Douki no Sakura Episodes 1+2

In the beginning of Douki no Sakura, we see Sakura's colleagues huddles near her bed as she lies in a coma. Immediately, I thought about Dandarin, Takeuchi Yuko's must watch show about being a public servant.

Then we see how Sakura came to meet her colleagues as they all entered this construction company as employees together, hence the 'douki' in Douki no Sakura.

Sakura's character is the same as Dandarin's; robotic and old fashioned while always pointing out faults and always honest to a fault. Except Sakura's main tactic when things don't go so good is to give her 'I have a dream speech'. Dandarin just gets really angry and does things.

I spent the first episode thinking Dandarin rip off. Nothing wrong with that of course. After Sorimachi's GTO there were GTO rip offs aplenty and Dandarin is a variation of GTO. It also helps that the writer, Yukawa Kazuhiko is the writer of the legendary GTO jdorama anyway and he did Kohogo no Kahoko along with Takahata Mitsuki.

Episode 2 we have Sakura working in HR as she tries to help her colleague who has been doing a lot of overtime. I'm pretty sure every Japanese salaryman watching this must be thinking that it was a load of rubbish because it would not happen in real life, epecially for a story set 10 years ago.

Anyway, I kind of enjoyed episode 2 and started to accept it as Dandarin set in a construction firm. The main difference between Dandarin and Douki no Sakura is that Dandarin is more a parody comedy while Douki no Sakura is about feel good sentimentality.

I have nothing to dislike about Douki no Sakura and based on the track record of Kohogo no Kahoko, I think it will give me about the same level of entertainment. Watchable.