Ouroboros (2015)

For me, this is the biggest disappointment not only this season, but in years. When I heard about who would star in Ouroboros I was really happy. There were enough big names to make this one a real classic, instead we got horrendous storytelling and waste of real acting talent.

Here are some of my complaints:

*The flashbacks. They added absolutely nothing to the story, and the horrendous background music that played every time a flashback appeared made them unbearable to watch. There were also way too many flashbacks, and they didn't make me care about their sensei at all.

*Nothing really happened the first 4-5 episodes. The drama could have been halved without any effect on the storyline whatsoever.

*The acting was subpar. You'd think with all the talented actors they had you'd get some amazing performances, but no. Every single character was unlikable or just plain boring, the acting was very very over the top and shounen manga like. Just last year Oguri Shun had one of his best performances ever in Borders and now in Ouroboros he seemed like he didn't even care about acting. The acting was so so mediocre, bordering on bad.

*The general story. I feel like the story went nowhere. For the first half of the drama the two brothers were just chasing a villain of the week without getting any closer to solving the mystery. When we finally get closer to the truth everything gets brushed aside like it didn't matter. Everything happened so quickly in the end, and it just couldn't engage me at all.

This was a massive, massive disappointment. Oguri Shun, Ikuta Touma, and Ueno Juri are just too talented to be wasted on a garbage show like this.

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Ouroboros may sound like a simple story about 2 boys who met in the orphanage and set off to get revenge when their foster mother was killed right in front of them, however don’t be fooled by the simplicity of the summary because there’s more that this drama could offer. It has a dark humor hovering around the dialogues, violence, secrets within a secret and the never ending conspiracies from one another. It’s a twisty piece of work that would keep you on your toes, even though at times it is easy to guess who the culprit is, it still does not deter the mysterious death of some characters due to an underlying circumstances in every episode.

I knew what I was getting myself into when I started this drama and yet I still watched it until the very end. Though there were a lot of things in this series which I didn't like, there were MORE things which I found likable that it made up for the lack luster of what I was expecting. Another thing about the story line is the ending, it was great that the writers were not afraid to go into that kind of direction for the finale episode. It made me smile and cry at the same time.

The bonus point for me in this drama is the fact that Ikuta Toma and Oguri Shun are my Japanese Actor biases. Then add up Ueno Juri into the tandem, that makes it a perfect cast for me. They are a bunch of veterans and I felt the vibe of the whole drama along with the cast's chemistry. It was really something that these actors can pull off. One minute they are being all funny, then the next they're mad and then all of the sudden they're crying. It's like watching a whirl wind of emotions set to trap me in all those feels.

There were times though when they are set up in a ridiculous situation and have to give an over the top acting style (which is sometimes annoying) but they eventually redeem themselves with the dialogues and the funny inserts. But mostly, this drama is full of seriousness and has a heavy feel. It shows that every action has consequences and choices made whether it's right or wrong has its own ramifications. In the end Karma wins everything. I love how they explained what Ouroborus meant, it is actually an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The name originates from within Greek language; (oura) meaning "tail" and (boros) meaning "eating", thus "he who eats the tail" (excerpted from Crystalinks), in the drama they explained that it also meant life and death, the cycle of humans who lived then died and lived again.

Music wise, this OST really caught my attention. Hearing the sound track felt really familiar, it was as if I heard them before on several dramas. When I researched, Arashi's name came out. That' when I realized the music score felt like listening to Maou's OST which was also sang by Arashi. It was a really good music score which was attractive enough to fit the drama's tone.

Another thing that made this enjoyable was the political battles inside the police government and each department. It's fun seeing who's side would win and who along the way would be affected. Usually though due to these political strife the innocent becomes not so innocent due to grudges held. I want to say more but I'm holding myself off since I don't want to give spoiler alerts to anyone.

Last note: this drama has a minimal or almost none-existent romance along the story line so I would suggest for people to check out this drama if they are in the mood for the things I have mentioned above except for the romance part.

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Overall: Ouroboros is one of those dramas that was so good but could have been so much more. The music, the cast, the directing were all top-notch but the story fell short for me.

Characters/Acting: Ryuzaki Ikuo was well written character and I loved the meta-dialogue the script had going about his moral ambiguity. Ikuta Toma really outdid himself in this role imo. And he shined in the role and that's not an easy task when you're supported by actors like Ueno Juri and Oguri Shun. Oguri Shun had Danno Tatsuya down so well, down to minute details like the way Danno wore his glasses and his enunciation. It was a beautiful, subtle performance that was a great foil to Ikuta Toma's Ryuzaki. Ueno Juri was lovely as a detective and she radiated resilience and strength, so much so that I forgot that she was Ueno Juri. The rest of the assorted crew of detectives and not detectives were wonderful (esp Chouno I need more Chouno) and I loved the interplay of relationships.

