WHAT IS IT?
If you have been on trains in Japan, you might have noticed advertisements for job change companies like MyNavi or en and wondered is it really that difficult to change jobs in Japan that there is a whole industry about helping people do it? In Australia it is normal for people to change jobs every few years especially for higher pay. Japan used to be a work for one company until you retire country during the bubble ear and from what I have read, non regular workers are now 40% of the workforce.
As I have always said I enjoy watching occupational jdoramas because you get to learn about challenges of a job and what more interesting job is there than helping people find new ones?
Tenshoku no Maou-sama or the Devil king of changing jobs runs on the same formula as many occupational jdoramas as Sorette Pakuri jyanai? Koshiba Fuka is the bright main character who quits her job at an advertising agency because of harassment and gets a try out at the job changing agency and is mentored by the Devil King played by Narita Ryo who likes to tell it like it is. Of course Koshiba Fuka and Narita Ryo don't get along as Maou is rude to Koshiba Fuka and is direct with everyone.
WHAT I LIKED
+ A lot better than Soretta Pakuri jyanai. The chemistry between Koshiba Fuka and Narita Ryo is a lot better and stories are a lot more interesting. I think Koshiba was in the live action Kiki which I doubt I will ever watch because Kiki is one of my favourite Ghibli films.
+ Like Pakkuri, they have good support in Ishida Yuriko and Yamaguchi Sayaka.
+ I enjoy stories about problems and challenges of the Japanese workplace and I have heard so many stories over the years.
+ Episode 6 about the customer who kept changing jobs for an interesting reason.
+ Episode 7 is one of my favourites as it is about mothers in the workplace but is really about management not supporting workers with increased workloads.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
- Main character Koshiba Fuka got her job through nepotism. boo. If someone deserves to be a villain in a job search jdorama its the person who got their job through connections.
- Customers happily remarking that the jobs being presented to them are from major companies. Why do you need job searching company to look up jobs in the obvious places when you can google it?
- Episode 5 customer hating Maou for stupidest of reasons.
- Hikkikomori story for episode 9 is solved too easily.
MEH
= The supporting cast comedy is very meh but the comedy attempts are short so I did not mind. Made me realise that I got annoyed with not funny supporting characters when they get too much screen time. Not every attempt can be funny but if you are giving supporting characters too much screen time then they need it is annoying.
SUMMARY
Overall Tenshoku no Maou-sama was cheesy and flawed but I enjoyed it helped with the chemistry between the two leads. Thanks to fatemasubs for subbing and I got the subs and raws from dorama-otaku who also have the jp subs!
2 comments:
Speaking as someone who had a job in a 'major company' and got it through connections and was privy to much of the BTS, it seems that quite a few jobs don't go on public job boards until a) trusted higher-ups have said they can't recommend anybody and b) headhunting companies have been assigned to the case and failed for a while.
Anyway this is really interesting and you've got my interest piqued!
@youngheartsparkfire: That is an interesting point about jobs not being advertised. It is not explicitly stated in the dorama that the job are not advertised but maybe that's why Japanese go to job change companies.
Maybe major companies cbf doing recruitment and use these tenshoku companies weed out candidates. There was a headhunting jdorama a few years back but it wasn't really good.
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