Ever since I started watching J-dramas around 2005, I have known of this "Trick" franchise, which has been such a huge hit in Japan, spawning three seasons, three specials, four movies and even a 3-season spinoff! My not being a great fan of Nakama Yukie made me leave it aside for the time being, though, and it wasn't until this summer that I've finally decided to give it a try (if you'll pardon my lousy pun, seeing Nakama Yukie wearing a qipao in her very first scene - and thusly looking like a real life version of China-san's character from Tsuruta Kenji's "Spirit of Wonder" manga - definitely TRICKed me into watching the series, LOL - yep, I might not be a big fan of her acting, normally, but her beauty is objectively something to behold, I have no problem admitting that! ^____^).
After finishing the first season, though, I'm not sure whether I'm gonna go on with all the following, as I was left really unimpressed by the drama itself. The leads were good (Abe is always as funny as they come, and Nakama too was not bad at all here - LOL her eerie laugh was frankly quite funny), but the supporting cast and guest stars often delivered abysmal performances. The script is, imho, mostly uninspiring....I was expecting a funny mystery the likes of Ishihara Satomi's "Puzzle" from 2008 or "Reinoryokusha Odagiri Kyoko no Uso" from a coupla years later, but here the funny moments were unfortunately way too rare (the constant jokes about the FL being flat-chested and the ML being hung honestly deeply annoyed me in the end - not that they were that funny to begin with!) and the mystery plots often ridiculous (imho the storyline with the twins was the only decent one, all the rest were forgettable).
But the worst detail came with the "packaging"; whereas the music was pretty good, the photography was mostly of quite low quality, and the direction and editing simply *awful* - seriously, I can imagine high school clubs doing better than that!
All things considered, there's no way I could give this a passing grade, sorry.