Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de - That Butler - Final Thoughts

It was nice to see a mystery story that shows you the step-by-step process of how the main characters get to the solution to the problem. Luckily, the rich lady, Reiko Hosho (Kitagawa Keiko), who works as an police-detective, has a butler, Kageyama (Sakurai Sho), who has really good deduction skills. Whenever Reiko gets stuck with coming up a solution to a case, she would rely on her butler to help her out. And, he would slowly put the puzzles together.

I thought that the main actors played each other off very well. Just the interaction between a butler and a lady was amusing to watch. The butler can be at times sharp tongued and throws insults at his mistress for being so stupid for not being able to solve these cases despite of being a detective. Even though Reiko have tried to fire him multiple times, but in the end, she fails, and asks her butler for help on solving these cases. This pattern keeps repeating over again, but they show it in different ways which never seems to get tiring.

Seriously Kageyama, what are you? He successfully solves almost all the mystery very quickly. And after dinner, he already has all the answers set up for Reiko and can deduce a case so easily. How does he do it? I have know idea. However, I thought that Sho-kun did a great job in this drama. I mean, I like him as an Arashi member, but when it comes to him starring in a drama or movie, some of his acting roles wasn't so memorable. But I loved his cocky facial expressions in this drama and for some reason it works perfectly for him. The role of Kageyama suits him as well. 

Although, some of mystery wasn't that intriguing for me. But I mostly enjoyed it through the comedic moments. While Reiko is on a murder investigation, her butler is always there right behind her, or more like stalking her. When she comes home and haves dinner, she would tell him about the case that she is working on. And, she would also ask her butler where was he at a certain time and place while she was investigating. He would respond by explaining what sort of things he'd been doing behind the scenes. For example, entering a murder scene and admiring someone's book collection, cooking, and having tea and scones. But it turns out that these mundane activities that he does actually pays off in helping to solve the mystery.

There's another hilarious character, Reiko's boss detective, Kazamatsuri (Shiina Kippei) who is a millionaire car business owner, playboy, and a naive detective. When it come to solving a case, he quickly jumps to conclusions without thoroughly analyzing the cases. He's actually much more worse at solving mysterious than Reiko. But he mostly provides all the comedy reliefs and he's just ridiculously hilarious in his own way.   

The mystery does later become more complex, but I mostly enjoyed it by watching the growing partnership between a lady and her butler. I thought that Sho fits perfectly for this sharp-tongued butler role and I finally found a Sakurai Sho drama that I actually liked. 

"see you soon," What? Stop teasing me!