Another Crime drama from Japan, surprise surprise! Okay, I will admit right away, this isn't my personal cup of tea when it comes to drama genres. Despite that, I have seen my fair share. If you have an interest in Japense television it's hard to avoid. So, how was Ishi no Mayu compared to the slew of shows out there? Well, let's get down to it shall we? Music Very moody music that in my opinion captures the atmosphere very well. Many tracks had that mysterious sound which helped enhanced the scenes and the more action oriented parts had appropriate it's music. The sound design was for the most parts solid, and I liked that many scenes had a sparing use of music at all. Which in my opinion works great for certain scenes. All in all I would say slightly above avarage music and music design, but nothing you will remember. Acting & Cast In my opinion this is where the show shines brightest. Kimura Fumino stars as Detective Toko Kisaragi, a rookie cop. She does a very solid job in portraying this insecure yet proud girl who enters working enviroment filled with strong willed men. Since the show is very short, characters are not very fleshed out. Despite this Fumino delivers a performance that makes us care about her character. Aoki Munetaka plays her "cold on the outside" partner and he is just outstanding. A more believable cop you have to search a while to find on the small screen. Even though his character also lacks much backround and characterization. Solid supporting cast, a few missteps though here and there. Special shoutout to Watanabe Ikkei who also does a great job. Would have loved to see more women in the cast. Story This is where the show misfired big time for me. Premise wise it sounded very interesting and after the first episode I was a bit intrigued. However it fell flat on it's face with a very predicatble and unoriginal conclusion. I would like to go into detail but there would be too much spoilers. For some parts the show held very tightly to realism but then other parts where really silly and over the top. It clashed in a very bad way. However the execution of the predicatble storyline was pretty competent for the most part, otherwise my story score would have fallen even lower. So would I recommend this show? Actually, yes. But ONLY if you already like crime dramas. With 5 episodes it is very short for one thing. The cast manages to make you care for what's happening to these underwritten characters. And it has decent music. Don't expect anything you haven't seen before though in terms of story and character motivations etc. My final score for this show will be 6,5/10. Slightly above avarage. Many Japanese crime dramas are very predictable and unoriginal story wise, just like Ishi no Mayu. But here they had a great cast of characters that I would not mind revisiting. Will I watch the sequel? Yes. But ONLY because I really like Kimura Fumino. *This is not a bad score! I base my scores like this. 1/10 is garbage, 5/10 is avarage and 10/10 is a masterpiece.