It was playing on WOWOW in the same time slot as Bunshin and Magma. Those were short series as well with a more mature story so I decided to give this one a try.
Synopsis: (from jdramas.wordpress.com)
A big secret is intertwined with five murders that occur at different times and locations. The first murder is a fatal shooting at an apartment in a residential neighborhood. When senior patrol officer Kizaki (Takahashi Issei), who works near the site, rushes over at the sound of a gunshot(s), his senior Omura (Murakami Jun) has already entered the crime scene. The suspects are narrowed down through legwork and forensics results, but Kizaki feels that there is more to the case. Before long, a girl (Kaho) with some sort of connection to the case emerges...
Cast :
- Kaho
- Takahashi Issei
- Murakami Jun
- Arai Hirofumi
- Tokiwa Takako
- Matsushige Yutaka
- Nukumizu Youichi
- Ikeda Narushi
- Kurosawa Asuka
- Nikaido Satoshi
- Midori Mako (緑魔子)
- Kishibe Ittoku
Review
Story
Hitori Shizuka is based on a novel of the same name by Honda Tetsuya with a setting around 1996. The best way to describe the story is that it is a mystery... literally. It has a unique storyline and episodes organization. Basically, we see the story unfold from the point of view of various police officers and we get closer and closer to the point of view of Shizuka played by Kaho. Police officers works on murder cases and somehow the disappearance of Ito Shizuka is linked with them. What happened really and where is she? What is her motive? What is the meaning of her life?The story is slow paced, one of the most slow paced I have seen. It is mostly very calm to make you feel like you live with the main characters on their daily lives. There is extreme attention to details to the environments with tons of objects to make it look like 1996. I found the image quality close to what you can expect for a japanese movie. We can see this comes from a novel and that they worked hard on it.
I found that the mystery surrounding Ito Shizuka was very well done because I found myself wanting to know what was actually going on. I was pretty lost most of the time, but at some points in some episodes it started to make sense. Every episode brings more answers to the mystery, but I felt like they also added more questions.
However, the story can become quite confusing and you have to really pay close attention when watching. It can be hard to do due to the quietness and slow pace, it can become boring quite fast. They do some time skips, at first they inform you about them, but then suddenly they start happening without notice. It was kinda frustrating because I became quite lost, especially at the last episode. After thinking it for a while, I think that the confusion by the end of the series must be intentional, but I would have preferred if it was a bit more clear. I felt like many questions were left unanswered and I was not satisfied.
In short, this has a really unique storytelling and it is artistic. It is full of mysteries and has an awesome atmosphere. It can get complicated and the ending is a hit or miss.
Acting
There is many characters, most of them only appearing 1 episodes at a time. The acting of the secondary characters are hard to judge, because of their short appearances, but I found myself attached to them and thrown off every time we had a new main character. I wished they would have a more important role or come back later in the story, but I guess that would be the easy way to write the story. The author/director chose a non conventional way for the story presentation, depending on your taste it might come out to you as a masterpiece or hollow.Also, for the real main character of this story, there was lots of pressure on the acting of Kaho. If her character was not well acted, it would totally kill this drama. She is a new actress to me and now I can say that I like her. She is impressive in this and she reminds me of Kanno Miho in talent. I have great expectations from her, can't wait to see other dramas with Kaho.
Music
There isn`t much music during the episodes, just at a few scenes. This enhance the eerie feeling throughout the series. It might make you feel bored and make you loose interest. To make up for the lack of music, I noticed this series had some very nice environment sounds, such as train passing by or lightning strikes. They were natural and made me feel more immersed. However, the music score was really engaging, so much I would download the song and listen to it sometimes! Good job by Yasukawa Gorou.Recommendation
If you like this kind of drama, well, this one is definitely unique, but I find that there was a similar eerie and weird atmosphere in the movie Kokuhaku (confession). I also have watch Guilty : akuma to keiyaku shita onna quite a long time ago, but I think I can remember that there was some similarities.You can watch Hitori Shizuka on streaming websites such as Drama.net or Gooddrama.
You can download better quality videos on http://doramax264.com/15195/hitori-shizuka-j-drama-2012-coming-soon/. You will have to get the softsubtitles on the link provided. Sadly, d-addicts has shut down their torrent section.
The good
- Good mystery atmosphere
- Unique
- Great attention to details
- Good acting
- Great music
- Confusing ending
- Very slow paced
- Can be boring if you are not a mystery type lover
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