Mioka eps 1-5

Mioka is another jdorama with the young beautiful girl who has same fatal and rare disease story. I blame Sekachu for making it a popular dorama for young and upcoming actresses though I wouldn't call Yoshitaka Yuriko upcoming with her extensive body of work. Actually the best thing about Sekachu was not the fatal disease part but rather high school and friendship part that they did real well. After Sekachu we had those two boring Erika-sama dorama, Ichi Litre and Taiyo no Uta.

Taichi and friend's reaction to Hebi ni Piasu.

To me the fatal disease story only work well with older characters because it would be about them reassessing their lives and doing things people don't normally do. With the dying school/college girl dorama its more look at how pitiful she is and how strong she is facing this rare disease. In fact, the rarer the disease the more pitiful. With Mioka they've decided to add in the losing memory sub genre so before long Mioka's rare brain disease will cause her to forget her friends and family. Oh, look how tragic she is. Zzzzzzzz.

No college jdorama is complete without a bitch-slap or two.


I think the main dude Taichi is one smart fella. He goes after Mioka because its a limited commitment relationship. He gets to have fun with her, she dies and he has one hell of a sob story to reel girls in. All Taichi has to do is to keep a photo of her on his phone/wallet/room and when a girl asks about it, reluctantly her about Mioka. He'll probably have a 100% success rate getting laid and could spice it up by calling out Mioka's name during sex.

Taichi has this ojousama called Mari played by the lovely Mizusawa Elena who he turns down for Mioka because he knows he can easily get her back. All he has to do is act angsty so that she suspect something is up and sooner of later Mari will find out about Mioka's disease. Mari will of course forgive Taichi because she'll think he did it out of pity. As I said, Taichi is one smart dude.

Is Mari in hand worth Mioka in the bush?

Two cute girls for the price of one. The worst case scenario for him is if Mioka doesn't die and somehow ends up brain dead. He'll have to waste his time going to the hospital everyday which isn't so bad when you consider the nurses that exist in jdorama world but he's going to have a hard time getting into Mari's panties since she's such a ojousama.

Japanese girl and their neko smile.


Cynicism aside, Mioka is better than the aforementioned Erika-sama jdoramas but not as good as the first 6 eps of Sekachu. The main actor is pretty decent and has chemistry with Yuriko.Tanihara Sousuke is freaking wasted as the boring doctor who could have been played by anyone. Mioka is what it is and I can't really criticize it for being what it is not. I'm only skimming through the dorama for Yoshitaka Yuriko and Mizusawa Elena though.