hakata dialect 'Yattabai!' - that scene was Okada Kenshi's improvisation.

I don't think it's that traumatic either. But Ayano Go mentioned several times that Ibuki is like a sun that doesn't change. Some of the fans took it to mean that Ibuki was deprived of character development and took offence. Though, whether one begrudges the lack of the flashback or not, it sure would be lovely to see more of Ibuki and Shima. Their police academy days would be lovely)))

We know that Shima is, on the one hand, a second son in a big family, so he knows how to care for people. On the other hand, during his youth he was ambitious and kept to himself avoiding dealing with others. Thus, he might have been a bit of a jerk during his academy days XD. And then Ibuki was a bit of yanki/delinquent type. I imagine their meeting would be disastrous XD

Speaking about Shima, his demotion was really harsh, actually. He went from working in the elite division to working in a road safety department that deals with issuing drivers licenses. He was doing the most benign paperwork, in other words. Would he be demoted so low just because he didn't notice that his partner was breaking the law? I think he wouldn't and that his demotion was exacerbated by his own feelings of guilt and shame (i.e. he wasn't fighting it and didn't try to get back). Then he must have got ahold of himself (both Nogi-san or Hoshino Gen talked about it) and resolved to get back to investigative work so that he could receive that 'boomerang' retribution. We know from the guidebook that he was transferred from road safety to a district police station (where he was doing the most routine investigative work) just before he was recruited to MIU. Gen-san said on the official site that Shima realised that his 'keeping to himself' attitude was to blame for the Kosaka's death so Shima resolved to learn to cooperate with his colleagues. Hilariously, the first person he had to cooperate with turned out to be Ibuki, i.e. someone who is very hard to work with. So Shima had to learn very fast! But as a result he improved a lot.

Oh, that's a good point! It's not like those two events happened at exactly the same day but they totally happened close enough. And by helping the girl and working in MIU Ibuki inadvertently left Gama-san down. Yeah, it certainly could have been on purpose. I wish I could check to be sure but alas. (I have this suspicion that some of the parallels were not intentional and the crew said that the fans are too clever sometimes. But this parallel looks pretty solid from this angle).

Nogi-san wrote part of the MIU guide book to explain to people how much stuff has been done by the director/the rest of the crew because she feels that people often misattribute the credit to her. I think the use of red and blue accent colors in ep 6 was not written in the script, for example, and she wanted to emphasise the crew input.

Both Shima and Ibuki suffered so much! Nogi-san is really merciless)) Btw Ibuki's fans are still bitter we weren't shown his past and the incident that got him demoted to police box. I guess, Nogi-san wanted to give him trauma in the present, instead of the past.

I'm glad to help))) My MIU love cannot be contained haha)))

Shima's feelings about Aoike's death are not discussed anywhere as far as I remember. But for me personally the scene of her death reads like this: Shima realises that Aoike is dead and immediately lets her go. That's because he already has the experience of finding the dead body of Kosaka. He knows people die easily. So he lets Aoike go and then gets busy searching for money (which seems cold). Ibuki hasn't faced death so he keeps fighting for her, poor bb. (I must admit that I love Ibuki and Shima a lot but ep 4 is still my favourite even if it's not Ibuki-Shima centric. )

BTW have you realised that when Shima explains to Ibuki in ep 2 that if one finds the dead body, one just has to report it to police without fear of being suspected as the murderer, Shima actually talks from experience? Because he indeed was the first to discover dead Kosaka and he was suspected but ultimately never get arrested or prosecuted.

The writer Nogi-san has a very strong opinion about the villains. Specifically, she hates when detective dramas go melodramatic and give the criminal a tragic backstory (I'm not implying she's right, I love a tragic backstory myself!). She addressed it several times in the interviews/extras for MIU. So she really wanted to leave Kuzumi a mysterious 'Unfound Man 404'. We are to never learn about his past. That's her creative choice, though, and if MIU gets a sequel it might get overturned by the executive producers. Personally, I think that Suda wants a leading role in a drama she wrote and not just a villain. So, perhaps, instead of MIU 2 we'll see Nogi-san's drama with him as a lead in a couple of years.

