When I noticed that Odagiri Joe was in the cast of this "River's Edge Okawabata Tanteisha", I knew right away I was gonna be in for some quirkiness, LOL...and indeed, my expectations turned out to be accurate.
But it was a good type of quirkiness (heck, for the most part, the best type - more on that in a jiff), and it made the watch a very pleasant one.
The cast did very well, not only the leads (Odagiri as the weird detective, Ishibashi Renji as the old boss of the agency, and the voluptuos Koizumi Maya as the secretary providing, at the same time, comic relief and eye candy), but also the guest stars and supporting cast.
The music was, imho, the best part of the drama; opening and closing credits songs by the great EGO-WRAPPIN'...need I say more? ^____-
Direction, editing and photography were also very nice and contributed as well to the great atmosphere.
The only problem I have with this dorama is that, story-wise, not all episodes were at the same, tremendously high level; some were absolute masterpieces, seriously (I'll name #3, 6, 8, 11 and the first half of #10 - it's the only episode containing two different stories), but a coupla episodes were just so-and-so, and a coupla more were actually quite bad, imho. Had they avoided those, I might have given this a perfect 10. All things considered, it's more like a solid 8.5 though; not using half grades, I'll be generous and rate it a 9. ^___-