Hello all, I hope you are having a lovely day and not being bored like I am at the office. Anyway, over the weekend I was fortunate enough to fall upon a new drama currently airing in Japan titled – Tantei no Tantei. As the title suggests, it is a drama about a detective agency that specializes in other detective. It is the Anti-Detective Agency who role is to take down corrupt agents.

It’s a 2 person agency or three if you count the one that initiated it but he never takes direct part in the actual work even though his subject report to him. Okay, let’s make it three since he (Yuma) is the one that recruits and kind of overseas the Agency. The rest of the members are Kitagawa Keiko’s Sasaki Rena as the original member and Kawaguchi Haruna’s Minemori Kotoha the new recruit and kind of the secretary of the Anti Detectives.

The drama is just on episode 4 with the fifth coming either tomorrow or the day after and man, was I hooked and wished I had found this after it was complete! First of all I love these kinds of drama (Kurokochi and Boss as an example) then there is the fact that Kitagawa and Kawaguchi were listed at the top of the casting! Those two tidbits combined it would have been near impossible to put me away from this show even if it was 1000% het!

Thankfully there is none of that, not even 10% so this was a must watch! I actually found this by accident! I didn’t see caps of it to hook me or even a post, I was just intrigued by the title and when I saw the OP of the first episode I went information digging!

But the real question is, why am I writing about this? Does it have yuri? For now I would say no! But the chemistry between Rena and Kotoha is going places and I will be damned if I am not there for the ride!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 

 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 

  
 
 
 

Yes, I did say that Kitagawa Keiko and Kawaguchi Haruna are leads in this! That alone is juicy enough to get anyone to watch this. Think of it as knowing that Aragaki and Toda would be leads in another drama! Sit there and tell me you wouldn’t be intrigued just from that info! Sometimes the actors make the story!

Speaking of story, this is a story about Rena who decides to become a detective that hunts down corrupt detective because of what happened to her sister. Rena had a young sister who was brutally murdered four years ago by a stalker. What does this have to do with detectives? Well, to keep her safe, the family had sent Sakura (Rena’s little sister) to live with her grand parents in a different town. Her stalker found her eventually with the aid of a detective and when Rena found this out, her life was dedicated to finding the one responsible and make them pay.

They were very close, Rena and Sakura.

Meanwhile Kotoha, and this is spoilers for later episodes so if you don’t want to get spoiled, you know what to do. Kotoha was actually involved in Sakura’s death, somewhat. The events leading up to her confessing the secret was real torture I tell you. They made it seem like she was going to turn out to be the villain. I saw that as a red flag for her not surviving for too long and this was already a dark drama so killing off a major character did not seem so unreasonable. I thought she and Rena would come to blow thus cutting all threads that would have been between the two.

Thankfully the secret wasn’t as bad as her wanting Sakura dead and being directly responsible. She was Sakura’s friend that Sakura had made in her grandparents’ town. She had moved to a new school there where she had met Kotoha. Sakura and Rena’s lives were not easy so for her to find a friend like Kotoha would have changed her life and made Kotoha important to her. She writes this in a letter to Rena so that played a bit of a part when it came to the secret reveal.

But that comes later. Kotoha too does have a sister, a big sister and seeing as she was the same age as Sakura, that made Kotoha three or four years younger than Rena. Kotoha moved out of her family home because her Sister had married and she did not want to burden her anymore in her own life. She moves to the city in order to start living by herself. She winds up at the place where the Anti Detectives Agency is located. Yuma makes her Rena’s secretary as her starting point.

At first of course Rena is very against the idea but we later learn that it was more for Kotoha’s safety. Yuma had the final say in the matter and had forced Rena to accept Kotoha as a colleague. The first day out in the field though, Kotoha soon finds that she had made a mistake in choosing this line of work and was almost ready to quit. On her first outing she (and I) witnessed the brutality that went on in the field when the thug Rena had been chasing was in fact leading her in a trap. A brutal fight broke out right in front of a terrified Kotoha and she decided right away to quit.