Story: I love the characters and the relationships which to me was the most important part of the story. I felt as a whole that Ouroboros was more of a character study and while it was driven by its plot, the characters and the way they reacted to the buildup of events and how their relationships were impacted was more important than the bare-bones plot. I did love the progression of how the story unfolded but I wasn't always happy with the resolutions.

Bottom LIne: Give me a whole show about Ryuzaki/Danno bromance for the love of god

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OVERALL 8/10

STORY 7/10
The storyline isn't too original (Ueno Juri starred in Alice no Toge, which had a similar story line). And however predictable it may be, I thought it was still pretty good. There were enough twists and turns that kept me interested and wanting to know more. I really liked the writing of the characters. I couldn't for the life of me figure out who's good and who's bad, and that alone is interesting itself.
I was a little disappointed in the ending though. It was sort of a happy ending, but I didn't want it to end that way. I wanted the traditional happy ending... like Alice no Toge....

ACTING/CAST 10/10
The cast was just perfect. Actually, that was pretty much the only reason why i wanted to watch this, was because Shun, Toma and Ueno Juri were in it.
I think the one who stood out the most was Toma, because Ryuuzaki was the one who was wavering between good and bad, whereas the others were pretty much set in their ways. Shun and Juri were great though, as well as the other supporting characters!

MUSIC 6/10
Wasn't too memorable but it wasn't terrible either.

REWATCH 5/10
I don't normally watch detective dramas so I probably won't watch this again, especially now that I know the story. It is a good story with a lot of action and twists and turns.

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So this is the second Japanese drama that I watched that I fairly enjoyed. Every episode was different and it had the right amount of twists to last through all ten episodes.

I'm not familiar with the two main characters but they could grow on me.

Ikuta Toma had some serious fighting skills but I was kind of disappointed that he didn't fight a lot. Same with Oguri Shun. He started off bad a** but ended up looking like he never fought a day in his life.

Since finding out Korean dramas existed last year and getting hooked on that, I don't have too many favorite Korean actresses. They all seem to whine, be pretty, stupid and poor. In this drama I actually liked Ueno Juri. She had some good fighting skills. Was tough as nails and was just a regular typical female who didn't take no stuff. I was even surprised by Seino Nana. Her skills weren't shown until the end but I had to rewind her fighting scene as well.

I liked the chemistry this cast had. They got along like actual family and that made this more enjoyable to watch. Toma, though, this guy....he portrayed himself as a easy going dorky guy but when he was angry he was nothing to be messed with.

I get angry about Korea not knowing how to end their episodes but I was disappointed with the ending of this one. I guess I'm too nostalgic and want happy endings in everything I watch. The ending was on point even though it wasn't what I wanted but it was a good 10 episode watch for me.

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Well, since this drama was supposed to be based on a manga, I might try to look it up. Though, drama-verse... I felt that aside from the main plot that should have been taken from the manga; I felt that the drama plot was also slightly influenced by 2 other dramas of a similar theme. Well, it might just be due to a few of its main characters... but the more I get into the drama, I noticed that some of the plots also were slightly similar. It's probably intentional too when I thought about it. Since Hirosue Ryoko used to star in FujiTV's Triangle and Ikuta Toma was one of the leads in Maou, which was an adaptation from Mawang.

The plot was unpredictable, in terms of finding out the culprit/criminal... and the two main characters; Ikuo and Tatsuya were also not quite upright themselves. That... was in a way, similar to the way Triangle plot was set. But unlike Triangle, the roles of the main characters didn't change. In Triangle, the plot of a conspiracy within the police was also present... and the role of a victim, criminal and enforcer constantly changed as the truth slowly come out. But for Ouroboros, there wasn't that kind of dynamic yet there was something similar being used. While Ikuo and Tatsuya's role as the victim and avenge remain constant, the rest of the characters had a similar theme as with Triangle. The plot twist had a similar feel, in that, you can't be sure which character that you could trust, and which were the bad ones. And then, when the full truth was revealed, you'll be very unprepared.

Considering this drama was also a revenge drama, the connection to Maou was not that surprising. Yet, since Toma played Ikuo... and he's being placed beside Shun's Tatsuya, I suppose the scriptwriter can't help making the reference back to Maou. Since Maou was also quite a hit last time. For people who'd watched Mawang or Maou before, you could easily spot some familiar scene/plot twist. Like Maou, the ending was bittersweet. Yet like Triangle, there was a feeling of having a case closed properly as the criminal was brought to justice. It does feel nostalgic since I also loved both Triangle and Maou too.

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Ouroboros is a good drama with an excellent story and decent acting but unable to reach its full potential due to some problems with regard to storytelling. Hopefully this spoiler less review can help you decide whether this drama is worthy of your time.

