[REVIEW] JDrama - Kagi no Kakatta Heya

This will be a full review of mystery drama, Kagi no Kakatta Heya!
This was a really popular drama of 2012. If you are unsure about watching this, I invite you to read my review.

Synopsis (from DramaWiki)

Enomoto Kei is a security "otaku" working for a security firm, devoted to improving the securities system on a daily basis. He is not an easy person to familiarize oneself with, always collected and calm, unapproachable, a maniac in Physics, Science, Architecture and profound in other basic theoretical foundation. He is certain and proud of the fact that there is no key which he cannot unlock.

One day, Kei is asked to help reveal a mystery behind a locked room murderer. While he lacks any interest in solving the mystery, he is inevitably intrigued by the term, "Closed Doors" and decides to take on the position. He works side by side with Aoto Junko and Serizawa Gou, who are lawyers working at a major law firm. Junko is pure and forward, acting upon her instincts while Serizawa is a prideful elitist who sees time as money, and therefore, will not take on any job that is unprofitable.

Possessing a vast amount of knowledge and acute insightfulness, Kei is able to unlock the closed doors and unravel the secrets leading to the solution. Never before has there been a drama focused solely on closed doors. It's an all new original mystery that will keep you guessing every week!

Cast:

Ohno Satoshi as Enomoto Kei
Toda Erika as Aoto Junko
Sato Koichi as Serizawa Gou
Nounen Rena as Mizuki Rina
Shukugawa Atom (?????) as Tachigawa (ep1,4,10)
Ukaji Takashi as Kouno Mitsuo (ep3,5,10-11)

Review

Story

A locked room specialist helps 2 lawyers to take down mysteries regarding locked room murders. A locked room is a room where entry is impossible, in theory... How did the criminal gained access to the room or how was he able to lock the room? Enomoto is an expert and knows all the tricks about locks!

Each episode is mostly one murder case. Most of the episode is dedicated about the murder case. In my opinion, the murder cases are all varied and original. It has tricks that I have never seen before and I felt they were new and interesting. I have watched many Japanese mystery drama before so this was surprising. Of course, some stories are better than others, but most of them were really good. The tricks were clever in most of them and was unpredictable to me. Well... again, I am not the smartest person.. The path to the discovery of the mystery was well presented. It presents some hypotheses and makes you think. However, in some of the cases though, the culprit was very obvious from the beginning. In those cases, the point of the episode was more about how/do you have proof? instead of who is the culprit. Like I said this is not the case in all the episodes, an estimation may be around half of them, and I was still very interested in them.

For the general story of the series, it is mostly nonexistent. There is the 3 main characters and story development about them is so small and slow. I found that I wanted to know more about them or see them interact more with each other, but a really big part of the show is consecrated for the murder case. If they do interact with each other, it is in link with the murder case. We even see or learn very few details about other support cast. It is a shame because the characters were actually interesting.

Even so, the story is very engaging. I watched Kagi no Kakatta Heya on the bus and I've missed my bus stop a couple times! Oops!

Acting

In this drama, we have popular and established actor and actress, Ohno Satoshi and Toda Erika. I think each actors looked great as their character and it felt as if it was their real personality. I think this is a strong point of the drama. However, each character is very one sided or simple. They mainly each have one different strong personality trait and stays that way the whole series (Stubborn and stupid/ nerd and anti social/ good and kind). This is kinda to be expected when so little screen time is about the characters themselves. I still very enjoyed the synergy between the main 3 characters and it left me wanting to see more.

Also, some well known actors and actress appeared as guests as well which is a plus.

Music

This drama has extreme good music. Most of the music is techno style and is exiting and upbeat. It fitted really well with the theme.
The ending by Arashi was also good. :)

Recommendation

Overall, this series is one of the best of the year 2012. I recommend this to everyone, especially people who enjoy mystery drama.

If you liked this series, you will enjoy other mysteries dramas like Galileo or Trick.