Furuhata Ninzaburo

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Furuhata Ninzaburo (古畑任三郎) is a Japanese television series that ran periodically on Fuji Television from 1994 until its final episodes (specials, really) in 2006. It was written by Japanese playwright, Koki Mitani.

It is a police detective drama starring actor Masakazu Tamura (田村正和) as Ninzaburo Furuhata and his stereotypically bumbling sidekick, Shintaro Imaizumi, portrayed by actor Masahiko Nishimura. The program aired weekly and featured a guest villain each time, every one of them being a famous actor or talent in Japan. Pop-stars like SMAP (boy-band), television hosts like Sanma Akashiya (variety) and even sports figures like Ichiro Suzuki (baseball) have been featured on this program. It was one of the most popular television dramas in the history of Japanese television.

Contents

[edit] Plot patterns

Most of the stories follow the following pattern. The audience sees the murder and the cover-up (usually involving the criminal trying to make it look like an accident). Then comes Furuhata's debut. The criminal, usually staying near to the scene of the crime to make sure it does not get solved, hangs around Furuhata, or else he does something suspicious to Furuhata and the detective ends up hanging obnoxiously around him (much to the dismay of the criminal, of course).

The charm of the story is that it is a logic game—Furuhata has all the pieces, and he (as well as the audience) usually knows who the murderer is. It is now Furuhata's job to prove it and get the killer to confess, and our job as a viewer to guess what all Furuhata's clues are.

[edit] The character of Furuhata

Ninzaburo Furuhata is arguably one of the most easily imitable characters on Japanese TV.

[edit] Looks and manners

  • He always wears black, even a black collared shirt.
  • He never wears a tie.
  • His hair is puffed up like an Elvis wanna-be without the gel.
  • He stoops and carries his hands in front of his chest like a mouse on hind paws.
  • Since he stoops, he looks up at the person he speaks to, rather than down at them, despite him being relatively tall.
  • He points when accusing or asking a prying question.
  • He always uses the honorific tense of Japanese when speaking, elongates his vowels and hums while thinking.
  • He pokes his forehead with his forefinger when thinking.
  • And he always thinks aloud.

The character is said to have been based on Japanese philosophy of science professor, Yoichiro Murakami.

[edit] Traits

He also has a number of likes and dislikes that can either make him into a charmingly human—or insufferably selfish—person.

  • He likes old and obscure music.
  • He rides a very specific bicycle and will chain it—loosely—to whatever object that happens to be near enough.
  • He likes trivia.
  • He watches too much television.
  • He cooks.
  • He is afraid of guns, though a cop.
  • He never marries nor shows any interest in women—or men. The series is devoid of romance.
  • He constantly nitpicks at people.
  • He mumbles.
  • He likes dessert, especially ice-cream with fruits like banana split.
  • He likes a very specific kind of bento.
  • He likes to read.
  • He is very specific about his food, even how the pickles in his burger suppose to be arrange: one in the centre and four around it to form a flower motive.

[edit] Imaizumi Shintaro

The character of Shintaro Imaizumi, portrayed by actor Masahiko Nishimura, is supposed to be the idiot sidekick of Furuhata. Although his character grows gradually more and more childish throughout the series, he not only acts as comic relief, but also tends to say and do the things that any "normal" person might say.

For example, Imaizumi often explains what the murderer might have had in mind with the elaborate setup staged moments before in the drama by falling for it and running to the conclusion that the murderer wanted the cops to. Or when Furuhata starts thinking aloud with logic, Imaizumi will eliminate the other possibilities that come to mind for the viewer when following Furuhata's train of thought.

Furuhata's character, as sweet and polite as he is to other people, is downright mean on occasion when it comes to Imaizumi, who he obviously does not like.

In the second and third season of the drama, Imaizumi lashes back against this disdain by confiding in a friend at the police station, Mantaro Kuwabara, portrayed by Toshiaki Ito in his own mini-series that ran in the evening after the drama had finished. This series, each episode of which is less than five minutes long, was immenisely popular until the death of actor Ito.

Imaizumi for a few occasion gets himself into trouble and rely on Furuhata to save him i.e. Imaizumi being wrongfully accused for a murder or trapped in a Ferris wheel car with a bomb in it.