But she did not have anywhere else to go so she decided to stay until she had found another job. She and Rena shared the same apartment (different rooms , sadly) and it was clear that they had this symbiotic expectance of their relationship with Rena being like the replacement of Kotoha’s big sister, meanwhile Kotoha took on the role of Sakura. Yeah sure Kotoha’s sister was still alive and at her age people would be more in need of their little sister than a big sister but who am I to argue!

Either way the two play their roles. Rena grows protective of Kotoka, even though she does it in a way that takes Yuma to explain it to us like that one time the villain had offered a gift for Rena to Kotoha when in fact it was a GPS meant to track Rena. Also the times she forbade Kotoha from going into the field she was protecting her, though Kotoha after that first time am sure was not looking for a repeat, except if it meant that Rena needed her even if Rena herself di not think it.

You see Rena was kind of blind. Not sight blind but emotional blind. Since Sakura’s death she seemed to kill off her survival instincts and if there was no one to keep her grounded, she was sure to cross over. Yuma letting her stay in his company despite Rena not having any interest in becoming an actual detective (at first she joined Yuma detective school just so she could learn all there was about Detectives). He knew that if he had let Rena go off then she would have crossed the line and would have become a criminal so he had kept her grounded.

Yuma also hired Kotoha because she would keep Rena in line, even if it was manipulative the way he used Sakura like that since Rena would be thinking of Kotoha the same she had thought of Sakura. It would take time but her Big Sister instincts would eventually kick in and they did. Rena came to care for Kotoha even though Kotoha thought that the cold shoulder was because Rena did not want her around when it was in fact to protect her.

Meanwhile Kotoha was turning into a voice of reason for Rena. Rena would get so blinded by bread crumbs to finding that detective that sold her sister’s whereabouts to her killer that she did not care if those crumbs had come from her enemies. Rena would not stop to think if they were traps for her or not. Kotoha tried to stop her but Rena’s very existence was to find Sakura’s killer so of course she would not listen.

This brought chaos eventually when in not being able to make her listen Kotoha decides to tag along with Rena on one of her stakeouts. It was of course a trap and Kotoha was the one that paid dearly for it. She almost died and if it were not for Rena’s dedicated CPR moves, Kotoha would have been a goner.

By the way that scene was powerful! The way that the usually deathly calm Rena was panicking as the guy tortured Kotoha and the way Kotoha was so calm despite the situation with Rena freaking out over her injuries. The last line Kotoha said before she had passed out…

“You are not alone”

Think of that scene between Queen Galaxia and the scouts in Sailor Moon. Think of that scene when Usagi had Rei in her arms and she was about to disappear! This scene was almost as powerful because I seriously thought that Kotoha had died! Rena was pumping her chest and calling her name as tears poured out of her eyes and yet Kotoha did not show a sign of motion!

I was about to flip tables!

I may sound deranged but I loved this side of their relationship too. By this side I mean the side where they are both putting the other into trouble. And not just any trouble, near death experience type of trouble! Remember I mentioned the GPS tracker gift?

Well, Rena had been out of the office at the time when the guy had dropped it off. He passed it onto Kotoha to pass it on to Rena. She called Rena and told her about the box. Rena then had called Kotoha out go and meet with her hoping that Kotoha would leave the gift, that was actually a GPS tracker in the office and would be safer with Rena with the GPS at the office.

Sadly Kotoha did not know it was a GPS. All she knew and scanned for was a bomb and it had not been it. So Kotoha had brought the gift with her. Rena took the gift and ordered Kotoha to run straight home and leave the car keys with Rena. Rena drove the car all day until it turned dark and by then she was by the sea coast. At first I wondered what the big deal was. It was only a GPS and really, the guy that it was from did not seem that villainous, yet.

Then shit hit the fan.

First there came a lorry that tried to wreak Rena while still inside it. She reversed out of that like a pro. What she didn’t see coming though was the frikkin bulldozer that got her right from the sides. It was too later then. The dozer pushed her and the car right over the edge and into the sear below. She was close to the pier mini liners park so it was deep waters. She had to use a hammer to get out of that car because only Superman can open a car door underwater.

