When I first read that Guilty was a female revenge flick, the first thing that came to mind was Sympathy for Mrs Vengeance. Not one does dark revenge stories better than the Koreans but this is Kanno Miho in a Fuji TV dorama. Sure Japan has done great revenge flicks like Sun Scarred but my expectations were tempered with the fact that Guilty was probably never going to go places revenge stories needed to be.
Kanno Miho is Nogami Meiko, a dog groomer who seems to have been wrongly accused in the past and is now seeking revenge against everyone who put her in prison. Meiko has this jekyll and hyde personality where she's like this sweet innocent girl when working but when taking her revenge, she's an ice queen. The question needs to be asked which is her true face? Meiko takes revenge indirectly, by threatening her victims to commit suicide in order to protect their loved ones. It remains to be seen whether there is any specific reason for this method or whether she chose it because its the best way to cover her tracks.
Query though the significance of seeking vengeance through her victims' willingness to lay down their lives for their loved ones. They have wronged her and yet she forces them to their deaths by utilising their love/goodness. Its like Meiko is saying they may have wronged her but she recognises that they are good people at heart and they are worth killing. Of course revenge flicks need not necessary have an evil, snarling villain but the avenger needs operate on a slightly higher moral ground in order to gain the audience's empathy. I guess we'll have to wait for future episodes for details of her victims' involvement in her incarceration and decide for ourselves whether the punishment fits the crime. I wonder what Mieko's plan B would be if they chose not to take their own lives.
On the other side of the coin is police officer Mashima Takuro played by Tamaki Hiroshi. His partner has set on fire by this drugged lunatic and he has lived with the incident ever since. The rest of the police forces ostracizes Takuro because they say he left his partner to die though his mistake was not waiting for back up. The police taunt him more like a bunch of school bullies than cops and he struggles with his guilt and feelings for revenge when the killer is declared insane and admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
So Guilty turns out not to be a straightforward revenge flick but a depressed cop meets girl criminal where girl is in the long process of getting her revenge and cop might be seeking his. I was very surprised Takuro finds out about Meiko so quickly but I guess its all about him trying to determine which is her true face. I have to mention the spray paint scene at the end of episode 2 which just boggles my mind. Graffitiers leaving their still unfinished spray cans at the scene of the crime which includes 2 white spray cans while the graffiti itself has barely any white on it.
Fair enough if the graffitiers were chased away by cops and if the graffiti had lots of white but this lack of simple detail is what kills jdoramas. Not to mention Karasawa Toshiaki as the overacting reporter Dojima Kiichi. After acting as the stoic Iki Tadashi in Fumo Chitai he must have though, "fuck it, I'll overact like crazy in my next dorama!" I have no idea what to expect of Guilty. Takuro will probably not interfere with Meiko's plans until middle of the series and he will most probably try to get some sort of revenge on the killer. Of course Meiko will find out Takuro is a cop just when she thinks her life is coming around. I think this show will thread the line between tragic boy meets girl story with vengeance and how well it does it remains to be seen. Watchable show.
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