Whoever Arimura Kasumi's manager is, deserves a raise. While Arimura Kasumi is or was the IT girl, she has been in good and interesting doramas like Konto ga Hajimaru and now WOWOW's Zenkamono. She's doing a lot better compared to all the previous IT girls like Goriki or Ueto Aya and to be fair she is a much better actress than they are.
While Samayou Yaiba was a thrilling jdorama about a criminal without any chance of rehabilitation, Zenkamono is the opposite. It is about your everyday criminals trying to get back into society after leaving jail.
Arimura Kasumi is a probation officer and the most shocking thing we find out is that she does not get paid as it is a volunteer job! WTF Japan! Most people are not in jail for life so surely some of your tax money should go into helping ex criminals become productive members of society!
Zenkamono shows the audience the humanity of people who have been caught breaking the law and shows that they might come from a nice background like most people. Zenkamono shows that sometimes people are blind to the seriousness of their crimes and some people need to be given a second or third and help because they cannot do it on their own.
Zenkamono is WOWOW at its best and the last two episodes were difficult to watch (in a good way). It is a show that does not pull any punches. Looks like a movie sequel is coming out end of this month in Japan. Which I could go to watch. Its been more than two years since we were last back to the holy land.
Very much a must watch show and truly WOWOW never fails to be the standard bearer for quality jdoramas. Thanks to GEO9875 for subbing!
8 comments:
I was hoping to see you review this one... which was indeed a great drama. Kasumi is pretty good when she's playing dowdy characters.
And that's great about the movie being a sequel... I originally heard about both the drama and movie at the same time and so had assumed that the movie was just the drama compiled. Glad to be wrong about that!
Can you recommend any other dramas similar to this, about ex-cons trying to readjust back to society? (Plage being a great example that you reviewed.)
@Robert: I can't remember many ex-con jdoramas except for Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju about an ex-con wanting to be Rakugo storyteller.
@Robert check out Shiroi Haru and Nigeru Onna
@Anonymous: How did I completely forget about Shiroi Haru?!
@Anon I've seen both of those but thank you those are great recommendations.
I had fun subbing this, and it led me to discover Kasumi Arimura. ♥
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