Estafadores de Tokio

Wow. Great show. Solid narrative. Superb pace. Smashing suspense. Really excellently-written with fabulous character-development.

Characters are very interesting and dynmaic and the chemistry works super-well. From incredibly awkward paid people placed in big stake operations to the big evil boss to crazy personalities in Tokyo's underbelly. Top stuff.

I really loved this show. I'm 5/7th of my way through and I watch a lot of Japanese cinema and I'm now curious to see what other shows Hitoshi Ône will make. He has talant. This is definitely what Netflix needs more of.

Original and gripping drama with fabulous characters. Please do more of this Netflix.

The cast works so well together. This Japanese TV series has a very original plot compared to western TV shows. It's a refreshing change of pace. The music was incredible and dramatic. I genuinely could not predict what happened next. Enjoy this emotional rollercoaster! Netflix has a way of churning out some great content purely by accident. Hope there is a season 2. I loved Go Ayano's performance! Just wanted to warn any readers that there is very graphic content in this series which is something to consider for family audiences. This TV series made me feel like there is a hidden dark side to Japan.

I was initially impressed by the production quality, screenplay and writing which dared to pull off twists which stir the emotions and keep you wondering what happens next. That and it was a fresh take on Japanese dramas which didn't have the usual anime-derived dramatisations.

However holes start to appear when it appears certain characters are so omnipresent but yet oblivious where the plot armour resides.

Then the season finale slips on its own banana peel in the last episode. There were so many unrealistic interactions as some characters and sequences suddenly suffer from the usual prolonging, dramatisations and silliness to force the series to end on a certain note and pave the way for a money grabbing 2nd season.

Rest assured it did not get my thumbs up from the choices given after the show ended.

Everything stated so well as a 'con man' or heist series, there the right mix of suspense, wit, character development and fun in the series. You really wonder what happened to the con men that turn them into con men. You start caring for the characters cause they're not paper thin single dimensional characters. Things are going well in the first 5 or 6 episodes.

Then it fell apart really quick in the last 2 episodes. As if they're told they have to wrap it up all of a sudden, the series got really dumb in a hurry. Plot conveniences, irrational thinking, rushed pace... It would have been so much better if they stopped after 6 episodes and leave the rest in season 2. It was still worth the time to watch but it really fell apart towards the end.

This story is based on a real crime happened in 2017 in Tokyo. The criminal group was much bigger than in the TV series, but mostly the stories are real and it's well performed. The guy in charge (Harrison Yamanaka in the TV series) was a legendary land swindler in real story, and he committed so many real estate sales frauds in the past like in the TV series. It is an interesting show to watch.

I was not crazy about some fictional parts because some parts are so unrealistic like hitting by a car suddenly...etc.

But I enjoyed the castings and the series overall.

Btw, those criems are still actively going on in Japan 2024.