All hail Ozaki Masaya, one of the best jdorama writers out there having written KDO, Love Generation and Tadano Hitoshi! KDO is one of the greatest jdoramas ever and I never suspected that we would actually get its spiritual sequel in Black President!
Sawamura Ikki is Mitamura Yukio, the president of a black kigyou (business), which means a company that overworks his workers. Mitamura is a very direct person who likes to say what he thinks, actually cares about what other's think of him, always sexually harasses Kuninaka Ryoko who plays his secretary and emphasizes results over the treatment of his workers. Mitamura decides to enter University to study business management and ends up being taught by Kuroki Meisa and he also enters the movie club.
THE GOOD
+ Brilliantly funny like KDO.
+ Ozaki Masaya is a genius at creating jokes that don't need the punchline to be said. For example, he sets up the ball pen thing in the beginning of the episode and the name of his automatic vacuum and makes them pay off at the very end.
+ Sawamura Ikki is very well cast to play the playful Mitamura.
+ Mitamura taking off his trousers when all Dan Mitsu only asked him to unbutton his shirt. lol
+ Dan Mitsu in a role that doesn't require acting. I still need therapy to forget her horrible acting in Hanzawa Naoki.
+ The mature age university student angle is interesting because it hardly happens in Japan.
+ After Dandarin, I'm happy for more worker's rights issues, this time from a management perspective.
THE BAD
- Kuninaka Ryoko should have swapped roles with Kuroki Meisa. This feels like casting according to name value cause Kuroki Meisa just doesn't have chemistry with Sawamura Ikki and Kuninaka Ryoko deserves her chance to play the Hayasaka sensei role since she was basically Natsukawa Yui's understudy in KDO.
THE UGLY
- Sawamura Ikki shaking his shoulders and doing the 'yarou yo...'
SUMMARY
While I doubt Black President will reach the great heights of KDO, I think there's a 90% chance this will be a very good dorama cause I absolutely believe in Ozaki Masaya's writing. He's got the ability to address issues of management and youth looking for their way in life with a deft and funny touch. Must watch jdorama.
Add this one to your The Good: Kuninaka rubbing her chin with metal testicles in bathroom at 20:50.
ReplyDeleteAs a KDO fan, I appreciated the homage to KDO. The camera zoom into the high rise from outside the building made me laugh more than it should haven.
I agree Ikki does a pretty impressive job with the character. As much as I would've liked to seen Kuninaka as the professor, I think Kuroki does an pretty good job. Ultimately, they made the right choice otherwise it would've been difficult to make a clean break from KDO.
What's missing from so far is more subtle non-verbal character acting, and overall chemistry between characters. Hopefully that will improve.
Part of the difficulty was too many characters were introduced in episode 1, with little too much Ikki screen time.
The season is off to a good start.
Rootabega sez:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the rundown. I might have given this the pass given my heavy viewing schedule, but you've convinced me to have a look, and I'm glad I did. This is a really solid comedy. The writing is sophisticated and the production values are decent. I think Ikki-san is a great choice for the lead. All of those initial close-ups of him would normally turn me off, but he knows how to make it work.
Such a gooood season so far....