Anyway it was one close call but even then when she got home in the worst shape, she still did not blame or get mad at Kotoha. Kotoha though felt plenty miserable all on her own. So, Rena almost died because of Kotoha and Kotoha later on almost died because of Rena. In both scenarios they never wavered against each other and they were not even at the point of owing such deep feelings to one another and yet…

I also have to say that I was very surprised when Rena did not lose it after finding out that Kotoha knew Sakura. Speaking of Sakura, interestingly she is portrayed by the same actress that plays the lead in another drama that is currently airing about music. Did I mention that Morikawa Aoi is in that one? No? Well she is! So is X21’s leader but only hardcore Idol fans would know her, for now anyway. She is getting a lot of attention lately. X21 hasn’t even been around for 2 years and she has already been in three movies and now this drama, and those are the only ones I know about off the top of my head.

So what of this history between Kotoha and Sakura? Well, first of all she was on the scene when they found Sakura’s body. She was watching as Rena fought to be let through by the police so she could get to her sister but she was far off in the background and only looking on as if she was a complete stranger. We find out that she was a bit more connected to Sakura’s death than that and I at first worried and feared that she might have been thee direct cause of Sakura’s death. Or maybe I thought that a relative of hers was the one responsible, maybe her brother or something.

It wasn’t that. She was not related to the killer at all (She has no brothers) and did not have a grudge towards Sakura. Like I said, she was very close to Sakura after she had moved towns and their closeness had actually been hinted at since episode one. When she first arrived at Rena’s apartment, Kotoha had the same strap like Rena had, which belonged to Sakura. Rena was shown noticing this fact but it was not brought up in conversation even though the camera would remind us from time to time.

That strap was the one that Kotoha had bought the day she and Sakura went out. Except that day, Sakura would go straight home after classes for her safety but that day she made an exception and agreed to go shopping with Kotoha. That was the same day that the stalker had found her and she had been kidnapped and eventually killed.

And so Kotoha had this looming cloud of being responsible for Sakura’s death.

Any other sister knowing this and in Rena’s position would have flipped out at Kotoha after hearing that but not Rena. That was what surprised me. I was ready for her to got for the throat, especially with the way that Rena had been portrayed as a bit bent ever since Sakura had died. I would have imagined that she would have completely lost it finding out this information especially since she wasn’t that close to Kotoha yet but she took it pretty well. In fact she comforted Kotoha a bit by telling her how much she must have meant to Sakura seeing as she had mentioned a best friend in the letter that Rena had gotten from her.

I was happy we were past that huddle and with no causalities to boot. It did bring them closer though because this thing that had been building up due to this huge secret was now over and one less thing in the way. Finally, we started getting moments and even though we were already getting them they were coming from third parties, like Yuma playing the glue between the two. While I loved those, I was looking forward to moments between Rena and Kotoha by themselves. The first one we got was on their first outing into the field together but that could be dismissed as their actual meeting. Rena had actually looked at Kotoha and seen her during that stake out. I would have preferred it to be on their own terms instead of a mission but beggars and all that.

The other moment was when Kotoha had just come out of the shower. She said goon night but before she went to her room she asked Rena about her parents. Rena says that her father is living with his mistress meanwhile her mother was hospitalized because she couldn’t handle Sakura’s death. It was really inevitable that they would split. Sakura was the only thing holding their parents together so her death would have sent them over and it did. Then Kotoha says this…

“So you have no one to get back home to”

…

This line here Ladies and gentlemen. So much meaning, so much depth, such implications! And the way that Kotoha splits so fast for the room after saying it! The show had my curiosity from the beginning. This line made sure it had my attention! It would probably mean nothing if one didn’t pay attention to every scene before this moment so no skipping! Thankfully I was at full attention since second 1 to the end of episode 4.