Story
A policeman and a gangster work together to find the killer of their beloved teacher at the orphanage they grew up. Based on a popular manga (that I didn’t read), the story is both the best and the worst part of this drama.
The main characters are interesting with regard to whether their personalities are ‘good’, ‘bad’ or something in between. The story uses good symbolism, raises some interesting questions with regard to justice and ‘doing what is right’ and the ending was above average. However, there are some problems to be found with regard to the way the story is told:
-The beginning of the drama doesn’t really contribute to the overall story, whereas the latter episodes feel rushed. They could have allocated the story better over the 10 episodes.
- There are a lot of characters that are named but not really explored until they are revealed to have some secret. These shocking revelations did not have the impact they were supposed to have, simply because I didn’t care for these characters I only knew from face.
- Some secondary characters do not act logically but do what’s best for the plot, which often makes no sense at all and can be considered to be lazy writing. For instance, character X absolutely hates character Y and swears revenge, but when X gets the opportunity to take revenge he lets Y go without any good reason. Character W is trapped somewhere, but when W is able to communicate with character Z , W does not tell W’s location but haves some dramatic dialogue instead, which made no sense in that moment. There is an abundance of out-of-character writing that harms the great core story
- The abundance of flashbacks. Seeing the same scenes over and over gets a bit tiresome. Moreover, sometimes there are flashbacks to scenes that happened only minutes before. The flashbacks were overdone and made the show a bit melodramatic (although I guess some people like this).

Acting
The show has two excellent main leads who gave a good performance. Especially Oguri Shun was able to convincingly portray the dark side of the gangster whilst still being a character to root for. Ikuta Toma is also a great actor, but in this role he sometimes tends to overact in the more emotional scenes. Ueno Juri played her character well in most scenes, but was also struggling in some of the emotional scenes. With regard to the large supporting cast I only found Hirosue Ryoko (the sensei) and the child actor portraying Tacchan noteworthy.

Music
Although it is normal for Japanese drama’s to use the same dramatic song in every episode, it was used to many times in this drama (sometimes three times in one episode…) and wasn’t that great to begin with. The ending song of each episode (Arashi – Sakura) fitted the theme quite well.

Rewatch Value
Because this is mainly a detective show, the rewatch value is low. Of course you could watch it again to look for clues you might have missed the first time, but many ‘subtle’ clues were hard to miss.

To summarize, if you are interested in detectives/crime/bromance/drama than this is a very nice drama to watch, because it tells a very good story. However, the way the story is told is flawed and prevents this show from becoming great. It is still a good drama, but if you have high standards with regard to storytelling, you might want to consider to watch a different drama ?

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An exciting and thrilling drama starring none other than Oguri Shun and Ikuta Toma!!

A story which focused on ouroboros - the symbol of infinity through a snake chasing its own tail. Representing creation and destruction; birth and death.

I really enjoyed the symbol of the ouroboros in this drama, along with everything else this drama had to offer. It was thrilling, but also funny. It's a compelling drama following two friends - a police officer and yakuza - carrying out revenge for a person who was their family as a child. You couldn't help but love both the main characters. And of course, they made an amazing team when they had the chance to work together (undercover, of course), and they were quite an hilarious duo during these times.

Speaking of, both Oguri Shun and Ikuta Toma played their characters fantastically. It was definitely fun to seem them reunited on-screen after Hanazakari no Kimitachi e which was released in 2007. In that time they had obviously both matured as actors and their portrayals of their characters felt authentic and genuine in this drama which is a lot more serious than Hana Kimi. It was very obvious to see how much they cared for each other. Shun's character (Danno Tatsuya) treated Toma's character (Ryuuzaki Ikuo) like his younger brother whom he wanted to protect. And it was obvious Ikuo equally cared for him. It was really sweet but also sad during the times Tatsuya would get hurt because of how worried Ikuo would get. I also loved the contribution Ikuo's sense of smell would make. A pretty funny quirk.

I know some people were annoyed at the female lead, but she wasn't bad in my opinion. It's important to know that for the most part, she didn't know about Tatsuya and Ikuo's relationship for the most part. So, whilst I sometimes felt like she was getting in the way, she was doing what most people would do in that situation, especially as a police officer herself.

I also really liked how the other side characters contributed to the story. also, Ayana Go was also a character in the last few episodes and I was not expecting to see him, but it was nice to see him in this.

I find the plot quite hard to fault. Revenge is quite a popular troupe and this drama made it into my favourite revenge plot dramas. There were a few red herrings but I also felt the emotions Tatsuya and Ikuo would feel when they thought they were getting somewhere with a certain suspect.

I also found the ending fitting. That's all I will mention on that. I was pretty sad, but also relieved in a way.

Overall, a great drama which I definitely recommend for all the reasons mentioned above. It has easily become a new favourite of mine.

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