Every dorama starts of as a great one. You get excited about the cast, the premise sounds interesting and one is filled with anticipation, thinking of the various ways that a show can go. The show started of strongly. It was a storyline I had never seen in a jdorama before and it was funny. Somewhere along the line, the show started to lose my attention. I think it had to do with the fact that while Koume was doing a great job taking over her father's role (duh, he works for a cosmetics company) the father was basically screwing up her marks and trying to keep her relationship with Kenta alive.
To me, Koume's dad not doing anything successful while in her body is a big wasted storyline opportunity. Going back to school and taking exams would be such a fresh air from the daily grind of working. It just makes Koume's dad look damn incompetent IMO. It was a huge mistake for the story to focus so much on Kenta.
Basically, the main problem is that the storyline is skewed for teenage girls. Teenage girl does better job than dad while worrying dad will ruin her life. This kinda prevents me from having any empathy towards Koume's dad. He is neither an admirable nor a sympathetic character besides the fact that he is stuck in her body.
I thought the Nishino storyline would spice up the show a bit but in the end she was revealed to be a psycho and then somehow her storyline was too neatly tied up into a nice bow. I'm not entirely sure that its the writers fault. Perhaps some TBS executive decided that the Kenta storyline would be good for ratings. The series is 7 episodes FFS. It should be about father and daughter, not daughter trying to keep infatuation alive while father plays supporting role. Or maybe Aragaki Yui's agent said no scenarios that will stretch her acting. I don't know. It seemed that the actor playing the dad is the star of the show while all the scenes involving Aragaki Yui are lame, inconsequential and unimaginative.
And I've gotta say a few words about the acting. I'm not sure whether some parts are bad for comedic effect or whether Aragaki Yui isn't good. I'm talking about the scene where she's crying in the hospital in the final episode.
Most doramas starts of with the potential to be a great one. My main gripe with Papa to Musume, as with most doramas is that it nowhere fulfilled it. Still, its better than that crap called most shows. *cough* First Kiss *cough* I guess since I was fairly entertained I'll have to say this was still a watchable show despite my gripes. Its just its one of those shows where the concept can only be done once in a long while and I was hoping it would be done well.
2 comments:
You make a good point about the father's incompetence ruining the story, though initially there was a degree of success when Dad and Kenta found a common ground in certain books.
And you're right about this focusing too much on Koume (trapped in Dad's body) But that's another factor that made me lose interest. There was just a bit too much of work-related scenes. But I guess that was the only way to give some screen-time to other older cast members.
It would've been fun if Dad (in Koume's body) went on the overnight trip with her friends and Kenta. That would've been pretty hilarious.
But I guess all these could'ves and should'ves wouldn't have materialized anyway because they were working from published books as source material.
Still my favorite scene in one of the later episodes was when Koume turned off the light in her room, and waved her cell phone to Kenta. Pretty original and touching.
To be honest, I really couldn't care much about Nishino or Kenta and their relationship with Dad and Koume. They both had pretty decent screentime, but sadly, zero character depth and development. Aragaki Yui didn't impress me much either. It just seems like another typical school girl role for her. Except she had to act a little manly this time round.
First Kiss crap? Well, I'm not sure which episode you've watched till. IMO, if Papa to Musume is a show that has a great start but loses steam over time, FK is a show that has a slow start but just gets better over time. Oh well, everyone has their own opinion.
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