Maou is based on the 2007 Korean drama The Devil, which centres around a theme of death and revenge. I'm not sure why or how I've ended up latching onto these depressing drama's as of late. But after the wife beating fest that was Last friends, I jumped straight into Maou. Good times! People die in this drama...boy do they die.Naoto Serizawa is a hot headed police officer. Always going against the book to arrest low life's. Little do his peers realize that his relentlessness to rid the street of low life's is Naoto repenting for his past sin's of bullying and killing a classmate during his high school years. You than have Naruse, a lawyer who is known as 'The Angel attorney', due to him helping those whom many refuse to represent. Unknown to Officer Serizawa, this attorney is the brother of the boy who was killed years ago and he is hell bent on revenge.
Naoto is played by Toma Ikuta, which is partly what attracted me to this drama - as he has a cool air about him in all the roles he plays. Toma is a cool actor and always plays his roles charismatically and in Maou he is no different. Very often Toma gets cast in goofy, comedic roles. So it's great seeing him tackle such a dark role - portraying a character who really gets put through the ringer and is far from the perfect hero. But sometimes his acting is too over the top, to the point where you find yourself cringing. There were moments where I felt Toma could've toned it down a little, but overall he did a good job. You can't knock him for lack of enthusiasm and very few Johnny's boys could've handled the role even half as well as Toma did.
Arashi member Satoshi Ohno does a great job of the revenge ridden Naruse. During the few episodes his acting is near enough non-existent. All he does is give awkward smiles, frown, talk really slow and stare. But from episode 6 onwards his character begins to become conflicted and multi dimensional, and from here Sakurai begins to shine. He does a great job considering this is his first stint in a drama. He puts other Johnny boys who have been acting their whole careers to shame. The final 3 episodes he pretty much outshines Ikuta Toma.
Shiori is very much the girl in the middle. Possessing a special ability to touch an object and see mental images of the places and situations the object was used in. Shiori is conflicted between helping Naoto and helping Naruse, whom she falls in love with. Her character is central to the story, but at the same time: throwaway. She's annoying, boring and comes up short in comparison to many of the other larger than life characters. I'm so tired of these girls in J-drama's who fall in love with a guy at first sight and pursue him in a manner I can only class as stalking. It's played out and it needs to stop. The girl comes off as really pitiful.
Maou is quite a compelling drama. There are moments in the middle when you do get tired of the cliche's, and in true J drama fashion is glaringly obvious of how the story is going to conclude long before the final episode. But the ways in which Naruse messes with Naoto and those close to him is gripping to watch, and the final conclusion is pretty heartbreaking, yet fitting - with the story ending the only way it possibly could.
It would be interesting to watch the Korean version, as Korea's approaches to drama's is very different to that of Japan's, tending to really focus on suspense and leaving you hanging at the end of every episode, much in the vein of US TV series'.
Maou is definitely worth a watch if you don't mind something a bit dark and over acted. It features your usual J-drama cliche's, but it is a good story which gets much better, more sordid, twisted and gripping as it progresses.
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