Remote (リモート)

Title: Remote (リモート)
Episodes: 10
Genre: Crime/Detective/Comedy/Mystery
Synopsis: http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Remote
Rating: B

“Engaging storyline(s), addicting, fangirl/fanboy friendly, often funny, but disappointing ending”

I spent my weekend watching the current jdrama series of the week (SOTW), Remote, starring Kyoko Fukada and Kinki Kids’ Domoto Koichi.

 

This drama has an overall lighthearted feel but the cases put in a darker tone. It has the creativity of Kindaichi Shonen no Jinkenbo, the seriousness of Unfair and the comedic flair of Kuitan. Here we’ve got an airhead traffic cop, Ayaki Kurumi(Fukada) who landed the assistant job under a special investigation unit led by Detective Himuro Kozaburo(Domoto). The catch is that Himuro is a shut-in. He never steps out from his room. Kurumi does all the outside work while he supervises her through a mere orange cellphone; thus the title, Remote.

I started last night and finished it 2 minutes ago which is kind of a record under this kind of genre. It usually takes me two to four weeks to finish detective dramas. What makes this a difference?
(1)Domoto Koichi <adds to personal fangirl list>. I couldn’t believe that there are still so many pretty j-actors out there that I have yet to discover. Even with the presence of Nodame Cantabile’s Chiaki-sempai, Tamaki Hiroshi, who plays Kurumi’s fiancé, the mysterious and kakkoi aura exuded by Koichi cannot be easily conquered. I often tease fangirls who go crazy over their idols…and yet, I am guilty of the same crime. Sometimes, even worse. Nah, I think I’m one of the more levelheaded fangirls, ahem.

The fanboys have Fukada Kyoko . She’s getting cuter and slimmer over the years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same about her acting. As a matter of fact, it’s getting worse! From all the dramas I’ve seen her in, she tends to get annoying by the 2nd or 3rd episode. I am always close to scratching my LCD screen out of pure irritation. Surprisingly, I haven’t suffered the same fate while watching Remote. Maybe because, her character is meant to be an airhead. When it comes to playing dumb, Fukada is a natural (think Mikuru from the anime Suzumiya Haruhi).

(2)The comedy is a bit stronger here than in Kuitan or Kindaichi. There are a lot of funny moments usually the scenes between Kurumi and Shingo. Ah, Shingo! What a sweet guy. (One of the reasons I had a hard time giving away Kurumi to Himuro.) After watching his performance as Shingo, in Remote, I am perfectly convinced of how good of an actor he is. It was difficult for me to imagine that he was the same haughty Chiaki sempai. I squinted my eyes, trying to imagine him in his signature Chiaki-hairstyle, but nope, I couldn’t do it. He was like a completely different character.

The supporting characters, Bob-san and police troopers were also a joy to watch. At first they seem silly and not funny at all, but as I watch more of them, their jokes had finally started getting effective.
(3)There are 7 mutually exclusive cases in total. Three of them are two episodes long each, and the rest only lasted an episode each. The most interesting case is the clown serial murders, while the final case is the most disappointing arc. Remember how Himuro is a shut-in? The last case resolves this conflict. It also gives us a peek of his love life before he became a hermit. Don’t expect a grand finale, coz you will get something cheesier! What could make him leave his dungeon? You don’t have to be Einstein to answer this question. Well, I won’t spoil it. Just take the warning. It was done clumsily, like an afterthought.

The romantic development between Himuro and Kurumi is also inevatible. But the existence of adorable Shingo makes their relationship a bit more complicated. The drama didn’t dwell into this complication as you will see in the ending. To make it short:

Shingo & Kurumi: cute

Himuro & Kurumi: rabu-rabu

Before watching the final episode, I went to boxtorrents.com and searched for the manga torrent. While reading the subtitle thread at d-a, I read that the ending is much better in the manga. And so here I am, waiting for the manga to finish, hoping that it could fill in the hole that the drama had left me with.

Manga: I skimmed through the manga and just a few major differences I’ve noticed.

- it is more ecchi (perverted) than the LA(Liveaction)
- very bad art and has lots of fanservice( one volume has smut in it and XXX scenes, ahem)
- I think there were 3-4 more cases that weren’t featured in the LA (for good reasons!)
- Shingo is a complete ass in the manga ( eg. he has some Xplicit-ecchi-hobbies)
- It’s not often that a live action adaptation could outstage the original manga. This is it! Don’t even bother wasting your bandwidth dl-ing some 300MB worth of garbage, coz it isn’t worth it, unless you dig that kind of stuff. The ending is very similar except for one minor detail. In the manga, we are given a peek of Detective Himuro’s private thoughts. I think he keeps an electronic journal, and they show his entries at the end of each case. At the very end, his entry just says that he thought he’ll never fall in love again and all that cheese I prefer not to remember. I was going to paste that part in here, but I was immensely disgusted by the manga that I trashed it immediately. I think the creators of the drama deserved another point for producing something decent out of a third-rate-no-class-comic. Okay, I know I’m being too harsh. The original manga creators should still be credited for some of the ingenious cases.

Links

• Torrents @ d-addicts
• Subtitles by OfficeMasao
• Manga @ boxtorrents
• Go here if you want to get a rough idea about the manga (including short summaries, and actual dialogues) The blogger also pasted some of Detective Himuro’s journal entries.