#Kurosagi music series#
Women who worship Yamashita Tomohisa will be pleased that there’s plenty of fan service here including a hilariously overwrought first five minutes of the series where the actor in question is lying half-naked on a field of grass before turning to face directly into the camera almost as if to invite his fans to come along with him – this scene alone will have fan girls swooning in their seats while every heterosexual male cringes at the over-abundance of male testosterone. This subplot drives most of the drama as Kurosaki attempts to piece together the events that led to his family’s fateful demise and though it can’t replace the lack of a primary villain of equal stature to Kurosaki it adds intrigue that lasts right up to the final episode. As the series progresses it’s revealed that there is in fact a mastermind behind the scenes but his overall motives are never completely revealed.
Without a compelling master villain the show attempts to compensate by molding a rather sordid back-story for Kurosaki that shows how his family was destroyed by swindlers leading to their deaths. It’s no help that Yamashita Tomohisa’s various disguises are more appropriate for Halloween parties as it is glaringly obvious that no matter what he wears he appears totally conspicuous. There’s no doubt that Kurosaki’s ability to swindle money from crooks lies at the heart of the series but when each plan he concocts seems too infantile the show loses a lot of steam. While the audience can more or less forgive some of these, the fact remains that as the episodes progress the antagonists seem to become even lighter in mental capacity as the schemes become more and more outrageous. In short, only a mere brain-dead babbling brook of a villain will ever fall for Kurosaki’s double crosses. Yet this surprising levity is a double-edged sword as each episode careens wildly between moments of melodrama and those of sheer futility usually emanating from the ridiculously childish plot devices that are meant to show Kurosaki’s swindling skills.
#Kurosagi music movie#
In fact Kurosagi feels much more like a toned down Pink Panther movie crossed with the Italian Job making many episodes feel inherently light and breezy. Yet the audience can more or less forgive this fact since the show maintains a relatively brisk pace with a quirky tongue in cheek atmosphere which is refreshing considering the serious machinations of the plot that would seem more appropriate for a dark and brooding drama. Don’t expect a Robert DeNiro level of performance though as the costumes only really change Yamashita Tomohisa’s visual appearance and though he tries his best to vary his voice it’s not entirely convincing.
One of the hottest young actors of his generation Yamashita Tomohisa certainly can make young girls swoon and the show is an almost perfect fit for his relaxed (some might say absent) acting style by giving him ample opportunity to don multiple disguises. At the same time Kurosaki is continuously pursued by the cops in the form of detective Kashima Masaru (Aikawa Sho) who will stop at nothing in bringing Kurosaki down. Eventually he saves a cute girl named Yoshikawa Tsurara (Horikita Maki) who is revealed to be studying to become a lawyer to eventually use the system to bring criminals to justice. Traumatized from an early age by a swindler who led to his father going crazy and killing his own family, Kurosaki sets out with the help of his mentor, Katsuragi Toshio (Yamazaki Tsutomu), to take down his opponents while returning their stolen money to select clients each of whom has suffered greatly due to the loss of their assets. The show’s formulaic format does eventually wear out its welcome as subplots begin to grind as the season progresses yet there’s enough here to recommend especially if you are a fan of either leads, Yamashita Tomohisa and Horikita Maki who make the rote narratives more enjoyable than they should be.īased on the bestselling Kurosagi manga by Natsuhara Takeshi the show chronicles the title character Kurosaki (Yamashita Tomohisa) who has made it his life’s work to destroy all the swindlers in the world.
Kurosagi (The Black Swindler) is an amusing Japanese drama that dares to be a bit different by following Western television series that focus on episodic storylines instead of serialized plots that weave through the whole season.