It was, apparently, the on-set hairdresser's day off. — Photos: Handout
When a friend told me about this new Japanese paranormal-themed detective show, I Googled it and found the Wikipedia page for the real-life All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).An agency within the US Secretary of Defense's Office, It's been around since 2022, tasked with investigating UFOs (or by their new inclusive term, UAPs or unidentified aerial/anomalous phenomena).
Hurm, 2022? Talk about your Johnnys-come-lately. The titular agency of AARO, the Fuji TV series (available here on Netflix) in question, has been around since the Meiji Era – or so its senior members tell us, in the initial episodes.
Instead of UFOs/UAPs, this fictional All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office looks into the paranormal, mainly the existence of yokai (the umbrella term for supernatural beings of all sorts, sizes and shape...shifters).
Now, don't get your hopes up just yet that this is flat-out going to be a 2020s version of The X-Files, although the tropes are there: the believer, the sceptic, bizarre phenomena, and an underlying mythology.
'I guess this won't be considered for inclusion as a pokestop in Pokemon Go now.'
While AARO seems quick to debunk its very reasons for being, small details hint that its veteran members are part of a larger web of intrigue being spun just beyond the sight of the general populace.
The agency's connections run high in the government hierarchy, much to the chagrin of police officers who are often pulled away from their duties to do the heavy lifting/dirty jobs.
We learn about AARO through the eyes of Koyume Amano (Alice Hirose, Radiation House series I and II and the movie), who is suddenly drafted into its ranks from her "mundane" job doing PR for the police.
In quick order, she meets AARO No. 2 Miyabi Okitama (Tatsuya Fujiwara, Death Note, Battle Royale, School Police), an enigmatic individual prone to borderline-rude dismissals of his new subordinate, while delivering keen insights into the mysteries they investigate.
Two episodes in, we've only met four members of AARO, the other two being their multifaceted boss Tamio Ukino (Fumiyo Kuhinata – always nice to see an Emergency Interrogation Room alumnus) and the office p-hailing guy Serita (Takaya Sakoda), who shows up in the remotest of locations without warning and is clearly smitten with Amano.
The mysteries they probe range from mysterious disappearances (clothes, hair and blood left behind, while bodies go missing) to mass fainting spells at a prestigious school, with mysterious objects falling from an apartment building teased for the next instalment.
Okitama breezes his way through them all, while Amano struggles to keep up and frequently stumbles over her scepticism and inexperience – and her immediate superior wastes no time in berating her for it. All in the name of learning on the job, of course.
No one ever expected killer litter to become a problem in Japan.
An enigmatic figure calling itself Hiruko, after an ancient deity, appears to be a common thread in all this, but there's also the mysterious churro-eating girl who seems to be on, well, some sort of terms with Ukino-san.
It's all held together with aplomb by Fujiwara, who surveys "crime scenes" with a judgmental air carried over from his days as the Desu Noto-issuing Light Yagami; oh, and Okitama inflicts the same degree of excessive force on perps as in the actor's School Police days.
He also speaks of humanity and its tendencies for misbehaviour in a distant, aloof manner, almost as if he were not quite ... one of us. Well, more mysteries for later.
All told, AARO makes for fun viewing, wrapping up each episode's mystery neatly while planting the seeds for further intrigue – all without being disrespectful of the mythology that spawned such beliefs.
New episodes of AARO arrive on Netflix weekly.
Summary:
I want to disbelieve.
