HERO is back!

HERO 2014

It is hard to believe it has been 13 years since we saw the first series of HERO on TV.

Since this is a summer series, we cannot see Kuryu'u in that famous reddish-brown down jacket.

Perhaps, the biggest change for this current series is that the 2nd lead is Kitagawa Keiko instead of Matsu Takako.  

Other notable casts who are no longer seen in this series are Abe Kan, a colleague of Kuryu'u and (the late) Kodama Kiyoshi, the boss.  At the end of the 1st episode, when all the casts and staff names were shown, a special caption for Kodama was there with an image of whisky on the rocks. (It said "Special Thanks: Kodama Kiyoshi")  Very nice...

HERO 2001

The office set-up and elevator scenes remain the same.  The story is also pretty much the same.  I'm not sure this is good or bad.

The ratings of the original series (11 episodes) in 2001 ranged between and 30% and 36%.  The first episode of this current series hit 26.5%, not quite popular as the original series.  We'll see if this will go up or not.