When later Rena escapes her captivity and goes to rescue Kotoha, just before Kotoha passes out she gives her strap, that is identical to the one Rena has, to her and tell her…

“You are not alone”

Earlier when Kotoha was being tortured in front of Rena, she had begged for the Guy to let Kotoha go saying that she was alone in this that Kotoha had nothing to do with anything so later Kotoha telling Rena that she was not alone had a double meaning to it. She was correcting Rena from earlier and also letting her know that Rena now had someone to go back home to.

Sadly that kind of went over Rena’s head because once Kotoha is hospitalized (which she spent I think a year in, hey, the Dude stabbed a knife through her leg all the way to bone and had beat her badly before that too) and in all that time Rena hadn’t even come to visit Kotoha. Actually she went to the hospital once but Kotoha’s family was with her and perhaps seeing and hearing how happy Kotoha was with her real sister and family, she decided to let her go.

Still, I might be called a leech but I didn’t think Kotoha was that happy. It looked like fake happiness to me but really, that might just be me.

A year later and Kotoha is released from the hospital. She goes to live with her sister to rehabilitate I guess and even then you could feel that she felt the distance between her and Rena and that she missed her. Actually Kotoha’s sisters mentions it once when she tells Kotoha to forget about Rena. It is from her that we learn how long Kotoha had been hospitalized because she mentions that Rena hadn’t visited in all that time and that Kotoha should forget about her.

I would have loved if they showed us how the distance affected Rena as well but other than showing us Kotoha’s desk collecting dust at the office, nothing indicated at how much Rena missed Kotoha. The scene at the hospital was great as we watched the conflicted Rena but come one, another scene about her thinking of Kotoha later on would have been grand.

Then to close off the episode and many me scream wondering why there just had to be only 4 episodes out, a twist hits in the form of Kotoha’s Sister and they better explain this one real good because if it is just an ass pull I am going to be mad. The story has been solid so far and I don’t want it to turn retarded all of a sudden.

Kotoha was cleaning the house with her sister out shopping. She stumbles upon her sister’s laptop in the living room open with a camera connected. She was probably processing some videos from the hospital days. Indeed, upon opening up some folders, the videos do include those she had filmed in the hospital with the family.

But then

Suddenly there is a video of a drugged Rena kneeling in front of her Sister’s husband and the man that had tortured her that night. In fact he and Rena were wearing the clothes they were that night. Her Sister was the one filming the scene and I think both mine and Kotoha’s hearts stopped at the exact same moment. But before we dig any further the front door opens signaling the sister’s return and Kotoha hastily closes the laptop and escapes.

That reveal though! And seeing as there was no continuing episode, I decided to watch the preview for episode 5 and from what I heard Kotoha confronted her sister about the video she had seen. That is the worst of ideas Kotoha! I know she is your sister but come on, have some vigilance! Your own sister was there that day, the day you were almost killed! I even bet there is a video of that very act being carried out on that computer! And worse I have a feeling she is going to confront her without having spoken to Rena yet. I hope Rena will be in time again to save her because if her sister is as deranged as I think she might turn out to be, this is going to end badly!

And if it does, what was the reason of putting Kotoha’s life in danger when the very next episode she was going to be in even more danger?! Sure this was a dangerous business then were in but even so, it is still too much. Then again that might mean that she will survive it.

Also if her sister turns out to be real bad and Rena is forced to kill her, this will be the continuation of their painful connection. We have already seen that Kotoha blames herself for Sakura’s death and is kind of responsible because she was the reason that Sakura broke curfew that day and thus ran into her stalker/killer so Rena being the death of Kotoha’s sister is like a balance to that.

If that does indeed happen, these two’s relationship is going into the books as the most twisted ever! But it also will test the two’s connection by the way Kotoha reacts to Rena killing her sister. I have a feeling that if this were to happen, we would get the reaction I was expecting from Rena before. Then again Kotoha seemed like the more level-headed of the two, even though she was more green at the same time.

Any way, I am dying to see where these two’s relationship ends up. I am not expecting any romance at all by the way. I am only looking forward to their bond growing. Anyway no matter what might happen, at the core they are still un-related so they aren’t actually sisters and they are both adults so if they go for something more, all the more welcome!

Are you dear Reader watching this too?