Zettai Reido 4 (2020)

Operating in the grey

Both seasons 3 and 4 of Zettai Reido are quite different to the first 2 seasons. The setting is Big Brother-esque (or Platinum Data-like) where data about people's personal movements and CCTV footage are used in a program to predict major crime. Usually this is fairly believable because the alarm is triggered when the suspect purchases a weapon. The team, which is not officially registered in the bureau, then undertakes undercover operations to try and prevent a crime from occurring.

The premise makes it different to the usual crime solvers because you know the suspect, and you have a suspicion of what they will do, but you don't know when, why or who their victim is, and this is where the story focuses on. What they find is that often these murders are premeditated because the intended victim has done something horrific and gotten away with it. Most of the episode endings leave the team (and audience) torn between wanting the perpetrator to get their revenge, and feeling obliged to stop the crime.

It's an odd drama because it almost goes out of the way to make the to-be perpetrator sympathisable, and most of the major characters also have their own demons to deal with. The final case was a bit of a let down because of the way it was built up throughout the entire series. Overall, a well-written and smoothly produced series, but intentionally less satisfying because of the moral ambivalence.

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