Newbie lawyer Junko Aoto (Erika Todo) lands a job at top Tokyo law firm Friedman & Serizawa, working as the assistant to founding partner Gou Serizawa (Koichi Sato) no less. Later that same day she is bowing in effusive thanks to the enigmatic Kei Enomoto (Satoshi Ono), a hi-tech locksmith working for Tokyo Total Security, who has just freed her boss from an airtight bank fault... into which, an hour or so earlier, she had inadvertently locked him.
Thus the viewer is in at the beginning of the association of the three protagonists who form the unlikely team that will investigate a series of 'locked room' murders for the duration of this entertaining series of mysteries with comedic elements.
Each episode essentially consists of a client approaching Serizawa or Aoto with a locked room murder mystery that the police have either deemed to be suicide or misadventure. At first Serizawa's business instinct is to dismiss the requests as non-profitable but he is always overruled by Aoto's youthful enthusiasm and conscience and, indeed, his own curiosity and ennui with his professional life. As the series progresses and the cases attain a certain celebrity, the vain Serizawa becomes caught up in his burgeoning media status as the 'locked room lawyer' and ends up outstripping Aoto in his eagerness to take the cases.
In reality, it is the self-effacing technician Enomoto who actually figures out the facts of each case and supplies the evidence that allows Aoto to construct a case against the true culprits and Serizawa to further his own standing and that of his firm.
Shows with this kind of fixed premise can seem a little formulaic (especially when binge-watched) but, like (e.g.) the BBC's Jonathan Creek, it's the variety and ingenuity of the actual mysteries that engage the viewers' attention. In addition, the comic interaction of the vain and often hypocritical Serizawa (not dissimilar to Creek's Adam Klaus), the anxious and excitable Aoto and the utterly deadpan boffin-like Enomoto makes for a very diverting hour's viewing.
As the series draws to a close, Enomoto's back story emerges and paves the way for a follow up feature length special, broadcast a couple of years after the series, in which a few loose ends are tidied up.
Thus the viewer is in at the beginning of the association of the three protagonists who form the unlikely team that will investigate a series of 'locked room' murders for the duration of this entertaining series of mysteries with comedic elements.
Each episode essentially consists of a client approaching Serizawa or Aoto with a locked room murder mystery that the police have either deemed to be suicide or misadventure. At first Serizawa's business instinct is to dismiss the requests as non-profitable but he is always overruled by Aoto's youthful enthusiasm and conscience and, indeed, his own curiosity and ennui with his professional life. As the series progresses and the cases attain a certain celebrity, the vain Serizawa becomes caught up in his burgeoning media status as the 'locked room lawyer' and ends up outstripping Aoto in his eagerness to take the cases.
In reality, it is the self-effacing technician Enomoto who actually figures out the facts of each case and supplies the evidence that allows Aoto to construct a case against the true culprits and Serizawa to further his own standing and that of his firm.
Shows with this kind of fixed premise can seem a little formulaic (especially when binge-watched) but, like (e.g.) the BBC's Jonathan Creek, it's the variety and ingenuity of the actual mysteries that engage the viewers' attention. In addition, the comic interaction of the vain and often hypocritical Serizawa (not dissimilar to Creek's Adam Klaus), the anxious and excitable Aoto and the utterly deadpan boffin-like Enomoto makes for a very diverting hour's viewing.
As the series draws to a close, Enomoto's back story emerges and paves the way for a follow up feature length special, broadcast a couple of years after the series, in which a few loose ends are tidied up.
