Youth Detective Haruya

Youth Detective Haruya is a Japanese TV series produced by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and aired on Nippon TV's "Platinum Night Thursday Drama" from October 15 to December 24, 2015. Yuta Tamamori played the lead role in his first Nippon TV drama series and the first lead role for a member of the Johnny & Associates in the same slot,^[2] including in a Thursday night drama.^[3]

In the original story, multiple incidents involving Haruya take place in parallel and intertwine with each other,^[4] but the TV drama was produced as a good-punishment drama with one complete episode.^[5]

Haruya Asaki (Yuta Tamamori) is a poor student who earns his tuition and living expenses by working part-time as a demolition worker. His bad friend, Kazuomi Kubodera (Sho Takada), offers him a part-time job in exchange for a large sum of money. The job is to find out who is stalking Miu Nomi (Yua Shinkawa), a beauty queen of same college. When he meets Miu, she tells him that she wants Haruya to investigate the case because she has talked to the police and they will not take her up on her offer. Haruya is attracted by the reward and begins his investigation with his roommate, Toshiki Shinohara (Ami201).

• Yuta Tamamori as Haruya Asagi. Protagonist. He is a poor student who works only part-time. One day, he is asked by a friend to investigate a stalker. He accepts the case for a hefty fee and solves the problem, but is then inundated with other investigation requests and begins taking on detective work. He was a bad boy in junior high school, so he is used to getting into fights.
• Yua Arakawa as Miu Nohmi. Heroine. She is the winner of a college beauty pageant.
• Sho Takada as Kazuomi Kubodera. Haruya's friend. He offers Haruya, who is in need of money, a large reward and asks him to work as a detective.
• Ami201 as Toshiki Shinohara. Haruya's part-time job and roommate. He is quite large. He helps Haruki with his detective work. He has a strong arm, and when he fights criminals, he sometimes uses wrestling moves.
• Reiko Takashima as Shizue Ishida. Manager of "Alabama", a small restaurant where Haruya and his friends hang out. She watches over Haruya and his friends like a mother.
• Takashi Ukaji as Katsuo Isobe. He is a senior at Haruya's part-time job. He is in love with Shizue from "Alabama".

According to screenwriter Shinichi Tanaka, the drama was shot in spring and early summer after meetings were held in February. All filming had been completed when the broadcast began in October.^[6] In writing the script, he was careful not to spoil the quality for the original work, and tried to have respect and to please the fans of the original work.^[7]

Yuta Tamamori, who plays the lead role of Haruya Asagi, said in an interview about his role, "Haruya is smart and courageous, but the part of him that overlaps with me is...he is rather quiet."^[8] In this drama, the action scenes in which they and the bad guys fight are always a highlight. Since he plays a strong fighter, he often had a hard time during the action scenes, but with the guidance of the director and assistant director, he was able to play the role with a lot of liveliness.^[9] Until acting in this drama, Tamamori was said to have a problem with running.^[10] He himself said, "I am often told by the director, 'Please run more coolly.'" He was also known to run weird in the variety shows in which he regularly appeared.^[11] His running style was said to have been improved in the action scenes in this drama.^[12]

Yua Niikawa, who plays the heroine, said, "I've often played strong-willed roles in the past, but this time I'm playing a role that is more like a girl of my generation, so I want to be conscious of that, such as the way I speak."^[8]

Sho Takada who plays Haruya's friend Kazuomi, said, "I've almost never played such a bright role before, so I had to think a lot about how to play the role"^[13]

Ami201 who plays Haruya's partner and roommate Toshiki, said "I am actually 35 years old, but it was a precious time for me to be on set, as if I was 20 years old again. However, the scenes where I had to run as fast as I could or grab and throw my partner were a bit physically demanding".^[14]

The four main cast members, Yuta Tamamori, Yua Arakawa, Sho Takada, and Ami201, were all shy and did not speak much at the beginning of filming.^[15] They were so quiet that there were days when all they could hear was the sound of ramen noodles being slurped during lunch.^[15] but they gradually began to open up to each other. Ami201, in particular, is a unique actor and also a comedian over 2 m (6 ft 6+1⁄2 in) tall. The conversation centering on him became lively, and the shooting gradually proceeded in a friendly atmosphere.^[16]

Although this drama was broadcast in the October season, filming began unusually early, in early spring. The reason for this was that the staff wanted to capture images of cherry blossoms blooming on college campuses during the entrance season.^[17] The third episode of this drama features a woman working in a cabaret club, and the store scene was filmed in an actual cabaret club.^[18] The final episode of this drama featured a special guest appearance by Kozo Kawato of the former professional baseball team Hanshin Tigers, playing himself. Isobe, a Hanshin Tigers fan, is depressed and crying when Kawato appears and plays a scene in which he leaves with some memorable words.^[19]

• Blu-ray and DVD-Boxes were released by Avex Pictures on March 30, 2016. Original booklet is included. The first edition comes with an original photo set.
  • Blu-ray Box (EYXF-10860/4)
  • DVD-Box (EYBF-10855/9)
• Original sound track music by Akio Izutsu (DQC-1510) released by One music record Co., Ltd.

• Youth Detective Haruya at IMDb
• Youth Detective Haruya (TV drama) - Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation