Orthros no Inu

Once upon a time, in a remote village now submerged in dam water, there was a prophecy that two boys shall be born with supernatural powers-- one with the hand of God, the other, with the hand of the Devil. It was also said that if they met, one would destroy the other and so everything happened as foretold, in addition to having them compared to the dog Orthros...

So I'm a year behind because I waited for the Nya release to be completed. It's a bad habit but I like having a matching set, plus, I tend to be loyal to a fansub group's project. A lot of people have probably seen this by now so I doubt if I'll even come close to ruining this show for anyone. Have tried my best to keep this spoiler free but boy, is this going to be tricky. Oh, and don't be surprised if this review sprouts a crazy explanation as to why this drama was entitled after the dog, Orthrus... let's just say that the darned thing came to me in a dream. 

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Aoi Ryosuke (Nishikido Ryo) is a kind-hearted sensei who comes from a good family and is well-liked by everybody. His concern for his students goes beyond the ordinary, so when one of them turns up in a coma after confiding a drug-related incident to him, Ryosuke takes it upon himself to discover the culprit. This leads him to a rave party where he encounters undercover cop Hasebe Nagisa (Mizukawa Asami) in the hands of a syndicate of young pushers led by Kumakiri Masaru (Yaotome Hikaru).

Seeing the detective in danger, Ryosuke steps into the fray, unleashing his power to kill with a single touch and so Nagisa's assailant falls dead with nary a bruise or scratch.

The coroner's report lists the cause of death as a heart attack but Nagisa is partially convinced that it is of supernatural origin. Having witnessed this one act of "divine retribution", Nagisa can't help but explore the possibility that Ryosuke could have committed other crimes without having ever been found guilty. This preoccupation with the "Devil's hand" coincidentally leads her to another case which involves convicted felon, Ryuzaki Shinji (Takizawa Hideaki), who's on death row for killing three of his buddies. So Nagisa pays Shinji a visit at the Kanto Central Prison expecting to find someone who has the same power as Ryosuke, only to find the opposite. This man possessed the "Hand of God", with the power to heal any wound or illness with his touch.

This discovery combined with Nagisa's curiosity brings about the fateful meeting of two individuals who would proceed to use their powers arbitrarily, both debating the merits of acting in accordance to what one perceives is just and in keeping with his morality.

Together, Ryosuke and Shinji make for a fearful symmetry, whose powers entice people to behave irrationally. And it's in this easily corruptible world that the two face off to fulfill a prophecy; consequently testing the limits of humanity in the course of trying to discover their place in society.

Life and death. Good and evil. Light and shadow.

Orthros no Inu is a drama that's desirous in portraying a dichotomy-- one so old and so grave that it no doubt piqued the interest of many and raised anticipation of a story that would depict an epic showdown between dueling opposites. However, as the series progressed, the drama revealed itself to be something else completely. Going against everyone's expectations, Orthrus no Inu didn't deliver the promised war between diametrical forces [if one were to go by the media spiel], nor did it tell the tale of an upstanding protagonist going up against his ultimate nemesis. Instead, it focused on man's overwhelming desire to exercise control over life and death; attempting to depict how this said power was so seductive as to compel man to waiver upon his moral standing.

True to its title, this summer feature's more of an aberration, a curious offspring of an intriguing premise and an underdeveloped plot which failed to live up to its potential despite its heavy [and sometimes off-tangent] use of symbolism and labored disquisition on man and his primordial fear of mortality. Orthros no Inu is, in all respects, a haphazardly done allegory, a confluence of lofty ideas that never got fully translated onscreen. It tries to be too many things-- a supernatural drama, a psychological thriller, a fusion anime feature and a modern day fairy tale for those faint of heart, all without having a strong and tight knit narrative to break through its citadel of pseudo-intellectual musings.

As a drama that boasts of having two characters that personify the ancient forces of good and evil, Shinji and Ryosuke never really come off as contenders out to play for keeps, not even when the whole world was said to be theirs for the taking. They were veritable gods in a world which they knew very little of and understood much less. Two people who happen to be as lost and confused as the people they came in contact with, with one being a sheltered orphan, the other, a celebrated freak. Both were searching for meaning in their lives; both acting under the mistaken notion that they knew what drove men to surrender to his failings. 

Orthros no Inu takes its viewers on a journey as Ryosuke and Shinji match wits and trade powers in furtherance of a game where the rules are not set and the prize is shrouded in mystery. It's a much ballyhooed meeting that's slightly made interesting by the yet-to-be-discovered reason behind what drives Shinji to taunt and tease Ryosuke into playing a game that would test his moral judgment and will. Much of this show's allure is finding out who will emerge victorious in the end, unfortunately, this is where Orthros no Inu makes an academic bait-and-switch, as the awaited encounter that was slated to alter the course of man's destiny never really come to being.

