Tokyo Swindlers is a Japanese crime, drama thriller series which depicts an organized land mafia gang. This gang sell any empty land by showing fake documents and fake owners, but gradually this fraud turns into a bloody game. Despite being slow at times, the story turns out to be quite gripping by the end, which Go Ayano and Etsushi Toyokawa have made even better with their acting.
Storyline
”Land is an asset that no one wants, all the wars in the world have been for land – Harrison Yamanaka” (Etsushi Toyokawa). This story starts happening after the Tokyo Olympics, when due to hosting the Olympics, the price of the land in Tokyo started rising to the sky and everyone’s eyes started falling on the empty land. After seeing such an opportunity, the land mafia in Japan became more active, and many new gangs also started emerging. There is a gang among them which is headed by Harrison Yamanaka, Harrison Yamanaka is a murderous but calm man. In some strange circumstances (Spoiler), Harrison meets Takumi Tsujimoto, who himself has been a victim of a land mafia, even he has lost his entire family because of the land mafias.
There are five most important people in every land mafia gang.
- Leader (Harrison Yamanaka) played by Etsushi Toyokawa.
- Negotiator/Forgery of documents (Takumi Tsujimoto) played by Go Ayano.
- Informer (Takeshita) played by Kazuki Kitamura.
- Legal Expert (Yoshio Goto) played by Pierre Taki.
- Fake Owner creator (fake master creator) played by Eiko Koike.
In the first two episodes, the series shows their way of working, in which everyone plays their role very well. But Harrison’s mind does not get hurt by these scams, after each scam his dreams become even bigger. So now he has to commit a very big scam for which he asks his team to be ready. To fulfill this big dream, informer i.e. Takeshita’s eyes fell on such an empty land which is in the middle of the city and is also empty. But the owner of this land, who is a worshiper, does not want to sell her land, but this priest also has some secrets which Takumi Tsujimoto comes to know.
On the other hand, Tokyo police has been failing to stop this fraud since last many years. But the Detective Tatsu (Lily Franky) sacrifices his life to complete the case. Through the detective’s efforts, Tokyo police find a link that connects Harrison and Tsujimoto with efforts of Detective Kuramochi, who reach out to Tsujimoto’s father and get the whole information about Tsujimoto. Amidst all these incidents, many such secrets are revealed which surprise you and after every episode you click on the next episode. This gang is preparing to prey on some big real estate company. Now it remains to be seen whether Tokyo police was able to stop them from committing this fraud or not, whether Harrison was caught or not.
Conclusion
The series has been made quite gripping and even at some places you can get the feeling of stealing money. The gift of being seen while committing any fraud and the confidence of convincing the customer are all visible. The whole fun of the series comes in watching Harrison who is shown to be very cool, clever and brave and Etsushi Toyokawa has played this character so well that you can’t help but praise him. Go Ayano has shown this in a wonderful way as to why Tsujimoto, who has lost his entire family to a land mafia, suddenly becomes a land mafia. All the other supporting characters have played their roles well, there is not much action in the series but Harrison’s brutality is clearly shown and you have fun watching the technical details of committing fraud.
Rating:- 7/10