Summary
Tokyo Swindlers has plenty of depth. Some of it is unnecessary, but there’s no doubt that this is a must-see crime thriller.
Tokyo Swindlers is thrilling from start to finish. Despite my early cynicism in the earlier episodes, the Japanese crime thriller keeps the high-octane pace. I must warn you that the first 30 minutes are clunky and forced. The writers had a hard time establishing the premise. Once the story is revealed, it’s surprisingly binge-worthy.
Knowing what a land swindler is is important before you delve into the premise. The Netflix series provides intricate details into its cogs in Episode 1, which annoyingly forms part of the narrated skippable title screen.
A “Land Swindler” is land and property fraud in basic terms. It involves a group of fraudsters acting on behalf of a piece of land, claiming ownership, and attempting to sell it to wealthy realtors or construction investors. It involves an unknowing, unsolicited offer to purchase the land. To achieve this, criminals often impersonate the land or homeowner to help seal the deal, along with a fake lawyer, broker, and asset portfolio manager.
So now that you know what a Land Swindler is, you pretty much know the premise of Tokyo Swindlers. The series delves into how much land swindling has prospered over the years, especially when the Olympics arrived in Tokyo. The story follows Harrison Yamanaka and his gang of highly skilled fraudsters swindling large money land purchases. One day, Harrison decides to think bigger and orchestrates his biggest land fraud.
Opposing the other side of the story are police officers Shimomura and Kuramochi, who are attempting to investigate and bring down the conspiracy.
There is an air of Money Heist in Tokyo Swindlers, just without the character development. The chess pieces are always moving. Your brain constantly engages with some part of the plan as the conspiracy thickens.
The only difference is that it’s difficult to pick a side. I won’t lie and claim I wanted the police to win. I like elaborate plans, illegal or not, so seeing things come together made for entertainment. You want to see it pulled off.
But on the other hand, there’s no real good or evil side to this. While land swindling is illegal, I’m not entirely sympathetic to greedy executives at large realtor corporations. It’s like The Wolf of Wall Street, where the characters are not likable regardless of who you agree with; they are there to entertain.
Tokyo Swindlers can be quite intoxicating with information. Some episodes spend too much time explaining a pattern or a specific revelation. This does add to the depth of the thriller, but on the other hand, it felt unnecessary in parts. It’s not as clever as the script assumes, so the series does lose points for overcomplicating the simplest of crimes.
Whether you like Tokyo Swindlers will boil down to whether you can suffer through characters you do not like, and I can only imagine this will put off some audiences. But this Japanese series is undoubtedly stimulating. And while this is certainly no Money Heist, I would not be put off by a continuation. I’d only want more character development if that is the case.
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