Writers Aoki Mao, Kobayashi Yuji, Ito Takashi, Kunii Kei and Kato Kohei, who worked as a team in developing this story akin to the style of an American-made series, were so intent on misleading their audience in preparation for a big reveal, that they ended up losing them completely. At one point a typical good versus evil story, this drama immediately became victim to a series of plot twists and character developments that had no sound basis. Even the relationship between Shinji and Ryosuke was limited to tepid exchanges that served no other purpose than to announce a player's next move. It's rife with portentous dialogue and superfluous references [in particular, King Midas and the white queen], as if the writers were more than eager to impress people with literary calisthenics and obscure visual aids.

This is one of those cases wherein a viewer can easily discern the illustrious design behind the story, problem is, there are missing details in the sequence of events that cannot be made up by the show's holier-than-thou atmosphere, skewed camera shots or half-baked philosophical grumblings. As a drama that aims to discuss the duality of good and evil, not to mention all the gray areas that reside in between, Orthros no Inu comes off soft and spineless because it treads lightly on the fact that man is capable of doing unspeakable things-- regardless of whether he's backed into a corner or soaring to new heights, for as long as fear, desperation or ambition gets the best of him.

Now the beauty of doing a project under this genre is that it makes it easy for writers to highlight an aspect of the human condition. By setting up a story wherein characters are made to experience outlandish and extreme situations, a specific truth or message can easily be imparted to viewers. Orthros no Inu pretty much has the same function. It's the writers' way of making a statement on human nature by doing a controlled and virtual form of social experimentation. It just so happened in this case that Shinji and Ryosuke were not the subject of discourse, but rather the people around them who [ironically] got very little attention and exposition. The two boys and their powers were nothing more than variables, catalysts even, in a make-believe world where a battle is going on. And this battle rages on within man alone.

The power to dictate who lives and dies attracts both the proud and the desperate and so this touted battle between good and evil turns out to be more of an internal struggle than a physical one, with each supporting character making a value assessment of what he has to gain or lose if he were to desire/accept what Shinji and Ryosuke have to offer. This much is exemplified by the wife who's unwilling to give up her life of luxury for her dying husband; the politician (Takahata Atsuko) and her campaign contributor (Shiba Toshio) who would resort to any scheme to get the former to higher office; the scientist (Oshinari Shugo) who would discard a long-term relationship for a chance at doing groundbreaking research; a husband (Yamamoto Ryuji) that would hold someone hostage just to cure his wife; a father (Hirata Mitsuru) who would abandon his son out of fear and ignorance... the list goes on and on, it's just a pity that the concept was not executed properly.

What's disappointing about it is that the show submits itself to a number of clichés inherent to the genre without even trying to push things to the extreme. Betrayal comes in the form of a phone call, asthma is overly dramatized as a fatal disease and danger is embodied by a man (Sasaki Kuranosuke), who fancies himself to be the reincarnation of Hercules. There's absolutely nothing in this series to ratchet up tension, there's nothing that would truly shock anyone to his core, most of all, nothing to incur controversy or righteous indignation. In this respect, it fails to garner interest over the moral dilemmas presented because the characters in it were used more as plot devices than actual representations of real human beings. Furthermore, not enough doubt is cast upon the motives of its two deified beings; their moral compass never even come dangerously close to losing its true north. It doesn't have the same impact as the Death Note movies in showcasing the slow descent of a man who thought himself immune to the laws dictated by society nor does it have the gritty realism of Battle Royale's view on how man acts according to his survival instinct. Heck, even Garo, which was a late-night tokusatsu, had a better grasp of human avarice and the compound horrors that accompany it.

For all its faults, what this drama did in terms of conveying its theme of duality can be found all throughout the series. Even though the characters in it never really spoke of the good and evil sides of humanity, this duality that exists in man, in so far as he has the capacity for both, is reflected and brought out by the powers possessed by Ryosuke and Shinji. In effect, the title Orthros no Inu (derived from the two-headed dog Orthrus, who guarded Geryon's herd of red cattle in Greek mythology) merely underscores this theme. It's just the writers' fancy way of saying that Ryosuke and Shinji's power over life and death were two sides of the same coin, a double-edged sword, not unlike the Aesculapius staff in the charm and stone marker that figured prominently in all the episodes. And while it can be argued that not much can be gained from examining the actual myth, interestingly enough, the idea of this monster in the form of Orthrus, also ties in with Shinji and Ryosuke's realization that the mere existence and use of their powers, no matter what the cause, produce or constitute one and the same being. What it seems to want to impart in all this, but failed to demonstrate effectively, is that man, with all his faults and insecurities, including his desire to change the natural order of things, has the uncanny ability to be the monster in the story. He's basically one creature that has two distinct forces that tug and pull at him constantly.

