story and characters
Professor Yukawa is hot. He likes climbing,
He's good at cooking, too.
And just coincidentally he happens to be smart.
You can tell, right?
I'm not sure if it's really important to write all those formulas when you think about a way to perform some sort of crime, but well, like I said, professor Yukawa is hot. In case you haven't understood yet, he has always been smart, since his young days.
And the criminals can be widely sorted to two groups: losers who lose to professor's smartness and good people who committed a crime while having some good intentions. The boss is such a good man! We can't do without him!
Unlike the TV series, the full-length movies were more serious about crime-handling and the motivations, reflections, reasons and conclusions were much more human and understandable.
And here is our hot professor not understanding how can feelings make a person do something like that. I'd say this moment was really impressive.
Even still, I was not completely satisfied with the second movie. It was too much trying to force some tears out of me, and when that kind of intention is so visible I don't really appreciate it.
Before watching the series I only saw ms Kobasaki in one drama where she was awful (same goes for the story itself, which is the real problem, I guess). However, in 'Galileo' she was brilliant. Her young and passionate detective was a good match for the cold professor.
*nods* me too.
It was a great pleasure to see that their characters were getting along so well, even after they were separated by the merciless world of the Japanese cinema.
It actually took me a good hour to understand what happened with the story. Sometimes I hate that vagueness of the Japanese language that does not say anything straightforward. So, this is what happened: the original partner of the professor was detective Kusanagi, but under the writer's consent he was replaced by a female detective to 'add flowers to the story'. That's what Japanese wiki says literally.
After the writer saw how good the story looks with a female lead, he introduced her to the story and made all the following stories center on Utsumi-Yukawa pair, while ms Kobasaki apparently became engaged with some other project and could not lend her hand to season 2, which is why her character was made to go to the US and finally, Utsumi was replaced with Kishitani. At least that's what I guess. I don't think she would simply reject the offer if she were asked to participate in season 2.
And this is where the tragedy starts. I was against that idea from the very beginning, but somewhere I understood I have no right to criticise the story simply because one actress was replaced by another. However, my friend expressed my feelings even better than me, when I told her what happened. She said: 'they just replace one person with another, and what do they hope for? To replay the same tricks that were used in the first season again, but with a different character?'
In fact, I read some comments that Kishitani is a good character in her own right, and I almost calmed myself and decided I'll give it a try and watch her as a completely different character with her own style... But then you know, it just did not happen. Nope.
acting
But that's an aspect that leans on acting greatly. The problem is, the cute Yoshitaka Yuriko was trying to make those cute faces all the time or express her emotions, which is obviously not her strong side.
The only thing she managed to do properly was this:
And in the full-length movie she suddenly starts wearing makeup....?
If there were any reasons for me to watch 'Galileo' at first, there were two. The first one looks like this
Well, through the course of the second season it turned out there is one more reason to enjoy the series. It looks like this
In face, miss Amami is who made the second season so enjoyable.
Unlike Yoshitaka, Shibasaki, who was such a terrible sight in 'Marumaru Tsuma', was so natural and interesting that I'd give her five out of five. I really enjoyed her face expressions throughout the series.
Mr Fukuyama was very natural in portraying the weird professor. Even though he was made to write all that nonsense on doors, windows, tables and all kinds of flat surfaces with any possible tool that is available at the moment, he did a good job. He and Shibasaki made me think about this wonderful thing: 'chemistry'. I don't know how we live in Russia without such a word in our language that could express that special kind of interaction that exists between two actors or fails to exist, thus making the whole story either enjoyable or not. After watching 'Galileo' I think I can say I wish Fukuyama and Shibasaki acted together from that moment and forever.
If you ask me who were my favourites, I'd say: Watanabe Ikkei as the unfortunate assistant, who was always making my day when he was with Utsumi (and not when with Kishitani),
'The worst actress' Oscar goes to Aoi Yu. She was so explicit and desperate to show the ambivalent nature of her actress that it was almost unpleasant to look at her.
music
Even though the composer is the famous Yugo Kanno, and Fukuyama himself lent his hand (with a guitar in it) to the soundtrack, I wouldn't praise the OST too much. The ending themes by KOH+ were unimpressive, too. However, I'm saying that because I wouldn't want to listen to the OST after I've watched the show. The background music was good as background music.
conclusion
Like I said to my friend when I started watching, the Japanese just don't have the genes that are responsible for creating good detective stories. To be serious, I'm not an expert in detective stories either, but I've read some classical ones and I can say for sure that Japanese 'mystery' shows don't have any mystery in them. Even though you don't know who the criminal is, you don't even want to know, and you don't suspect anyone, and you don't predict anything, because it's meaningless, the truth uncovered would not present an answer to your questions or explain your predictions. It will just state how the crime had been committed, in case of 'Galileo' - involving some physics. But that aspect is also lacking... you know...
SRSLY???
Of course, like in any other Japanese mystery, the most important is not the crime and the criminal, but the fact that
1. the criminal did it out of his love to someone, so he's not such a bad guy, or
2. the victim was such a good person but what a pity we learn it only after he or she is dead
and everybody's like
Even though I am so skeptical about Japanese mystery dramas, 'Galileo' is one of the best of them, and not because it's a mystery but because it's so funny. At least in the beginning.
p. s.
Oh well, in case Fukuyama and accidental Kitamura are not enough, there's some naked Katori Shingo for you.
Oh well, in case Fukuyama and accidental Kitamura are not enough, there's some naked Katori Shingo for you.
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