This review may contain spoilers
Tokyo Swindlers
I'm not a regular viewer of Japanese films and series. However, I ended up watching the first episode, because I couldn’t grasp what Tokyo Swindlers was about based on the name and the summary. After that, I could not stop watching. I honestly don’t understand why the ratings are this low, because, as someone said, the series “kept the viewers hooked from start to finish”.
The plot itself was engaging and fairly easy to follow, but I turned on the subtitles in my mother tongue instead of English because of some technical terminology. There were both big and small surprises which were paced so that I was never bored. I have to admit that I did not expect to see a sex scene between Tsujimoto Takumi and Kawai Natsumi nor Kaede to die so violently. Other aspects of the storyline were perhaps more expected, such as Takeshita’s life going downhill and Reiko becoming ”property owner” instead of Taniguchi Yoshie. They already looked like twins! If the message of the series was to spread awareness of the destruction and hurt that real estate scammers cause with their actions, I feel like it could have been delivered better if the whole crew had been caught by the police in the end. That was what I was expecting, at least, but I am not complaining about the actual ending.
All actors were great in their roles, but Ayano Go played a large part in why I enjoyed Tokyo Swindlers as much as I did. I was reminded of his character in Yakuza and the Family (2021). Both characters rarely expressed their emotions very visibly, but you could still read them in their eyes. The pain and the betrayal was evident on Takumi’s face when he heard that Harrison was basically the reason why he lost everything important to him. I just wanted to hold that poor baby and never let go.
The strongest aspects of the series were definitely the story and the casting. Because of them, I could have watched way more than seven episodes. I would have liked to see the crew spend more time together, Kuramochi and Tatsu’s relationship develop and perhaps even see flashbacks of the early days of Takumi and Harrison. Now, I feel like a lot of the characters were fantastic on their own thanks to the talented actors who played them, but the series lacked proper interactions between the characters. Nevertheless, Tokyo Swinders was worth watching and deserves four out of five stars from me.
The plot itself was engaging and fairly easy to follow, but I turned on the subtitles in my mother tongue instead of English because of some technical terminology. There were both big and small surprises which were paced so that I was never bored. I have to admit that I did not expect to see a sex scene between Tsujimoto Takumi and Kawai Natsumi nor Kaede to die so violently. Other aspects of the storyline were perhaps more expected, such as Takeshita’s life going downhill and Reiko becoming ”property owner” instead of Taniguchi Yoshie. They already looked like twins! If the message of the series was to spread awareness of the destruction and hurt that real estate scammers cause with their actions, I feel like it could have been delivered better if the whole crew had been caught by the police in the end. That was what I was expecting, at least, but I am not complaining about the actual ending.
All actors were great in their roles, but Ayano Go played a large part in why I enjoyed Tokyo Swindlers as much as I did. I was reminded of his character in Yakuza and the Family (2021). Both characters rarely expressed their emotions very visibly, but you could still read them in their eyes. The pain and the betrayal was evident on Takumi’s face when he heard that Harrison was basically the reason why he lost everything important to him. I just wanted to hold that poor baby and never let go.
The strongest aspects of the series were definitely the story and the casting. Because of them, I could have watched way more than seven episodes. I would have liked to see the crew spend more time together, Kuramochi and Tatsu’s relationship develop and perhaps even see flashbacks of the early days of Takumi and Harrison. Now, I feel like a lot of the characters were fantastic on their own thanks to the talented actors who played them, but the series lacked proper interactions between the characters. Nevertheless, Tokyo Swinders was worth watching and deserves four out of five stars from me.
Was this review helpful to you?
