Vivant: A Psychological Misadventure That May Get Me Back To J-Drama

The last J-Drama I watched was Crisis: Special Security Squad. This would be my first exposure to Masato Sakai, who's in his late 40s and a family man. There would be some familiar faces here such as Tori Matsuzaka and Ryo Ryusei as sidekicks - both red ranger actors. I'm amazed that Tori still has a life after Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. It was also nice for Rin Takanashi to play a minor but important role as the main protagonist's mother in some flashbacks. There may be some Easter eggs that only Toku viewers can notice but I'm not going to put them in.

Masato plays Yusuke Nogi - a big-time worker at the Energy Development Division. A huge sum of money was laundered and Yusuke gets the blame. It's form there that he must work together with the two red rangers Kotaro Shinjo (Ryo) from the police department and Shun Kurosu from Beppan (Tori) to help clear his name. They also go against a mysterious organization known as "Tent". "Tent" has its operations in Mongolia. A lot of stuff is good as SPOILER TERRITORY.

A lot of past and present events get interesting. Yusuke's past is just one of them. The great purge against Japanese people in another country is another. What I love is the integration of scenes in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. It obviously has a big budget - justifying why it's only got 10 episodes. The action scenes, suspenseful plot, and almost everything about it make this series a worthy watch.

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