Friday, February 20, 2009

Triangle eps 2-5


Sometimes the best casting cannot save amateurish scripts and Triangle shows the writer's lack of competence in writing a mystery dorama. I looked through the writer's list of shows and nothing seems to indicate that she can write mystery. Maybe the fact that she is the wife of a director may shed some light on how Triangle is plagued with script problems.


Problem no. 1 is that Triangle has the subtlety of a 5 year old kid or rather the script is such that it seems the writer is writing for 5 year olds. This either indicates that Triangle is the best rated show for kids in Japan or the writer assumes that the majority audience do not know how to read between the lines. Case in point would be the major theme of Triangle about living other people's lives. It is an interesting theme that could be further explored if the writer did not possess the subtlety of a sledgehammer.


The dialogue is too rigid. When Goda Ryoji finally reveals why he became a doctor and quit, it seemed like a waste of an interesting reveal for the show to treat it so nonchalantly. If his motives were inferred through some interesting dialogue, Triangle would be infinitely better. Ditto for Kuroki & Sachi's dilemma of living another's life. When Goda talked to Kuroki & Sachi about it, it didn't seem natural. Its more like the writer going, "isn't this idea cool and I'm going to simplify these characters into a sentence so the audience does not have to think".



The potential for some character exploration like in Gonzo does not exist in Triangle. That would still be ok if the mystery was exciting. Unfortunately it is not. I was worried about there being too much stuff in ep 1 and I was right. Too many reveals and twists just for the sake of having one. Like the end of ep 4 when Sachi's mom 'confessed'. Did anyone actually get excited over that? If that was the best reveal the writer could come up with, she'd be better of just ending the episode normally.


Or the guy with scar on face. Boring and super obvious red herring. I don't mind red herrings. Its a necessary element of mystery shows but somehow I just can't get excited. The only cool part is when Kita Yoshio stood up Kuroki's dad but even the, imagine if there were a bit more character development. Bits of info about his life, rise up the ranks and run of the mill career. I just want Triangle to make me more invested into the chartacters but right now I don't even care if they all die.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:16 am

    Indeed, the writer's past work screams mediocrity. With Triangle, she yet again continues on her tradition of writing subpar shows. What an enormous waste of the cast.

    And what a waste of the OST songwriter... the same guy who did Iryu 2...

    You've covered my other beef well, so I won't repeat...


    So what family show do I like? Definitely not hotman. I thought Oyaji was better.

    Korean does this genre very well. It's definitely their forte. And frankly, it's a genre not suited for typical Japanese 10-11 episode format, and where each episode's storyline is self contained.

    I think the best Japanese family show I've seen is Haikei, Chichiue-sama. That was a very high quality and rewarding show ro watch.

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  2. Anonymous6:13 am

    hmmm, despite Jung being evil... I shall check your recommendations :)

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  3. Anonymous3:31 pm

    lol... I check out almost all Mike's recommendations too.

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  4. Oyaji is one of my favs ever. Absolutely perfect casting. Can't see why you find them different.

    I'm just watching Triangle to see the great cast wasted on crap script and listen to the music. They should have just saved the music for Iryu 3.

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