She also planned to have Gamagori commit suicide during the time he was being driven to police station after his arrest. I think that's why that scene (with Ibuki visiting him) felt so weird. (The producers asked her to remove suicide).

In my opinion what really solidifies the sequel is Kikyo's promotion - she was promoted to the chief of the police station where the detectives from Unnatural work. Why put her there if not for a dream sequel where Unnatural team and MIU team would combine their forces?!

That bit of info is actually from Nogi-notes - a special mini-book included into MIU blu ray. She also notes there (when she talks about ep 8) that when Ibuki cried at the end, all the stuff cried as well.

About your questions: there is a scene in ep 6 where the woman Kosaka investigated suddenly opened the door of her apartment just as Kosaka and Shima (who already left the apartment) were walking down the hall. Later, when Shima and Ibuki were leaving the apartment of the woman Kosaka saved, that woman opened her door too. Both women wore blue and it was done to make a parallel between them. This fact was confirmed by Nogi-san in the MIU guide book. So you are totally right about that!

The question about the girl from the 1st episode and about Reiko is more difficult. Because I've certainly heard about it. The question is, where? For example, I've seen a MV on billibilli that paired two scenes - the girl jumping and the umbrella falling. So I could have seen it in a fan MV. Or on Japanese twitter... Unfortunately, I don't have the guide book with me and can't check. Honestly, I think there is no reason to pair the girl with the red umbrella so perhaps it's just a coincidence.

The one parallel with the red umbrella that was confirmed (and that I clearly remember) is the way Yutaka destroyed the episode title 'Your smile' with his umbrella. Later Reiko's smile was destroyed by what happened behind that umbrella.

About the lighting: I think the green overlay during Ibuki's speech is from their special IT room. Actually, Nogi-san talked a lot in the guide book about lighting. In ep 6, specifically, the orange lamp and its glow signal the un-reality of the memory. During the bad trip sequence in ep 11 when Ibuki and Shima see a nightmare, the lighting is special too. I think it was bright blue lamps on the yacht? They chose those lamps specifically to reference the orange lamp.

So I think they used green/blue grading for flashbacks and the orange lamp for fake flashbacks and them they forgot that Spider Squad room gives off greenish glow X).

(Nogi-san also added in Nogi-notes that Shima felt so much guilt because he really disliked Kosaka. While Shima was hard on him because he was hard on himself, Nogi-san still thinks that Shima is to blame for Kosaka's death. And while Ibuki's intervention stopped the refrain in Shima's head, Shima will never be able to drink whiskey. )

It's really fascinating that internationally popular dramas and dramas popular in japan has so little overlap! I think, the reason is that J-dramas are hard to access/aren't geared for international viewers. So if, say, a popular fansubbing team won't sub a hugely popular J-drama, international fandom may not even hear about it. I remember feeling bitter envy when I saw how quickly Meiman Keisatsu was being translated and how many people talked about it while MIU was blowing up in Japan while being completely overlooked by international fandom. But such is life))

Gama-san was supposed to kill himself. He was waiting till the Vietnamese worker he had been helping finished his work in Japan. That's why he wasn't trying to hide his crime after the worker left Japan.

The producers said this ending is too sad for an already sad episode and removed it.

The writer Nogi-san revealed she had a different ending in mind for 8 ep - a darker twist so to speak. I'll put it into spoiler comment below.

Yeah) MIU is tremendous success. There are several qualitative markers of its success:

1) It generated huge buzz on J-net. I saw rankings (I don't quite remember whether it was twitter mentions or hashtags - something like that) where it was among the most buzzy entertainment entities (behind Hanzawa Naoki, Kirin, and popular anime franshises like Kimetsu no Yaiba). The fandom flooded twitter and pixiv and keeps doing it even now.

2) The fanbook is getting a third reissue as it keeps getting sold out. There are tons of merchandise, and TBS launched a second exposition (the visitors can look at the props used on the show etc) after the first one turned out to be very popular. Melon Pan car is now doing a second drive all over Japan after people complained loudly that it didn't go to their cities.

3) MIU is the third most watched drama on streaming site Paravi in 2020 (after Koi Tsudu and Hanzawa).