[edit] Other regular characters

  • Mamoru Saionji (西園寺守), played by Japanese comedian Ishii Masanori (石井正則), appears in the third season of Furuhata Ninzaburo. His purpose is to be a second sidekick to Furuhata — one serious and logical as opposed to the childish and silly Imaizumi. The character, however, was not popular — he seemed to be little more than a mirror of Furuhata, with their only occasional routine gag being a dialogue in which Furuhata and Saionji play off each other's logic to come to a wrong conclusion.
  • Otokichi Mukoujima (向島音吉), played by Tokyo Sunshine Boys member Takashi Kobayashi (小林隆), is a cop that often greets Furuhata when he arrives at the scene of the crime. He is noted for his long and cumbersome name that changes frequently due to his marriages throughout the story. He has a more prominent role in one episode where he is revealed to be baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki's (the villain of the episode) brother.
  • Mantaro Kuwabara (桑原万太郎), played by Tokyo Sunshine Boys member Ito Toshiaki, works at the crime lab and is a good friend of Imaizumi Shintaro. He was featured in an Imaizumi Shintaro special series that ran late the evening after the main program had finished, and did a comedy skit with Nishimura that related to Imaizumi's displeasure with the outcome of the episode.
  • Hanada (花田), a character played by actor Norito Yashima (八嶋智人), occasionally appears as an onlooking bystander who will overhear the detective's conversations and then come to his own conclusions of who the killer is. He is always right. But he never has any evidence, and disappears from the story after he has made his point. He appears every time in different occupation. The times he made an appearance, he was a waiter in a restaurant, then a waiter in a pub, a cafe, later an air steward, a taxi driver (at the end of the third season) and as an employee in the Japanese embassy to Spain (for a 'Special' episode where he portrayed the main sidekick, without Imaizumi and Saionji around).

[edit] Famous guest stars

[edit] Season 1

Please note the victim is not always shown, nor is he/she always listed by name in the credits. A credit is given here wherever possible.

Episode Criminal Victim Special Appearance
1 Nakamori Akina Ikeda Takeshi Dog - "Ben"
2 Sakai Masaaki Kitarou none
3 Kotegawa Yuko Haba Yuuichi none
4 Shofukutei Tsurube Not Shown Minegishi Tooru
5 Bando Hachisuke Kobayashi Akiji none
6 Kinomi Nana Nakamaru Shinsho Fujimura Shunji
7 Kobayashi Nenji Hasegawa Hasenori none
8 Kaga Takeshi Sawahara Sabu Kajiwara Zen
9 Ishiguro Ken Unmentioned none
10 Kosakai Kazuki Izumoto Noriko Moriyama Shinichiro
11 Momoi Kaori Yagi Saori Ameku Michiko
12 Sugawara Bunta Nakahara Jun Kajiwara Zen

[edit] Season 2

Please note the victim is not always shown, nor is he/she always listed by name in the credits. A credit is given here wherever possible. In the second season, the Imaizumi Shintaro special also begins.

Episode Criminal Victim Special Appearance
14 Akashiya Sanma Odaka Megumi Shiroi Akira
15 Sawaguchi Yasuko Aijima Kazuyuki none
16 Kusakari Masao Matsukane Yoneko Isshiki Saiko
17 Kimura Takuya None Shiroi Akira
18 Kato Haruko Uzaki Kei Kobayashi Takashi
19 Karasawa Toshiaki Ijuin Hikaru Kondo Yoshimasa
20 Sawamura Fujiro Yumeji Itoshi none
21 Yamashiro Shingo Ikeda Takashi none
22 Kazama Morio Ono Takehiko none
23 Suzuki Honami Not shown none
11 Yamaguchi Tomoko Osanai Minako none

[edit] Season 3

Please note the victim is not always shown, nor is he/she always listed by name in the credits. A credit is given here wherever possible. In the third season, Sayonji also joins the group of regular characters.

Episode Criminal Victim Special Appearance
28 Ichikawa Somegoro Moro Morooka Umeno Yasukio
29 Sanada Hiroyuki Sawatari Minoru none
30 Matsumura Tatsuo Ameku Michiko Oka Hachiro
31 Daichi Mao Kageyama Tai Ito Yuko
32 Tsugawa Masahiko Miura Rieko Hosokawa Shigeki
33 Ichimura Masachika Machita Shion none
34 Tanaka Misako Kohinata Fumio none
35 Fukuyama Masaharu Itao Itsuji Toda Naho
36 Tamaki Koji Kawai Chiharu none
37-38 Eguchi Yosuke Obara Masato none

[edit] Special Episodes

Please note the victim is not always shown, nor is he/she always listed by name in the credits. A credit is given here wherever possible.

Episode Criminal Victim Special Appearance
13 Jinnai Takanori Taguchi Hiromasa Mizuno Maki
26 SMAP Ukaji Takashi Mitani Koki
27 Ogata Ken Kurita Kanichi none
39 Matsumoto Koshiro Oikawa Mitsuhiro none

[edit] Final Series

Please note the victim is not always shown, nor is he/she always listed by name in the credits. A credit is given here wherever possible.

Episode Criminal Victim Special Appearance
40 Ishizaka Koji Chiba Tetsuya Fujiwara Tatsuya
41 Ichiro Suzuki Imai Tomohiko Kobayashi Takashi
42 Matsushima Nanako Matsushima Nanako none

[edit] Trivia

On Konami videogame Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix there's a song called "Furahata's Theme", which is a remix of the show's opening theme. It is played by CJ Crew & Sedge.

It is hinted at the early episode in season three that Furuhata share the same birthday with another fictional detective ~ Sherlock Holmes. However, how old he is and what year he was born is not revealed.

[edit] External links

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