Title: リーガル・ハイ Rīgaru Hai (Legal High)
English Title: Legal High
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Year: 2012
Episode: 11
Cast:
- 堺雅人 Sakai Masato
- 新垣結衣 Aragaki Yui
- 生瀬勝久 Namase Katsuhisa
- 小池栄子 Koike Eiko
- 里見浩太朗 Satomi Kotaro
- 田口淳之介 Taguchi Junnosuke
- 矢野聖人 Yano Masato
SYNOPSIS
Lawyer Komikado Kensuke is stubborn, sarcastic, and moody. A genius at negotiation and building strategy, he has never lost a case in his life. Winning is everything to Kensuke.
Mayuzumi Machiko is a young lawyer who passed the bar exam by studying hard. She has a strong sense of justice and she is determined to save the innocent. Machiko intends to practice law without compromising her convictions.
Machiko has a case that only Kensuke can help her win so she goes to him to ask for his help.
REVIEW
Legal High is about lawyers and the law; its positive aspects as well as its negative aspects, and its strengths as well as its weaknesses. It's a very interesting drama to watch but if you're an optimistic and hopeful person, it may be possible that you'll become pessimistic and resigned. At the very least, you may become jaded about people and you may lose hope in humanity a little bit.
I don't like Komikado Kensuke as a person and as a lawyer because he is selfish, callous, and calculating. I find his facial expressions irritating and his mannerisms dreadful, which compounds my utter dislike of him.
Be that as it may, I'm impressed with his dedication to his job, and I commend his strong will to win all cases he takes on. There are times that I disapprove of his ways of doing things but he always wins in the end and unfortunately, sometimes that is all that matters.
Komikado Kensuke: First, collect heartwarming tales of the client. Anything like how dutiful he was or the food he'd send back home will do. Second, investigate and collect anything regarding the bad reputation of the detective in charge of the case. Third, get a reporter to write all that information you have gathered and get the press involved. Fourth, kindle a human rights campaign for the client.
Mayuzumi Machiko feels that it is her job as a lawyer to protect the innocent and defend the helpless. She has noble intentions but I can't help but feel she is being idealistic with how she views the law.
Komikado Kensuke: Are you scared that maybe you've set free a criminal back into society?
Mayuzumi Machiko: Sir, do you think he did it?
Komikado Kensuke: Either is fine. Whether he did do it or whether he didn't does not concern me nor do I have any interest. The prosecutor's evidence was insufficient so he became innocent. That's the law...
Mayuzumi Machiko: But then what about the truth?
Komikado Kensuke: Don't be so conceited. We aren't gods. We're just lawyers. It's impossible to know what the truth is.
Mayuzumi Machiko: Then, what is it that we should believe in?
Komikado Kensuke: Find that out for yourself!
Anyway, I would like to gripe about how awful Machiko's styling is, with a haircut that does not flatter her face and ill-fitting clothes that do nothing for her figure. Even worse, she wears ugly shoes with thick ankle socks! I don't know, I feel like her dreadful styling is an indirect way of saying a woman can't be both attractive and intelligent, as if she can only be one thing or another, and I certainly object to that notion.
Related:
リーガル・ハイ Legal High (2013)
リーガル・ハイ2 Legal High 2
リーガル・ハイ Legal High (2014)
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リーガル・ハイ Legal High
