, or ''Detective Story'', is an action Japanese TV series starring Yūsaku Matsuda that was originally broadcast on

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as (NTV) or Nippon TV, is a Japanese television station serving the Kantō region as the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned and operated by the , a sub ...

in 27 forty-five-minute episodes from September 18, 1979 to April 1, 1980. The show had various directors including Toru Murakawa, Kiyoshi Nishimura, Yukihiro Sawada and

Yasuharu Hasebe was a Japanese film director best known for his movies in the "Violent pink" subgenre of the ''Pink film'', such as '' Assault! Jack the Ripper'' (1976), ''Rape!'' (1976), '' Rape! 13th Hour'' (1977) and ''Raping!'' (1978). Earlier genre films di ...

Plot

Shunsaku Kudō sets up office in a rundown building as a private detective after spending five years as a cop in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

where he became familiar with firearms. Kudō was originally envisioned as a standard hard-boiled type but star Yūsaku Matsuda looked too much like a rebel so the character ended up riding a

Vespa Vespa () is an Italian brand of scooters and mopeds manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of Pontedera, Italy, to a ...

scooter, smoking

Camel A camel (from and () from Ancient Semitic: ''gāmāl'') is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provid ...

cigarettes and dressing in a black or white suit and sunglasses. Also living in the building are two young girls (American actress Nancy Cheney and Kahori Takeda) who fuss over the detective.

Cast

* Yūsaku Matsuda as Shunsaku Kudo *

Mikio Narita was a Japanese actor. He was most famous for playing villains, and often worked with Kinji Fukasaku. Narita graduated from Haiyuza Theatre Company acting school and joined Daiei Film. His career as a screen actor started in 1963. His film debut ...

as Chief Detective Hattori *

Mitsuko Baisho is a Japanese actress whose most internationally known work has been for director Shohei Imamura, from 1979 up to the director's final film in 2010. Baisho has also appeared in films directed by Akira Kurosawa. She won awards for best actress at ...

as Masako * Michihiro Yamanishi as Detective Matsumoto * Nancy Cheney as Nancy * Kahori Takeda as Kahori * Tetsuo Nose as Tattoo Guy * Hiroshi Shimizu as Iizuka * Osamu Shigematsu * Yukiko Tachibana * Ryoko Watanabe * Hiromi Hirata

Reception

''Tantei Monogatari'' with its easy-going humorous style earned high ratings while on the air and later acquired a cult following.

published a book about the show titled ''Yomigaere! Tantei Monogatari'' (Come Back! Detective Story) in 1994 and

Toei Video , simply known as Toei Company or Toei, is a Japanese entertainment company. Headquartered in Ginza, Chūō, Tokyo, it is involved in film and television production, distribution, video game development, publishing, and ownership of 34 movie ...

later released the whole series. Toei also released the entire series as a boxed set of

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

discs in 2015.

References

External links

* * {{TheTVDB, 184161 Japanese action television series Japanese drama television series Nippon Television dramas Detective television series 1979 Japanese television series debuts 1980 Japanese television series endings Japanese detective television drama series