BAD BOYS J mid-season impressions

With any luck I'll be done with this series next week and hope that maybe I can actually catch up with my backlog.

It is a bit frustrating watching this drama as there are parts that I do like and enjoy and the ones I do not should not be enough for me to stop that enjoyment but I cannot help but think "mess" when I try to sum up the issue. And it is because I do not believe the pieces of the show really come together well enough to make it feel cohesive. Things come up that are not really explained until the plot needs them to be and then there is the issue of Kiriki Tsukasa (Nakajima Kento) whose goals do not fit in with the gang he is stuck in at all and it feels like a complete stretch to figure out why he is not trying to find a way to get out of his leader role as it looks like he could care less about being the top gang in Hiroshima. Also it is hard to root for that goal as it seems all you get is bragging rights to being the top group which is far from a noble goal. This drama needs a much larger plot to tie it together as without that it is just a mess.

And now that I have all that out for now I will go over the main points of the things that jump out at me. One of the biggest is that Tsukasa still has a characterization that swings all over the place. He is not so much a wimp by mid-season but he goes from haplessly lovelorn to typical shounen hero pretty much whenever a seen calls for it. And even though we got some of his back story there is simply a lot that just does not seem to connect with the character.

Even though there are two episodes given for Beast's introduction there is very little seen of the gang's leader Danno Hidenori (Nikaido Takashi). Like most of the characters in the series he suffers from a lack of characterization so it is hard to guess at Nikaido's acting skills as there is so little he has been asked to do with the role.

Hashimoto Ryosuke on the other hand has fared better with Hiro getting more scenes to show his personality. Or at least proving that he has one. And Hasshi does well with the role, but that is probably because it is a role that he just seems suited for with being able to look cool but having a fun and sometimes goofy side to him as well.

Honestly I would have loved the series if it was about Sato Erika (Triendl Reina)  and how she is the secret number 1 of the entire city. Seriously, she is Boss and steals all the scenes she is in.


So overall I am iffy on the series. There are parts that are truly enjoyable but they get bogged down with how messy the series overall comes over with one dimensional characters and no real sense of a bigger picture everything is connected to that will lead us to whatever the final story arc will be.