Tokyo gets into a bit of tizzy when a scientist rises into the air and explodes during a live TV interview with reporter Kyoko Kono (Yu Aoi). The case is more than a little weird, so the police reactivate Kenji Okamoto (Shun Oguri).
Okamoto had been suspended because he was taken to be responsible for leaks about a date-raping yakuza turned CEO reaching a journalist, and the concurrent suicide of said yakuza turned CEO. The journalist was, of course, Kyoko, who was in a relationship with Okamoto at the time, and betrayed him to get the info.
Obviously, there are complicated feelings between these two now, which will not become less complicated when both of them start investigating the murder. Not that Kyoko has much of a choice, for the killer, someone (something?) calling himself the Human Vapor (Uta), wants her – specifically - to interview him about his further plans.
Apparently, he uses practically supernatural powers in a quest for vengeance on a mysterious, influential group in the habit of using the weakest members of society as “human fuel”.
This Japanese/Korean co-production directed by Shinzo Katayama and written by Yeong Sang-ho (of Train to Busan fame) and Ryu Yong-jae does a very convincing job of adapting the Ishiro Honda classic to modern times and the demands of the streaming show form. Though, curiously enough, the filmmakers seem to do this through the lens and style of mangaka Naoki Urasawa, who has nothing whatsoever to do with the show, unless his way of storytelling fitting the streaming show form pretty perfectly.
Yet still, the structural approach, the use of flashbacks, even of classic Japanese rock, the character types used, even the show’s moments of very Japanese and genuinely endearing goofiness (let’s just say “bowling” so as not to spoil things), are so in tune with how the creator of 20th Century Boys and so on operates, one can’t help but wonder how and why this exact approach was chosen. Hell, the show even shares Urasawa’s tendency for cheap plot twist trick tactics based on first showing the audience only half of what actually happened in a scene. Which is okay when used with care, but does get a bit old when it happens in nearly every single episode.
On the plus side, the plot runs like clockwork, and many elements that seem like pointless asides to get the series to length – curse of streaming - will eventually turn out to be actually meaningful and important not just structurally but also thematically.
Speaking of themes, the show is driven by a genuine sense of righteous fury about the abuses and uses, possibly even existence, of power in ways tiny and huge. Men – and it’s invariably men – with power are all portrayed as grotesques, mostly having left their actual humanity behind when they started to convince themselves people without power are only there to be used at their whim, if they ever cared at all. Even the small fry bad guys are fucking weirdoes.
The cast is obviously pretty great. Aoi and Oguri of course so, the rest of the cast sometimes to my surprise. Everyone sells even the plot’s less plausible parts with conviction, and appears to do their outmost not to be made subservient to the plot twists, and instead make these twists actual parts of their characters and performances.
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