(TV SERIES) Anti-Hero - An Interesting Legal Drama with Some Smartly Done Courtroom Scenes & Surprising Twists

I have seen this series few months back on Netflix which intrigued me as it had interesting premise. However, since each episode was released on weekly basis, I decided to wait till finished. Sadly I completely forgotten about it until I browse through the streaming service for Japanese series last week and remembered it again. Anyway, I began watching on Sunday and finished it last night. OK, here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

Masaki Akizumi (Hiroki Hasegawa - Shin Godzilla, Awaiting Kirin TV series etc) was a defense attorney who was well known for his antics and unusual & sometimes unethical method to win cases. He was supported by the passionate lawyer Asuka Shinomiya (Mayu Hotta - Kaguya-sama Final: Love Is War, The 13 Lords of the Shogun TV series etc), Rin Shiraki (Yuko Oshima - Three Sisters of Tenmasou etc) and Kenji Aoyama (Yasufumi Hayashi - Man Walking On Snow etc) who was very good in technical matters. They were joined by a new idealistic lawyer named Shuto Akamine (Takumi Kitamura - Yu Yu Hakusho Live Version series, I Am What I Am etc) who was uncomfortable with the way things done.

The first case that Akamine was involved was to acquit suspected murder Keita Hiyama (Takanori Iwata - Promise Cinderella TV series etc) where they had to face the prolific prosecution team. There would later be cases where Akizumi's team had to go against other prosecutors including the brilliant Midorikawa (Yoshino Kimura - Masquerade Night etc) and her boss Datehara (Nomura Mansai II - Whistleblower etc). As they juggled through the cases, Akizumi had his own personal mission related to one of the case he handled 12 years before.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in the series.

End of Brief Story Line

As a fan of legal drama where prosecutors "fight" against the defense attorneys, this one certainly lived up to my expectation, at least during the early episodes. It was really fun watching how each party tried their best to come up with the logical and acceptable arguments, combined with the evidence to support them. The interesting part would be how they managed to obtain them, and the timing to show those evidences which would turn the tide. However, after seeing two court cases spread into 3 episodes, I realize that though it might seem similar to the portrayal of courtroom drama in Western series/movies, there was a rather significant difference whereby the attorneys could provide a lot of monologues/speeches and they were rarely interrupted. I am not sure if this is common in Japan, but it felt weird for me.

Anyway, as the story progressed, the courtroom scenes were getting lesser and the series seemed to focus on the investigations related to the old case plus a lot of drama. Additionally there were 2 or 3 more court scenes which were too brief and did not exactly satisfy me. But the trial scene in the final episode was the best for me, even if there were still a lot of moral speeches shown. The finale also had few surprising twists where one of them totally caught me off guard. Now I am not sure if this series would be renewed cause the ending was pretty conclusive to me, but the final scene could be seen as hint for subsequent story, should they chose to continue.

The cast in general did decent job in portraying their roles, especially Hiroki Hasegawa as the lead character who was pretty awesome with his various facial expressions of calm & collected and his mysterious grin that made us not sure what he was thinking about. I also admired the way Nomura Mansai II managed to annoy me so much which proved how convincing he was in his characterization. Remarkably though, despite already seen plenty of Japanese dramas, somehow only one person that I had seen before, i.e Takumi Kitamura. The rest were unfamiliar for me. So I guess I am still very much behind in term of quantity compared to those American, Chinese & South Korean series. 

Apart from the names I mentioned above, the series got quite a lot of recurring cast and guest stars. For example Naoto Ogata (Fukushima 50 etc) as Mr. Shimizu, Misuzu Kanno (My Family TV series etc) as Judge Seko, Naohito Fujiki (Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Revenge Scar etc) as Detective Kurata and several others. From the closing credits, there was no mention of anything the series was based on and I could not find the info on the internet either. There were 10 episodes altogether with duration between 45-68 minutes where the first and final were the longest, and coincidentally the best for me as well.

Overall to me this was a pretty interesting legal drama series. I like the courtroom battle scenes in the early part and the finale, but the middle were too brief, plus there were too many speeches which felt weird for me. The investigation into the old case was smartly done and interesting too and I also like how the ending was quite realistic. There were some touching scenes here, however they somehow did not make me emotional (personally to me, sometimes the crying scenes felt unnatural and looked forced). But aside from those, I still enjoy the series. So if you are looking for a legal drama with interesting look into the court system in Japan, then this one should satisfy you. But if you are too accustomed to the Western style courtroom trials, then just be ready with the rather distinct difference and the many moral ethical lessons being speeched.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars