# Ouroboros (2015)

> Two orphanage friends, one a clumsy Shinjuku detective and one a gang member, reunite twenty years after their teacher's murder to expose the police officer who covered it up.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/55231

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 10
- Episode runtime: 55 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Network: TBS
- Cast: Toma Ikuta, Shun Oguri, Juri Ueno, Yoh Yoshida, Tsuyoshi Muro, Nana Seino, Ken Mitsuishi, Kenichi Takitoh
- TMDB rating: 7.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3929046/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: tense, tragic, melancholic, gritty

## Synopsis

Ouroboros (2015) is a Japanese crime drama series that aired on TBS as a single season of ten episodes. Toma Ikuta plays Ryuzaki Ikuo, a clumsy detective at Shinjuku's second police station, and Shun Oguri plays Danno Tatsuya, a polished and handsome gang member, two former orphanage friends whose beloved teacher was murdered when they were children. Juri Ueno plays Hibino Mizuki, the elite detective who works alongside Ikuo on a string of cases. The engine is a long-held vow: the pair promised to avenge their teacher, and as Ikuo's investigations and Tatsuya's gang dealings keep brushing against one another, a policeman's buried cover-up begins to surface. Each episode mixes case work with shadowy underworld pressure, and the tension builds toward a single through-line. The tone is tense and tragic, with a melancholic undercurrent of lost innocence and loyalty tested by corruption. Fans of Japanese crime thrillers and yakuza dramas with morally compromised detectives will find resonance here, in the vein of Under the Dog and Hanzawa Naoki. It is a compact, serialized story adapted from a popular manga.

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