4) MIU had great ratings for its time slot on TBS (which is known to have bad ratings - the drama before MIU had 8,8%). It's average rating is 11,83% which puts MIU in the 9th place in the overall tv ratings ranking. And that place is great cause other contenders include dramas that has much more favourable time slots.

5) It's the second in the drama satisfaction ranking (the viewers express their satisfaction after each episode) after Hanzawa.

6) MIU already got an award from critics but the award season is just starting. I expect it will beat Hanzawa there. MIU and Hanzawa ran at the same season and MIU was often used as an example of modern drama that portrays current challenges while Hanzawa is so old-fashioned it became too problematic for modern times. I haven't seen the second season yet so I can't say if these complaints are true but the first season of Hanzawa had some pretty sexist tropes.

7) The actors in MIU received huge boosts to their careers. Hoshino Gen completely revamped his image of shy geek/mild intellectual. His dream of playing a villain may yet come true. Ayano Go, whose chilling villains and fragile outcasts had become his trademark, blew up both the critics' and the viewers' minds with his Ibuki. Aso Kumiko who played Kikyo was compared with Amami Yuki and Yonekura Ryoko because her portrayal of a woman in charge was so memorable. It goes without saying that Okada Kenshi is getting lots of attention too (he's just 21 if I'm not wrong).

8) The cast and crew are under enormous pressure to make another season or a special that combines MIU with Unnatural. The writer Nogi-san claims she would never do it but she may cave under the pressure (it took 4 years for Nige Haji sequel to appear but it still did).

9) Finally, it should be mentioned that J-drama don't do buddy-cop genre. After the success of classic J-drama police shows (such as Odoru Daisousasen), J-dramas tended to focus on intense antagonistic relationships between two police officers (who may or may not work closely with each other) as their version of 'buddy' (for example, remember how in Bad Blood the 'buddies' are quarrelling father and son whose antagonism arises not from their different personalities but from the deep conflict between them). MIU, on the other hand, brought back the American version of 'buddy' (with two different personalities stuck working together in a very close quarters) but with a very Japanese twist (I can't even imagine ep 6 in an American tv show). The resulting fresh take will surely become the new norm of J-drama landscape.

The audio commentary featured the director Tsukahara-san, the writer Nogi-san, Ayano Go, and Hoshino Gen.

Director's cut version broadened the scene where Shima sits on a coach in MIU4 HQ before going to meet with Rec. Now we are shown Shima's flashback to the first episode, specifically Ibuki's words about how cool MIU is. The director said she added that flashback to underline that Shima is not angry with Ibuki - on the contrary, he thinks Ibuki is too good and too pure so Shima must not dirty him by involving him in this underground investigation. That's why Shima goes alone.

The producer and the actors said that it wouldn't even occur to them to doubt Shima's intentions even without the inserted flashback but the director pointed out that some viewers didn't get it so she wanted to clarify.

Ayano Go noted that Shima and Rec have great chemistry together and that Rec tied his ponytail in a very sexy way XD.

They also confirmed that it was Kokonoe who deliberately helped Ibuki to spy on Shima (Ibuki wouldn't be able to get inside the National Police HQ otherwise).

Ayano Go also said that the way Ibuki and Shima were tied up on the yacht was very painful (shoulders get strained very fast). As Ayano Go's characters often end up tied up, he knows that some ways of tying up a lot less painful.

They also pointed out that Ibuki didn't hit Shima because of anger - he did it because he was trying to break through the wall of disengagement Shima put up. Then they realised that Shima, on the contrary, hit Ibuki in the first episode because of anger. The concluded that Shima is indeed the twisted one between them XD.

Right?! Let's hope Nogi-san will write another season/a special episode/a movie))

BTW I heard new trivia from audio commentary of the 11 ep (it was on Blu ray). I'll add it below with spoiler tag if you are interested)

Thanks)) I'm glad you've been enjoying MIU! I can't wait till Japanese awards show give MIU all sorts of awards. Hanzawa Naoki is a strong contender too so I'll be rooting for MIU.

The famous scene is where Shima hugs Ibuki after Hamu-chan regains her consciousness. The hug was not in the script.