spsn | Strawberry Night SP ~ ストロベリーナイト SP (Reply)

Farewell 2011 and welcome 2012! In doramaland, we're celebrating the start of 2012 Winter Season. Off course, I've been sidetracked a lot by the amount of variety SPs that's been airing and each one of them took 2-3 hours of my time (you know which ones I watched LOL). Well, I didn't plan to watch Strawberry Night at the beginning as I have no idea what this drama is about besides it's Takeuchi Yuko's, yes, I love her but her roles that I've watched are all the feminine type of ladies so I can't imagine her being a firm law enforcer. But doramaland apparently didn't like my attitude for this drama, hence I coincidentally stumbled upon the Strawberry Night SP posting on our-hour and the phrase saying to watch this SP first before the drama starts intrigues me.Don't ask me why I got curious over such a common sentence because I also don't know the answer until now. But I know I will surely follow the drama after this SP :D for various reason.

This drama is about a case where a dead body was found on the side of the lake tidily roped in blue sheet and the body is has cuts on the neck and stomach as well glasses all over the chest. Could this be a serial killer case? Himekawa Reiko's team was assigned to this case and later on, along with another team led by her arc enemy, Iron Gun, worked hard to find the mastermind. During the investigation a website called Strawberry Night (hence the drama title) came to a limelight. What this website was about and what's the connection to this case? As more bodies were popping around the corner, the police were pressed to solve this case quickly. Himekawa herself, though now standing tall as the only female section chief in the Tenth Homicide Section of the Metropolitan Police’s First Investigative Division, had gone through a tough journey to get to where she was and still struggling sometimes with her traumatic past.

For those who like to think and ponder while watching anything, you probably can figure out the culprit before the last few scenes. But I watched this drama without any thoughts or even read any synopsis or review (to be honest, I ended up watching this drama just because of Takeuchi Yuko), just follow the flow of the drama itself. And I was caught by surprise as to who's the culprit of this whole case. This is one of the mystery drama that your questions get answered almost immediately after it pops in your mind. How the drama convey that answers? To me, I found them from Himekawa's way of thinking out loud. She's muttering keywords by keywords and try to link them together, and somehow you'll get it within split second, as in 'oooo soudesuka' or 'masaka!!' before the next scene appears. I find that to be quite interesting and that's why 2 hours feels quite fast.

Acting wise? There are lots of veteran actors here, including the beloved Kinpachi Sensei, so you won't feel any disappointment in this department. But how about the heroine's which is my concern at the beginning. Well, I'm quite satisfied because to the very least I now can see that Takeuchi Yuko can pull off a kakkoii look as well, though still cannot beat BOSS's Amami Yuki (the coolest character, ever), but Takeuchi has her own charm. Maybe this is due to Himekawa's past, but I find that Himekawa is very humane especially when dealing with her staffs. She treats her subordinates with enough discipline that they all scared of her but at the same time respect her big time to the point working harder so that their boss not to be sad. I particularly like the scene where Himekawa's mom is trying to reason with her why she missed her omiai and Himekawa's exploding in anger/frustration/sadness that she's trying very hard to forget, working very hard to live and she's succeeding but her mom keeps on reminding her what she's worked so hard to forget (try my best not to spoil the drama), and after she left, the mom's sobbing quietly. I can feel both side's emotion and even feel like crying with the mom because it must be heartbreaking and frustrating for a mother not being able do anything and only can just watch her daughter breaking down and fighting by herself to live. And as for Himekawa herself, we've seen these over and over in drama, but Takeuchi's interpretation in expressing Himekawa's emotion gets me. Another angst for Himekawa is when she was told that one of her staff is dead (not going any further, I spill enough, but can't help it, it's my fave scene, so deal with it :p). Her grieve, regret towards her staff and her anger for the culprit mix together yes, it's normal to act like that, we're only human and humans react strongly to the stuff that they care about. The ones that I find to be weird are those who yelled at Himekawa to pull herself together. Is the drama try to show that men are cool, always on rational state while women are emotional? Hmm, interesting ne...

So, Strawberry Night is no way a comedy drama, but judging from the SP? I'll be sure to watch! Am pretty sure Iron Gun will be extra sneaky and annoying as hell in the drama (we still love you Kinpachi Sensei though), and I'll cheer Himekawa, ganbatte! Am looking forward to this more than Lucky Seven actually (gomen ne Jun, but I'll definitely watch your drama, promise) haha....