CRISIS: Special Security Squad

"Crisis: Kôan Kidô Sôsatai Tokusô-han" is a series that tries to balance two different worlds: action/thriller and social criticism. It fails on both accounts, but the efforts keep the proceedings interesting enough.

We have a secret team of five agents (played by always-cool Shun Oguri, steel-eyes Hidetoshi Nishijima, I-always-play-the-boss-in-these- procedurals Tetsushi Tanaka, I-am-the-weird-character Toru Nomaguchi and they-needed-a-woman-in-the-team Yuko Araki) that has been put together for these 'special' cases that the regular police cannot take care of. Curiously for so special a team, the episodes normally center on them trying to catch teenagers frustrated by and angry at the system, teens with quite a savvy knowledge of guns, bomb- making and similar. The show is obviously trying to poke its finger to politics, the youth that see no future or purpose to their lives and what means to serve the country. But the enemy never seems to be a real threat and the script kind of throws the big bad to the garbage half way through. It is one of the problems of the series, because it leaves quite a lot of loose ends (probably a TV-movie or a feature-length film may be planned for the future). It is interesting though some of the subjects the show brings up, as the characters inability to discern between country and the system that controls it, and what means to protect your society.

If it had been a look on patriotism, violence and the frustration on the younger generations the show could have been quite interesting. However it leans too much on the action. It does good here, though, with some really cool action scenes. But it never excels, and the focus on making people fight and things explode makes the script forget that it has to have a story and a meaning. Luckily for us Shun Oguri and company keep things interesting during the sort run of the series.