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Japan's finest. Akira Inami (Left) and Saburo Tamaru (Right) are on the case.

Crisis, also known as CRISIS: 公安機動捜査隊特捜班 (CRISIS: Koan Kido Sosatai Tokusohan or CRISIS: Public Security Mobile Investigation Unit Special Investigation Team) and as CRISIS - Special Security Squad - outside Japan is a 10-episode Japanese drama series that aired in Japan from April 11 - June 13, 2017. It's broadcasted by Kansai Television and by Fuji Television, the latter being also available under Fuji TV's "Fuji TV on Demand" online network and on Amazon Japan on a rental basis. The show is based on a script written by Kazuki Kaneshiro, who was involved in SP: Security Police and the BORDER series. The OP song is "I need your love" by Beverly, while the show's soundtrack was scored by Kohta Yamamoto and Hiroyuki Sawano.

It made history as the first Japanese television show to be aired first in Cannes at the MIPTV festival on April 4, 2017. At the same time, Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Mongolia has acquired the rights to broadcast the show in their local networks via WAKUWAKU Japan with the appropriate subtitles made available. CRISIS also achieved the rating of 18.4% percent, the highest audience ratings throughout the Kansai area for the Spring 2017 season.

The show takes place in Tokyo in the year 2017 where the National Police Agency has established a covert plainclothes law enforcement unit called the Public Security Mobile Investigation Unit Special Investigation Teamnote , a team made of five active police officers who served in various capacities in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department under the command of Superintendent Daiki Kaji, head of the NPA's Security Bureau, alongside Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Superintendent Yuko Aonuma. Each of the officers carries/carried a Dark and Troubled Past with them. Their job is to investigate and solve criminal and terrorist cases throughout the country when the deployment of conventional law enforcement units may attract unnecessary and unwanted attention from the public eye, especially if the matter at hand is serious, sensitive or a black ops-type mission.

The show is officially optioned by KTV for a foreign remake. The official English website is here, though the Japanese website has more information on the show's plot and characters. The official English website from Fuji TV is also available here.

In November 2017, the show won the Excellent Prize category in the 2017 Tokyo Drama Awards event.

In March 2018, the show won the Silver Plaque award at the 54th Chicago International Television Festival.


Tropes present in the show:

  • All There in the Manual: The Kansai Television website and the various guidebooks give more details to the members and leadership of the PSMIUSIT.
    • The official episode titles are made available here.
  • Badass Bookworm: The Shinjitsu no Hikari cultists in Episode 6, disguised as office employees with glasses, nearly put up a good fight against Akira and Saburo before they were taken down.
  • Batman Gambit:
    • Kami no Hikari uses a cultist, who was supposedly expelled by its leaders, to bomb the shinkansen train Minister Okamura of the Ministry Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology was riding. They didn't count on Hayashi Satoshi being the mole for the PSMIU SIT.
    • The Heisei Restoration Army in Episode 7 plans a major attack. What the public doesn't know is that the TMPD would increase security in and around the Diet, leaving the children of known politicians vulnerable to assassination.
    • Kami no Hikari plans a terrorist attack against the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. When the PSMIU SIT is deployed, they find out that it was a trap since Satoshi's wife told the cult about their plans to intercept the cultist and learned from their mistake.
    • Prime Minister Masaomi Kishibe's recuperation in the hospital due to a bad fall was a ploy to get his son Daisuke to come back under the pretense of visiting him in order to draw out Yuki Tadashi out of hiding and have an assassin kill him in case the team can't kill him under "legal means".
  • Big Damn Heroes: Aonuma brings in the Special Assault Team to help the PSMIU SIT rescue Hayashi Satoshi, Saburo's mole in Kami no Hikari after his wife sold him out since she loves Saburo because he goes to see her most of the time to pay money for compensation for her husband's work with Public Security.
  • Bitter Sweet Ending:
    • Episode 6: The team finds out Yutaka Nabeshima aka Satomi Shuichi bombed the Tokyo metro subway in 2006 since he was tortured by Shinjitsu no Hikari members and his fellow officers didn't bail him out after he submitted intel on a potential attack and joined in to show that he was a committed member or die by their hands.
  • Cassandra Truth: Episode 8 revealed that the raid on Kami no Hikari is announced to the public due to secret investigation conducted on them. Which is true. They left out the details on Saburo and others raiding the KH compound since their work is not suppose to be known outside the police.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Several in the show.
    • Episode 1 has a teenager looking at the crime scene when Akira spots him walking away. In Episode 7, he gets arrested as a major terrorist suspect with the Heisei Restoration Army with a white mask hidden in his room.
      • There's a uniformed officer, who's an old man with glasses, cordoning the crime scene after Keisuke Udagawa is forced to kneel down with a bomb strapped on his neck. He's the one with the detonator and threatens to use it since Udagawa was involved in a rape case that made his only daughter kill herself out of shame and guilt.
    • Episode 9 has several JGSDF soldiers survey the ruins of a bombed building on June 15, 2016. One of the Special Forces Group commandos involved is Tadashi, who goes rogue when he learns that PM Kishibe's son Daisuke was the culprit since he left the bomb in a cafe where his fiance worked out of cowardice.
      • PM Kishibe talks with his wife on how Daisuke is a big wimp while he's studying in America for his university classes. Turns out that this is the reason he screwed up a supposed terror attack on a metro/JR station because of his cowardice.
    • Episode 10 has Superintendent Kaji telling Akira to shoot Tadashi the next he sees him. It later works out for PM Kishibe when Kaji realizes that he won't shoot him and instead, had arranged for Daisuke to be used as bait to draw him out so that a hired assassin can kill him before he becomes a major domestic terrorist.
  • Cliffhanger: The end of Episode 10 has a news broadcast interrupted for breaking news...
  • A Day in the Limelight: Episode 9 for the entire unit with the team taking some time off from their previous case.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The show's theme in dealing with serious criminal/terrorist cases comes at a time when Japanese nationals overseas are targeted and kidnapped/killed during terrorist events, the most recent one in the hands of Daesh in the Middle East and in Bangladesh.
    • The Tokyo metro bomb attack in Episode 6 is one for the 1995 terror attack by Aum Shinrikyo cultists.
      • Kami no Hikari and Shinjitsu no Hikari's terrorist actions would remind people of AS and its supposed outshoot, Aleph.
    • The Heisei Restoration Army is one for Anonymous since they use the internet to mobilize their supporters and use white masks and hoodies to conceal their faces.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending:
    • Episode 5 has Kaji leak sensitive info to the media on Chief Cabinet Secretary Toru Kamiya's involvement in child prostitution with one of the injured teens involved provided with the best hospital care after he finds out that he's using him to hide his criminal dealings with a yakuza group responsible for drug smuggling.
    • Episode 7 has the team secure the children of politicians inside various university campuses from being assassinated by Heisei Restoration Army terrorists.
    • Episode 8 has Satoshi and his wife leave Japan for witness protection purposes and to rebuild their marriage after the police secure him from KH custody.
  • Elites Are More Glamorous: The PSMIU SIT. Also the Special Assault Team for their Big Damn Heroes moment in Episode 8.
    • The JGSDF's Special Forces Group (SFGp, which Akira is from prior to joining the police. Also Tadashi after he plans to become a terrorist.
  • Far East Asian Terrorists: The cult group Kami no Hikari (Light of God) and the Heisei Restoration Army. In Episode 6, it's Shinjitsu no Hikari (Truth/Reality of God).
  • Karma Houdini: Another theme of the show. Most of the bad guys get away from being arrested/killed by the PSMIU SIT due to interference from Tokyo, orders from corrupt officials or the rich and powerful influencing the TMPD to get the unit to back off. This drives the unit down that Yusuke is seen drawing up plans of the TMPD building, which is not know if he's planning an attack on the building for using the unit as a decoy to kill a terrorist by Prime Minister Masaomi Kishibe for going after his delinquent son.
  • Killer Cop: The assassin in Episode 2 is actually a Security Police officer assigned to protect the Chief Cabinet Secretary Kamiya.
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: The assassination of a journalist Saburo was about to meet up was written off because of health reasons, not because he got killed by an assassin. This, however, gave the unit enough time to investigate what the journalist was trying to uncover.
  • Market-Based Title: The show is marketed outside Japan as CRISIS - Special Security Squad - or as CRISIS: Public Security Mobile Investigation Unit Special Investigation Team.
  • Mythology Gag: See The 'Verse for more information/details.
  • Murder-Suicide: The terrorists involved in murdering House of Representative member Toru Hamao killed themselves to avoid being arrested and prosecuted and to prevent the HRA from being arrested as well.
  • Spiritual Successor: The show is a modern-day incarnation of Ghost in the Shell, with the sci-fi stuff/technology left out and the covert work of Section 9 in its place and restructured around the TMPD alongside current political commentary.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: In Episode 10, the government hides PM Kishibe's assassination attempt by announcing to the public that he's in the hospital due to broken bones from a bad fall.
  • Trapped Undercover: Episode 6 centers on an investigation of whether an officer from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's Public Security Bureau turned into a terrorist for Shinjitsu No Hikari (Truth/Reality of Light) when the Tokyo Metro network was attacked with explosives. It turns out said officer wasn't extracted from the cult by his fellow PSB officers as planned after said officer infiltrated the cult, forcing him to commit terrorism in order to preserve his cover.
  • The 'Verse: It's suggested that due to Kaneshiro's involvement in the scriptwriting, the show takes place in the same universe as SP and BORDER. Someone at the D Addicts drama forum board made a suggestion to support the idea.
    The name "Date Kunio" gets dropped in the beginning of [Episode 9]. Date Kunio is a prominent character played by Kagawa Teruyuki in the movie sequels to the drama series "SP", titled "SP: The Motion Picture". Of course, the "SP" franchise is also created and written by Kaneshiro Kazuki... 'Udagawa Keisuke' (the victim) is a character that was already established in another Kaneshiro drama called "BORDER" (episode 7 to be precise), although he was played by a different actor.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Episode 3: The terrorists responsible for assassinating Hamao has successfully gotten away from being arrested by killing each other in a murder suicide.
    • Episode 4: The team was ordered to abandon Professor Arima with the suicide bomb strapped on him since if taken in alive, could cause a scandal within the ranks of the TMPD because Public Security Bureau officers made him into a spy by leaking out fake info to a foreign agent due to a honey trap op and made threats to him when he wouldn't go along anymore. The professor eventually leaked out actual sensitive info after his optimism failed him since he thought he was being a patriot by helping the police.
    • Episode 10: The team is almost disillusioned by the actions of PM Kishibe in using his own son to draw out Tadashi and have him killed that most of them are questioning on whether it's a good idea to stick with the unit. Yusuke is seen drawing up plans for the TMPD building, Rei is seen talking to a possible hacker on an underground chat room and Saburo is seen talking to a Chinese-speaking intelligence agent after the former dares him to come back and talk to him to see if it's worth working for a state that works to preserve its own self rather than protect its citizens. It ends with a news broadcast when a reporter is about to televise breaking news.

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