The main story is about Kenzo, a cop from Tokyo whose life gets turned upside down when a yakuza boss shows up at his house. The boss tells him that Kenzo's brother Yuto, who everyone thought was dead, has killed someone important in London. This murder could start a huge gang war back in Tokyo unless Kenzo can go to London, find his brother, and figure out what really happened.
So Kenzo flies to London, which is already interesting because he doesn't speak much English and doesn't know the city at all. He's supposed to be there as a student in a police training program, but really he's searching for his brother. The show does a great job of showing how lost and out of place he feels in London, trying to navigate this completely different world while dealing with his own family problems.
What makes this show special is how it slowly reveals that nothing is as simple as it first seems. Through flashbacks, we learn that Kenzo isn't just an innocent cop trying to help his brother. Years ago, he actually killed someone to protect Yuto and covered it up. So when he's in London looking for his brother, he's also dealing with his own guilt and the fact that he's not the good guy he pretends to be.
The people Kenzo meets in London become just as important as the main mystery. There's Sarah, a British detective who's been pushed out by her colleagues because she reported corruption. She's lonely and isolated, just like Kenzo, so they understand each other even though they come from completely different worlds. Then there's Rodney, a young man who works as a male prostitute and becomes Kenzo's guide to London's criminal underworld. What could have been a stereotypical character becomes one of the most real and heartbreaking people in the show.
The show jumps between English and Japanese naturally, and you can tell the actors really worked hard to make the language barriers feel real. Sometimes characters can't express what they really mean because of language differences, which mirrors how they struggle to connect with each other emotionally.
What I loved most about Giri/Haji is that it's not really about solving crimes or stopping bad guys. It's about family, guilt, and how far people will go to protect the people they love. Kenzo's teenage daughter Taki flies from Tokyo to London to be with him, and their relationship becomes one of the emotional centers of the show. She's angry at him for being absent, but she also needs him, and watching them try to connect while all this chaos is happening around them is really moving.
The bad guys in the show aren't just evil for the sake of it. Connor Abbot, the London gangster, is genuinely scary but also pathetic in his obsession with Japanese culture. The yakuza bosses back in Tokyo have their own reasons for doing what they do. Even Yuto, when we finally meet him, isn't just a simple villain. He's made bad choices, but you understand why he made them.
The show looks absolutely beautiful. The scenes in Tokyo feel different from the London scenes, not just because of the locations but because of how they're filmed. Tokyo feels more structured and traditional, while London feels chaotic and unpredictable. The colors and lighting help tell the story without being obvious about it.
As the show builds to its ending, it becomes clear that this isn't going to be a typical action finale where the good guys win and everything gets wrapped up neatly. The climax happens on a rooftop where all the main characters confront each other, but instead of a big fight scene, it turns into this incredible dance sequence. I know that sounds weird and like it shouldn't work, but somehow it's the most emotionally powerful scene in the whole show. The dancing becomes a way for the characters to express all the things they can't say with words - their love, their anger, their regret, their hope.
The ending doesn't fix everything. Some relationships are broken beyond repair, some people don't get the redemption they want, and some problems don't have solutions. Yuto escapes to Paris with the woman he loves and their child, but he's still a fugitive. Kenzo goes back to Tokyo, but his wife wants a divorce and he's not the same person he was when he left. Sarah continues her work in London, but she's still dealing with the consequences of standing up for what's right.
What makes this show so powerful is that it trusts you to handle complicated emotions and moral questions. It doesn't tell you who to root for or what to think. Instead, it shows you real people making difficult choices and living with the consequences. Everyone in the show is trying to do what they think is right, but their ideas of right and wrong often conflict with each other.
The show also deals with themes of identity and belonging. Kenzo feels out of place in London, but he also starts to question his place in Tokyo. Rodney struggles with being mixed-race and not fully belonging to either culture. Sarah has been rejected by her own police force for doing the right thing. Everyone is searching for where they fit in the world.
The final episode really got to me emotionally, especially during that dance sequence. It had been a while since a TV show hit me that hard. The show manages to be both a exciting crime thriller and a deep exploration of human relationships. It's about duty and shame, like the title suggests, but also about love and forgiveness and the possibility of redemption.
The fact that it got cancelled after one season is heartbreaking, but in a way, the show works perfectly as a single story. It doesn't need to be stretched out over multiple seasons. It tells its story completely and honestly, and even though not everything is resolved, it feels finished in a way that's satisfying and true to life.
In a world where so many TV shows feels predictable and safe, this show dares to be something completely original and deeply human.
Watch on Netflix