MAOU

Episodes: 11
Broadcast period: 2008-Jul-04 to 2008-Sep-12

Synopsis

To put the story simply, this drama is about Naruse Ryo's (Ohno Satoshi) journey to seek revenge for his younger brother who died of a stabbing incident caused by Serizawa Naoto (Ikuma Toma) who was a delinquent back in his junior high days. Within the period of 11 years, Naruse has been watching Serizawa and tracking the movements of him, his family and those related to the incident in one way or another. As such, this is a revenge not only on Serizawa but also the people who caused the injustice suffered by Naruse, his late brother and mother.

This is a suspense story quite unlike what other dramas have been doing. In this case, the motive and the culprit are known beforehand whereas in most dramas, viewers are taken for a ride to guess the culprit. However, Maou doesn't disappoint, in the sense that it is not a senseless series of murders but it is a web of deceit and clever manipulations which ultimately achieves what Naruse wants. It means that Naruse doesn't have to do the dirty job himself and even if he's caught, he cannot be charged with anything. Of course, in some parts of the story, there are some coincidences which fall so nicely into place that you will doubt why Lady Luck is always on Naruse's side. More on that later.

What happened 11 years ago was a tragic accident but due to a couple of misjudgments or decisions along the way, everything went out of proportion. There are a lot of what ifs in this story. What if Serizawa Eisaku (Naoto's father) had chosen to let his son speak the truth instead of protecting him with the excuse of self-defence and letting Hideo (Naruse's brother) to take the blame? What if Serizawa had managed to apologize to Naruse 11 years ago? (He did go to look for Naruse at that time but couldn't find him.) What if Yamano (Hideo's friend) had spoken out against Serizawa since he had witnessed the incident? If any of the questions raised above went towards the other way, this might not have led to the current revenge attempt. As such, what comes around goes around. It is a matter of time before the dark past catches up with someone. In this case, Serizawa's unintentional mistake 11 years ago led to such serious repercussions today which he would never have dreamt of.

I wouldn't go into the details of the plot though but would like to raise some points which I thought are worth mentioning:

1) The most "coincidental" murder - Ikehata's falling to his death in a warehouse

Frankly speaking, this was the most unbelievable murder (or so-called accident) in the whole story. How was Naruse supposed to know that Ikehata would run to the second flour of the warehouse, step on a faulty flooring and fall to his death? I know he did something to "lure" Ikehata into the warehouse but surely he wouldn't have guessed how the latter was going to run away from the yakuza he hired? That's why I thought this will be No.1 among all the cases in the story when you are talking about Lady Luck being on Naruse's side.

2) Naruse being able to walk to the scrap disposal grounds despite being stabbed by Yamano in the last episode / Shiori running to the scrap disposal ground

Either Naruse has the best stamina to last throughout the journey or he has the strongest willpower to walk all the way to where his brother died. ^__^ I just don't get the meaning of running around or walking long distances when you could have easily hailed a cab or taken other modes of transport. Maybe it's because they wanted to intensify the atmosphere of the climax scene.

3) The biggest screw-up: saying the wrong character name

I can't remember which episode was it, but I remember clearly that Yoshinori (Gekidan Hitori) said Mai instead of Mari (his wife's name) while talking to Kasai (Tanaka Kei). I was a bit surprised to hear that and wonder how this mistake could have gone unnoticed. Well, if you have been reading the production blog of Maou, it seems that they were on a very tight schedule and this could have led to this blunder. Never mind about this, it's just a name. Thankfully, they didn't make a big mistake on the story.

The ending is definitely fitting for this dark story. It depends on how you view it. It can be a tragedy or a happy ending. I like how the tension built up over the episodes and when you come to the ending, all that pressure is released. I can't say whether I'm happy or sad to see this outcome but only one word comes to mind: peace. At least we won't see the saga between the two continuing. Most of the people involved are dead anyway.

Well, both Naruse and Serizawa died. I was sort-of expecting Serizawa to die first and Naruse would probably kill himself or something. However, the ending proved me half-correct. Indeed, Naruse killed Serizawa (but it was an accident and exactly in the same fashion as what happened between Serizawa and Hideo) but this time, it was with a gun. And Naruse's ultimate motive for taking revenge was for Serizawa to be filled with rage and kill him so that he can join his mother and Hideo in death. In conclusion, Naruse wanted to commit suicide in the first place but not without dragging Serizawa through living hell first. Although they both gained each other's forgiveness, it was too late since both of them achieved this consensus only through death. And it was such an anti-climax for Naruse to die from the stab wound afflicted by Yamano. Maybe suicide for Naruse might be a more "elaborate" and "dramatic" ending to this story.