BORDER

A good solid series, a bit formulaic at times for me, but entertaining to watch nonetheless. Be warned, the cliffhanger at the end of ep 9 leads into the SP, so the series isn’t fully complete story-wise without watching the SP also!

this show will make you think it invented slow-motion footstepping. that’s it. that’s my take-away.

detective gets shot in the head, sees dead people, and oh––the director really loves the echo and pseudo-dramatic flair of slowed-down footsteps. in other words: mediocrity. which is disappointing, because this had the potential to be more interesting than it is. in the end, this show is more about strict black and white morality with Ishikawa becoming so reliant on his newfound “gift” that he is beginning to edge across the *ahem* border of what’s just and unjust. no grey zone exists? although the Shokuzai SP expands on this, it needed to come earlier in the storyline.

in any case, Ishikawa is a dog with a broken nose. he doesn’t solve a thing on his own, and that’s a little bit sad for a detective! and if this weren’t an issue, there’s still the matter of a rather odd script. pick at Netflix’s subtitles all you want, but the English is just as weird as the Japanese at times. if the translator(s) wanted to make some of the dialogue less awkward, they would have been writing a different script.

Kind of mediocre for me.