Bloody Monday

I just finished Bloody Monday (ブラッディ・マンデイ ), a Japanese drama of the suspense and action genres encircling the topic of terrorism (especially bio-terrorism) and hacking (obviously). It stars Miura Haruma, Kawashima Umika, Sato Takeru, Fujii Mina, and Tokunaga Eri. The summary is as follows:

After a biological terrorist attack kills off the population of a Russian town; Japan's Public Safety Special Third unit, code name THIRD-i, believes that the terrorist organization responsible plans to unleash the same virus known as Bloody X into Tokyo. Subsequently, THIRD-i recruits the help of genius hacker Takagi Fujimaru to find out what happened in the Russia. However, as Fujimaru becomes involved, he soon finds out that he is in over his head and that the terrorist groups influence reaches not only his school but even the police. Fujimaru must now rely on his skill as a hacker to unravel the organizations sinister plot and find out the truth behind "Bloody Monday."

I have to say that it was pretty suspenseful and it kept me with it the entire way (I finished 10 episodes yesterday and the first thing I did this morning was to watch the last episode -- yes, there is a total of 11 episodes). Like many other action/suspense dramas, new things unfold as it progresses and it keeps you guessing, because the most obvious thing usually turned out to be wrong. This drama has no romance in it (which is a nice change, for once) but it deals with the notion of family and friends.

Even though it's Haruma's first leading role, he did it well and perhaps, we'll be seeing more of him! The last episode didn't really tie everything up with a neat bow, though. In fact, it leaves some room for a sequel of some sort, but it concludes well enough.

You can watch it here.
Picture taken from here.