It was chilly and rainy today, so I watched *Shigeru Amachi’s Edogawa Ranpo: The Beautiful Women Series*, which I found at a charity bazaar a while back.

Showa-era TV had not only bedroom scenes but also plenty of nude scenes. It’s amazing that programs like this were broadcast during prime time! Unlike AV, it had a real sense of eroticism and sensuality, and the actresses’ nudity wasn’t vulgar at all—it was beautiful. The story was grotesque in true Edogawa Ranpo fashion, and the distinctive music and sound effects were eerie. Since I watched it at night, it was quite frightening. Shin Takuma, who wasn’t as well-known at the time, also made a brief appearance under a different stage name, Shigeharu Takuma. Apparently, various actors played the role of Akechi, but Shigeru Amachi seems to have been the most popular. At the end, Shigeru Amachi takes off and throws away the mask of the culprit. He has more of an “elegant older gentleman” vibe than simply an “older man,” but to women in their twenties, would he still just be considered an older man? Is it less about the overall impression and more about age? For example, the late Masakazu Tamura and Hiromi Go are certainly older men in terms of age, but they have the air of “refined, wonderful older gentlemen” to me••••• And although they have both passed away, Ken Ogata and Ren Osugi, for instance, struck me as “older gentlemen with great acting skills and real character.” This was my first time watching the series, but it seems to have originally aired around the 1980s. I wondered whether some of the male members here might have watched it as well. Unlike modern suspense dramas, I became completely absorbed in it. An older gentleman or older man may be judged partly by his appearance, but I think personality, character, and values are also extremely important.