The symbolic references in Orthros no Inu are by no means a perfect fit, but that didn't stop its writers from jamming it with clues and visuals that inevitably give away its ending. This is one pretentious series that can't help but collapse under the weight of its conceit. It's like the boob tube equivalent of a student who's bluffing his way through the classics, reinforcing his thesis statement with a bunch of Greek and Judeo-Christian pastiche. The sheer magnitude of its theme forced its writers to resort to exhibiting material that they could not account for in terms of the story's narrative. There was more show than they could manage to tell, as the writers kept on embellishing scenes with arcane references and gratuitous touches, such as the depiction of Shinji as a fallen angel whose faith in humanity has been shaken; the inclusion of a singer named Ray who rises up to sing about love and hope, the melody of the chorus being another recording of Nessun dorma by Giacomo Puccini; the inexplicable reference to Nagisa as the white queen; a laughable re-imagining of a scene that was clearly ripped off from Hanibal Lecter and Clarice Starling's first meeting; and perhaps most telling of all, the exhibition of Gustave Moreau's Oedipus and the Sphinx in Shinji's glass encased digs. If one were to delve into the origin of the painting and take time to examine it as seen by its artist and the academe, this print, while seemingly placed in random, coincides with this drama's overall theme. It's an artistic metaphor of man's ongoing struggle to come to grips with his mortality, with emphasis on the trappings of the earthly realm as represented by a female monster that cajoles and seduces him to submit to his desires and fears. This added symbol is rather illuminating, but without any proper discussion or direct reference thereto, the whole thing can be easily dismissed as another trivial thing.

For a drama that has a treasure trove of symbols, Orthros no Inu is more of a goulash of ideas whose main theme and import got buried in the drama. Its writers were hard-pressed to impart a central message but never really got around to guiding their viewers to directly come across it. With ragged pacing and an an array of scenes that did nothing but open it to further mockery, this series struggled from start to finish to tell a cohesive story. As a supernatural thriller, it fails to tap into the darkness that dwells deep within the human psyche, especially considering that all the characters in it give in to temptation only temporarily. No stark contrast between those who fall from grace and keep the faith was ever established-- the only exception being those at the end of their tether and the children, who remained pristine. Just about everything was sugar-coated, like extra care and attention was placed in keeping the whole thing P.G. [Its overall treatment was so wholesome that Tackey's ero-ero dance might as well have been categorized as something for general viewing.]

One of the show's saving grace is the sporadic use of anime clips in lieu of taping a live-action version of the back-story. This provided the audience a break from the dull moments that plagued this series, sometimes it even looked better than the actual scenes. It even makes one wonder why they never thought of doing Orthros no Inu as an anime series. Plot holes the size of Texas would have been easily forgiven had this thing been an animated television series. In any case, the animation certainly beat out all those times that the two main characters had to stare at their open hand with furrowed brow, or the parts where Shinji had to raise his hand in ceremony like some charismatic leader or faith healer who's acknowledging a crowd.

Takizawa Hideaki as the jaded and mysterious Shinji had the right look for the role but none of the acting ability to fool people into believing that he's one potentially dangerous and menacing entity. The only way he would even come close to looking scary is if they shaved all his hair and applied botox sparingly. He interpreted Shinji as a poker-faced god who looked upon the world indifferently, his features gave away nothing and that affected the drama's more crucial scenes. Nishikido Ryo, on the other hand, looked sufficiently distraught as the mild-mannered sensei turned one-touch killing machine. He dressed the part and even made for one agreeable hero but his acting has not improved much since his earlier outing, playing reserved and brooding characters in dramas such as Ichi Rittoru no Namida and Attention Please. Completing this uninspired trio is Mizukawa Asami whose turn as as tough undercover cop and single mother to little Mio was less than convincing. As a mother to a sick child, it didn't make sense to spend so much of her time acting rashly even when she's not required to be on duty. In Orthrus no Inu, it was clear that it might take quite a while before Asami can effectively portray the role of a mother, which is why the young newcomer Kumada Sea stole more than her share of scenes. It's actually this child actor who shined brightly all throughout the series, quietly holding her own against Ryo... even Tackey.

So why bother watching Orthros no Inu? Well, supernatural dramas of this sort are a rare occurrence. The last one that comes to mind was 2008's Nanase Futatabi. And believe it or not, half of the fun of watching this convoluted series is taking part in unraveling what its writers probably intended as this profound and mentally engaging mystery, even when at the end of the day, the whole thing just turned out to be a show about two under performing Johnnies.

Categories: Japanese Drama, NIshikido Ryo, Reviews, Takizawa Hideaki