Review of SCANDAL EVE (2025)

Limited Series

Score: 4/10

Film star Shibasaki Ko remains a reigning queen of Japan’s television dramas. In her early days she co-starred in DR. COTO and GALILEO, as a nurse and police detective, respectively. Most recently she headlined INVISIBLE for the TBS station in 2022, memorably playing a mysterious and dangerous dealer of secrets. In director Kanai Kou’s SCANDAL EVE, glamor abounds, fittingly for a series that invites us into the world of media talent agents. Much of the budget seems to go into high fashion and posh interiors.

Shibasaki plays Ioka, a talent agent genuinely dedicated to providing her clients with pathways to success and stardom. Shibasaki also sings the theme song. Suzuki Honami plays Yoko, the heir to powerful agency Kodama which Ioka had the audacity to leave years ago. As these two competing agencies do battle, it pits one scandal against another. Suzuki deserves the highest praise for her scene-stealing performance as a scheming and controlling CEO which perfectly balanced menace and vulnerability. Emoto Akira, who has specialized over a forty plus year career in villains and schemers, for a change plays Yoko’s empathetic father who has a soft spot for Ioka, his former protegee. Kawaguchi Haruna plays Hirata, a journalist who finds herself caught in the middle. Her steely resolve to publish incendiary stories no matter the consequence leaves and impression. Ironically, Kawaguchi herself had assumed the role of Lady No, wife of warlord Oda Nobunaga, in the NHK taiga drama WAITING FOR KIRIN after another actress was forced to withdraw under a cloud of scandal.

Later episodes slow down to explore peripheral characters. This gives us a grittier and deeper dive into the harm done by the talent industry to its victims and reveals a truly misshapen industry that chews up and spits out hopeful youths. The writing does a good job of showing not telling this until the finale arrives. By the final episode, both armies square off against each other on an open field. That is to say, almost every character has chosen a side: Kodama or Raphele. In each army, agents join hands with journalists. However the finale is not just preachy, it decommissions the heros’ battle strategies and searches for grace in surrender. I lost track of how many bland soliloquies the writers lace together into a chain of transparent virtue. When I call a drama arresting, I usually mean that it stops me in my tracks, calls out to me, and moves me. Scandal Eve’s finale suffers cardiac arrest, the complete cessation of all life signs.

I look forward to Shibasaki’s future projects; let’s hope they nail the writing next time.

REEL JAPAN

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