(TV SERIES) Who Saw the Peacock Dance in the Jungle? - Despite Its Sometimes Melodramatic Moments and Slow Burn Process, but the Series was Pretty Worth the Watch with Its Multiple Shocking Twists

During 2 weeks vacation with my wife, I did not have chance to see anything in the cinemas but I did complete few series on Netflix. As they were released some time back, I decided to write about this Japanese series instead, since its finale was made available only recently and I finished it last night. All right then, I'll get right to it.

Brief Story Line

Komugi (Hirose Suzu - The Third Murder, Chiyafuru trilogy etc) was a college student living only with her ex-cop father Haruo Yamashita (Lily Franky - Tokyo Swindlers TV series, Shoplifters etc) for years. On the Christmas eve, Komugi's father was found murdered on their burnt house. Haruo's old partner from the police, Detective Akazawa (Fujimoto Takahiro - Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning, Golden Kamuy 2 TV series etc) caught the culprit Endo Tomoya (Narita Ryo - Modern Love Tokyo anthology series etc) who was the son of convicted murderer of the whole Hayashikawa family that occurred 22 years before.

However, Komugi later found a letter from Haruo that mentioned something shocking. With the help from criminal defense lawyer Matsukaze (Matsuyama Kenichi - Death Note films, Why Didn't I Tell You a Million Times TV series etc), Komugi tried to uncover what truly happened to her father which seemed to be linked with the old murder case. Things got further complicated when Kamii the investigative journalist (Isomura Hayato - Extremely Inappropriate! TV series, xxxHolic etc) was looking into both cases while having a lot of hidden information. 

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

End of Brief Story Line

When I read the synopsis of this series few weeks ago, I was quite intrigued with the plot. But as it was not Netflix original, the whole episodes were not available on the same day. Hence I had to wait till the finale was released before starting to watch it. Anyway it did not take long for the main thing to happen in the first episode. But the most surprising thing would definitely be the existence of letter left by Haruo which brought us to the next main character aside from Komugi, the lawyer Matsukaze. From that moment, I was curious of what actually happened.

Subsequent episodes though felt a lot like drama. Despite having few surprises along the way, I felt the series was more suitable classified as drama with some mystery involved cause there were plenty of background story of various characters showing how or why they acted in such manner. The series also focused a lot on Komugi with her personal struggle in finding out the truth which revealed many tragic things about her. Komugi's youthful character was nicely complimented with the stiff and by the books nature of Matsukaze. As the story progressed, there were more shocking twists which I did not see coming. This was definitely the part that I liked about the series.

The two lead cast Hirose Suzu and Matsuyama Kenichi were great in here. I also thought Lily Franky was really perfect in his role (probably because of his gentle fatherly look). Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were plenty of other cast who were important to the story. Some of them were Takiuchi Kumi (Ravens etc) as prosecutor Anan Yuki, Nishida Naomi (11 Rebels etc) as Detective Akazawa's wife Kyoko, Sakou Yoshi (Hell Dogs: In the House of Bamboo etc) as the convicted murderer Endo Rikiro and few others. In addition, there were few minor characters to add some color to the series, particularly Marsuzake's law firm partner Hasami (Morisaki Win - Usogui, Futari Solo Camp TV series etc).

The series itself had 10 episodes and I think it was properly concluded, which meant there should not be a sequel required. It was adapted from manga of the same title in Japanese "Kujaku no Dance, Dare ga Mita?" by Asami Rito which was quite popular and well received. Although the title seemed weird, but it was explained in the series. Personally to me though it had a rather artistic meaning and felt more like allegory. To my surprise, the manga was serialized from 2022 and only finished in February 2025. I guess the producers were confident enough with the potential that they decided to make the series since December 2024 even before its final story was released. Throughout the series, there was a song that was repeatedly heard which turned out to be its theme song titled "Elf" by Japanese singer Ado.

For me the series was pretty entertaining in term of so many surprising twists. However, the story could sometime be a bit melodramatic. Fortunately the acting was not too over the top that made it annoying like in the cases of several manga or anime adaptation. The whole 10 episodes could feel slow and long at times, but the conclusion and ending was worth the wait. In the end, I did pretty enjoy this mystery drama slow burn series. Though it could probably fasten the pace a bit, but the multiple twists were great and there were few scenes that might touch viewers as well. Another thing that I liked in the series (which was more on personal basis) was the part where they showed Fukuoka city. It was the place where my wife and I went for vacation earlier, so it made both of us happy when we saw the location in the series that we passed through and reminded me and her of the great time we had there. So if you are interested in watching series with many plot twists and do not mind the drama and sometimes slow pace, then you are welcome to give it a try. 

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