2
6
1
This review may contain spoilers
machinery and the mob
9 / 10
Most dramas are made to help us escape for a bit. This one doesn’t let you do that. It doesn’t try to be clever or self-important. It just confronts you. It pulls a system we’re not supposed to see into the open and holds it there. What makes it uncomfortable is that it doesn’t stop at the industry. It makes room for the audience too, for the way attention, demand, and silence keep the whole thing running. This isn’t really entertainment. It’s a reckoning with an industry that only works because people stay quiet and pretend not to know.
The scandal at its core is not rumor or professional misconduct. It is the systematic suppression of rape and sexual assault. We see multiple victims erased through coordinated falsehoods. Of cousre, who knows how many victim stories never make it to the light. We see media manipulation and suppression deployed as a weapon. A culture so practiced in self-preservation that it pushes victims toward isolation, despair, and suicide. The series does not treat this as some sort provocation... it treats it as evidence that the whole thing needs a reboot or to be torn down.
Haruna's (oh how I love Haruna in everything she is in)character is personally implicated and ideologically committed. Her sister is also a victim, and that wound never closes. But she is not driven by solely by revenge. She is driven by belief. She believes truth matters. She believes journalism has an obligation beyond access, profit, and survival. That conviction is what makes her dangerous in a system designed to bury facts rather than surface them.
At first I was a little conflicted by the sister connection, but I think the writers did a good job of introducing it (I am just very wary of any previous connection trope.... but at least this one isn't that someone in the show crossed paths with someone 47 years ago and now everything is magically connected.)
The scenes with her and Ko hit me harder than anything else in the show. This isn’t some moral showdown. It’s two women who understand exactly how much power a narrative can hold and who gets to tell it. They know what silence protects and what truth can destroy, and neither of them looks away. Watching it, I kept holding my breath. Every word and every move matters. It’s tense, it’s exhausting, and it feels completely real.
What makes the drama so damning is that it doesn’t stop with the easy villains. It doesn’t let us blame just the agencies or point fingers at the media and feel clean about it. Yes, they’re guilty. But the show names the last accomplice too, and it’s the audiencee. Abuse keeps happening because attention keeps paying for it. Lies survive because they sell. People want the spectacle, then punish anyone who threatens to ruin it. So everyone quietly agrees to look away as long as the product stays untouched. Watching isn’t neutral. Consumption is participation. Every view, every click, every excuse keeps the machine alive. We are not standing outside of this.
The series really only slips once for me. The Editor-in-Chief, Kenjiro Goda, changes sides a little too smoothly. In a story where telling the truth always comes at a cost, that turn felt a bit rushed. There are a couple of other moments like that too. I get that with only six episodes there was never going to be time to sit with every character, and I don’t think the show is being lazy. I just kept feeling like a few of those shifts needed another scene, another beat, something to make the change feel heavier. When everything else in the show makes growth feel painful, the easier turns stand out.
For me, the ending doesn’t retreat into cynicism. It refuses the easy lie that nothing ever changes. The truth is dragged into the open, publicly and in a way that can’t be taken back. What happens in the final press conference isn’t abstract or symbolic. It closes the loop that was opened in the first episode, and what’s said there felt exactly right to me. Nothing padded. Nothing softened. I didn’t need to see every villain punished on screen to feel the weight of it. Their downfalls are clearly set in motion, and that’s enough.
The fact that everything isn’t wrapped up neatly didn’t feel like a flaw. It felt honest. This story was never about comfort or clean closure. It was about what happens after the truth is finally spoken, and how impossible it is to pretend nothing happened.
Most dramas are made to help us escape for a bit. This one doesn’t let you do that. It doesn’t try to be clever or self-important. It just confronts you. It pulls a system we’re not supposed to see into the open and holds it there. What makes it uncomfortable is that it doesn’t stop at the industry. It makes room for the audience too, for the way attention, demand, and silence keep the whole thing running. This isn’t really entertainment. It’s a reckoning with an industry that only works because people stay quiet and pretend not to know.
The scandal at its core is not rumor or professional misconduct. It is the systematic suppression of rape and sexual assault. We see multiple victims erased through coordinated falsehoods. Of cousre, who knows how many victim stories never make it to the light. We see media manipulation and suppression deployed as a weapon. A culture so practiced in self-preservation that it pushes victims toward isolation, despair, and suicide. The series does not treat this as some sort provocation... it treats it as evidence that the whole thing needs a reboot or to be torn down.
Haruna's (oh how I love Haruna in everything she is in)character is personally implicated and ideologically committed. Her sister is also a victim, and that wound never closes. But she is not driven by solely by revenge. She is driven by belief. She believes truth matters. She believes journalism has an obligation beyond access, profit, and survival. That conviction is what makes her dangerous in a system designed to bury facts rather than surface them.
At first I was a little conflicted by the sister connection, but I think the writers did a good job of introducing it (I am just very wary of any previous connection trope.... but at least this one isn't that someone in the show crossed paths with someone 47 years ago and now everything is magically connected.)
The scenes with her and Ko hit me harder than anything else in the show. This isn’t some moral showdown. It’s two women who understand exactly how much power a narrative can hold and who gets to tell it. They know what silence protects and what truth can destroy, and neither of them looks away. Watching it, I kept holding my breath. Every word and every move matters. It’s tense, it’s exhausting, and it feels completely real.
What makes the drama so damning is that it doesn’t stop with the easy villains. It doesn’t let us blame just the agencies or point fingers at the media and feel clean about it. Yes, they’re guilty. But the show names the last accomplice too, and it’s the audiencee. Abuse keeps happening because attention keeps paying for it. Lies survive because they sell. People want the spectacle, then punish anyone who threatens to ruin it. So everyone quietly agrees to look away as long as the product stays untouched. Watching isn’t neutral. Consumption is participation. Every view, every click, every excuse keeps the machine alive. We are not standing outside of this.
The series really only slips once for me. The Editor-in-Chief, Kenjiro Goda, changes sides a little too smoothly. In a story where telling the truth always comes at a cost, that turn felt a bit rushed. There are a couple of other moments like that too. I get that with only six episodes there was never going to be time to sit with every character, and I don’t think the show is being lazy. I just kept feeling like a few of those shifts needed another scene, another beat, something to make the change feel heavier. When everything else in the show makes growth feel painful, the easier turns stand out.
For me, the ending doesn’t retreat into cynicism. It refuses the easy lie that nothing ever changes. The truth is dragged into the open, publicly and in a way that can’t be taken back. What happens in the final press conference isn’t abstract or symbolic. It closes the loop that was opened in the first episode, and what’s said there felt exactly right to me. Nothing padded. Nothing softened. I didn’t need to see every villain punished on screen to feel the weight of it. Their downfalls are clearly set in motion, and that’s enough.
The fact that everything isn’t wrapped up neatly didn’t feel like a flaw. It felt honest. This story was never about comfort or clean closure. It was about what happens after the truth is finally spoken, and how impossible it is to pretend nothing happened.
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