THE joker, THE joker

Who doesn't love a drama that's willing to start it off with their hero wetting his pants? Oh, and that that hero is also the main inspector. Then there's the tigress of ambition and gettin-the-job-done in small model form called Miyagi Asuka who tells off guys chatting her up solely on her looks and throws them unashamedly when they start puking?

Oh, God, I think I'm in love.

In a nutshell, Date is what Toma would be if her parents were murdered in front of her and she was forced to kill said murderer at the age of seveneightnine because he wouldn't shut up about their deaths being her fault. (Actually, I think Toma would be a lot more scary and a lot less quirky if that happened.) One thing about this actor is that he honestly has from the very moment he did that angelic I'm-so-useless dumb look thing, his character chilled me to the bone. When Date's interrogating someone, I honestly am like "HOW DO YOU SIT THERE WITHOUT PEEING YOUR PANTS THE WAY HE'S LOOKING AT YOU?" It's like he's an innocent cat assessing the bird who thinks he's too high up to be caught. He wants to get them down. To help them of course but he thinks they can do it themselves. Then they start chriping about how untouchable they are and when they actually get away, that's when Date's here-we-go-again look comes up. I love serial killers/psychopaths and Date has just been put on my growing list.

Someone asked what would happen if Toma and Date met: and I never want to know. Their smiles are equally creepy and so are their investigative skills (although Toma does have an unfair edge what with her paper-divination thing going on there). But honestly I wouldn't know. I'd be cheering for Toma though because I'd take a quirky psychopath over a saintly one any day.

Of course, Date's just the first in our threesome of crazy, quirky, ballsy and downright wicked psychos on this show. Our female psycho, Miyagi, is a BAMF who sometimes does get on my nerves with her recklessness but damn she doesn't take no for an answer. The scene where she intimidates Date into paying attention by smashing the window, at the end of episode one where she curses in a guy's bathroom and the one at the beginning of episode two where she tackled a guy to the ground and nearly arrested him culminated into my now throbbing girl crush.

Talking about the guy who crushes on Miyagi and gives her helpful creepy hints and smiles at her in his own skeevy way, let me introduce our last sociopath: Kudo. If not for his drool-worthiness looks and yeah-I-know-what-you're-looking-at charisma, I'm pretty sure I would have been like "WHOA, Show, WHOA. Creepiness factor just blasted through the roof right there!" But because he can smile and be skeevy, cunning, hilarious and creepy-sweet/helpful, I have to concede that he doesn't reach that mark. Well, hasn't yet.

I just want to know HOW DID THE OFFICERS GET THEIR DEGREES? I get that it's to make Date look much more observant despite the whole I'm-a-little-dense schtick but do they not teach how to look at details in Japanese police academy? Speaking of details, the only thing that's disappointing about the drama is the mysteries. OK so it's not SPEC in terms of WTFness yet but I was hoping for something that would make me think a little more instead of how they did it. American shows are bad enough with their thinly constructed plotlines, scattered red herrings and handful of deus ex machinas. I want a show whose mysteries can compete with Sherlock and just surprise me at every term.

But in any case just after 3 episodes JOKER is setting up to be a rollercoster ride of guns, tranquilizers and the occasional stabbing with a mild dosing of sleeping drugs. I'm off to rot my brain, children!