Looking at Fall 2013 Jdoramas

JDORAMAS THAT SHOULD BE SUBBED

1. LINK

WOWOW Police and conspiracy show with Omori Nao, Tanaka Rena, Mimura and Kinpachi sensei? Hopefully this will help Tanaka Rena forget she was ever in that abomination Gekiryuu. Please be good. Please be good. Please be good.

2. KAGI NO NAI YUME WO MIRU

Just realised this show is finished. Look at that cast. Downloading now and can't wait to watch.


JDORAMAS THAT MIGHT NEED TO BE SUBBED

1. UMI NO UE TO SHINRYOJO

Funny concept of island hopping doctor who falls in love easily. Its got Matsuda Shota and Arakawa Yoshiyoshi. The bad thing is that its got Takei Emi who brought down the Kenshin movie with her unnecessary monologue.

2. TOKYO TOY BOX

A dorama about making games? Not something you see everyday. Could be very interesting depending on the script.

3. TOKYO BANDWAGON

Reasons to watch - Tabe Makiko + Mimura + writer wrote Last Present and Lunch no Joou and Detroit Metal City
Reasons not to watch - Kame + writer wrote Buzzer Beater

4. DANDARIN

Takeuchi Yuko + show about Japanese workplace practices? Could be interesting. I want to see it deal with Japanese doing unpaid overtime and not being able to take more than a few days or at most a week off work.

5. DOKUSHIN KIZOKU 

When I see Kitagawa Keiko, I am instantly reminded of Lady. That show marked a new low in stupidity for spy jdoramas. The preview for Dokushin Kizoku does give off the vibe of three KDO like characters getting together. There's a possibility it could be a Nojima Shinki style smart and funny show. The writer also wrote Koi ni Ochitara and Unfair so can't really tell. Might be watchable but I would not bet on it.

JDORAMAS THAT SHOULD NOT BE SUBBED

1. ANDO LLOYD

Kimutaku hasn't been responsible for any show being decent since Pride (I still can't get over what he did to Karei Naru Ichizoku) and Suspect X would have been perfect without Shibasaki Kou. From the writer that brought us the Keizoku series and Yanpapa. The only way it could work if its as quirky as Keizoku and Kimutaku stops playing himself. These two have no goodwill from me to want to find out.

2.  MISS PILOT

She can't act and doesn't have screen presence, wtf is she still getting pushed?

3. 49

WTF!!!!! Why is Nojima Shinji writing this? Either he must need money badly or someone's got pictures of him with an AKB48 girl. Dead father possessing son's body could be funny if the show doesn't look an idol promotion. On second thought, this should not be subbed because I cringe at the thought of watching basketball in jdoramas because its not a sport you can fake. I checked the Japanese wiki just to be sure. WOWOW, what are you doing? Surely you can pay Nojima Shinji double for whatever he's making to write this? Just had a look at the CM and no way this can good. Nojima Shinji WTF?

4. LEGAL HIGH 2

Couldn't finish the first series and I'm sick of Sakai Masato's overacting although in this case its appropriate since its a comedy. Legal show that's less about law and more about sentimental parables, no thanks.

5. KEIJI NO MANAZASHI

This show lost me at 'Despite the heartrending pain he has been through, he still tries to believe in people. The look in his eyes unsettles criminals and gains the trust of tight-lipped parties involved in cases.'

6. SEQUELS ABOUT LEGS AKA TOSHI DENSETSU ONNA AND DOCTOR X

I love legs as much as any guy but this is getting ridiculous. Obviously legs rate well enough in Japan.

7. KUROKOUCHI

Gourike Ayame as a detective? Um, how old is she? Old enough for police cadet school but detective? Next thing you know, Ueto Aya will be playing a police detective.

8. HONEY TRAP

I like the supporting cast and would give it a try if it were an NHK or WOWOW show. Lol at Moriyama's gangster hair.

9. ASAKI YUMEMISHI

WTF. WTF decided she could act?

Pan to Soup to Neko Biyori Eps 1+2

Just when I was thinking WOWOW needs to branch out from doing ensemble cover up doramas, we have something very different. Pan to Soup to Neko Biyori is director Matsumoto Kana's third work after Mother Water and Tokyo Oasis both of which I have yet to watch although Tokyo Oasis has been sitting in my list of movies to watch for some time. Sigh, I need to take one month off and just binge on my backlog of jmovies and KFC. It seems like Matsumoto Kana is a director of good repute and she's got a two actors who are always in her shows; Kobayashi Satomi and Kase Ryo.

Pan to Soup to Neko Biyori is a very laid back dorama about this older single woman Akiko, played by Kobayashi Satomi who quits her job as an editor and takes over her mother's store after her mother passes away. The director doesn't have a strong visual style like Koreeda but its similar to Going My Home. The good thing is that its only 4 episodes so it won't drag like Going My Home did. I wonder if Koreeda wanted to do 10 episodes or whether it was studio mandated? If he had done it with WOWOW as a 6 episode series, he would have a smaller budget but it would have been much better.

Pan to Soup follows Akiko as she decides what to do with her life with her mother passing away, reopening her mother shop and the various characters that she interacts with such as the other business owners in the neighbourhood.  I would have liked to see more of the challenges of opening the shop such as applying for permits and attracting customers cause a sandwich and soup for 1200 yen is bit too much. I think this is going to be more about Akiko's journey of uncovering who she is rather than a business dorama. Pan to Soup to Neko Biyori is one of those shows where you can't judge it until it ends. For now, its been an enjoyable and relaxing two episodes but nothing has gotten me excited yet.

Furueru Ushi

Furueru Ushi is last show on my list of jdoramas that should be subbed for last season. Took me a while to get around to it because its intimidating to watch corporate conspiracy doramas without any subs. The good news is that its more of a straight forward police investigation dorama than complicated corporate story. You can guess what the conspiracy is and its more of a procedural discovering the cover up done by a cop and reporter.

We've seen WOWOW do these type of shows before including police reluctance to investigate. Suspicious murder leads to famous chain supermarket and then to this meat processing company and the various parties trying to cover things up. The question is whether Furueru Ushi can keep the quality consistent? Last year was the year of WOWOW doramas starting strong and faltering with the exception of Hitori Shizuka. This year we've already had the incredible Lady Joker and I'm happy to say WOWOW have produced a solid show.

Furueru Ushi never reaches the excitement of Lady Joker but it never collapses under its own weight like Suitei Yuzai. It has to do with the audience knowing more than the characters and waiting for the characters to catch up to the audience's knowledge. However, once things get clearer, Furueru Ushi becomes more interesting as various parties start acting more in their interest.

There's a WTF twist near the end which would have been awesome if the mastermind had been more 'evil' because that would have explained some plot holes. Unfortunately someone grows a stupid conscience and snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Sigh. I like that the mastermind never went into anime gwahaha muahaha mode but it should have been his plan all along to get rid of the son and he never wanted to save him.

I really enjoyed the acting from the supporting characters in this one. Namakemono-san as the director of the supermarket made me double guess whether he was the same actor as the smiling Namakemono-san from Woman right The most impressive performance is Furuta Arata as the slimy and dangerous president of Meat Box. Seriously, they should have cast someone like Furuta Arata in that Kaibutsu dorama special instead of someone like Mukai Osamu. I guess Kaibutsu will always stick in my mind as a show that could have been great with the right casting.

While I won't rate Furueru Ushi a must watch, I'm happy with its consistency and that it didn't try to do too much or get too cliched. Not every dorama can be Lady Joker and most should not even try to do something so complicated and nuanced because they'll just fail miserably. We've already seen so many cover up doramas from WOWOW including Soratobu Taiya. I really want to see them excel in other genres. IMHO Furueru Ushi is better than the Pandora series for me but below must watch level.

Sakamoto Yuji - Soredemo Ikite Yuku interview Part 2B

Finally halfway done! This is the juiciest part of the interview so far and makes me want to watch Mother after this. It also makes me question had happened with Woman's script because Sakamoto Yuji did Soredemo Ikite Yuku without restraints. Anyways, all corrections and comments are welcome. My translation is a bit rough in the beginning but the second half was much easier to translate. Hope the 2nd half of the interview is as easy. Original interview can be found here.

Abiko: Did they come out of Sakamoto-san’s head or influenced from feedback from an actor? I’m interested to know which one.

Samakomo: Let’s take Mitsushima Hikari as an example. Normally when you see her acting, words fluently flow out of her nonstop but I like the acting when someone has difficulty with their words. Character who feel strongly about something about something but cannot express themselves well. I think that's where Mitsushima-san is at her best, or most captivating, so that's the kind of dialogue I went with. When I see this type of dialogue on television afterwards, I think, ‘this person said some interesting things’ and it is this type of model that I wanted to do.

Abiko: I see, so you get those type of inputs. In the case of novels, of course there are people who set up their models before writing but for me, I start from zero and I don't write with a model in mind. This difficult to write style of dialogue erupts in this dorama because because you use the novelist way of writing. Without this type of conversation (where characters don't express themselves well), the meaning cannot be communicated. The atmosphere before and after or the colour of the actor's face all are important parts of the dialogue. However, all of that looks natural.

Sakamoto: Yes.

Abiko: Especially in regards to recent tv doramas, I think they over explain things. No one actually talks like that (in real life). I find it painful to watch. However, Sakamoto-san's script feels like its creating distance from the viewer (making it more difficult for them to follow). For example it won’t explain why a character says ‘yes’.

Sakamoto: For as long as I’ve done television, its probably at the top of the what type of script one is not supposed to do. Fundamentally, television is about (characters saying) lines like ‘This is what I'm feeling now’’. Then there is the problem of having to tell the viewer "What is next" so that they understand. As well for dorama creators, there is a question of whether that is a fun thing and a lot of creators face that dilemma. In my case, because of of my age, I don’t really care about dorama taboos and I’ve been breaking them recently. This time I sincerely didn’t try to follow the rules of dorama and wrote whatever was appropriate for the subject. I could do it because the producer was of the same opinion.

Abiko: This is an unusual case, isn’t it?

Sakamoto: The producer was someone who had always been doing variety shows. After doing them for 20 years, he had finally come into the world of doramas and was just happy to be doing doramas. As he was the producer of the variety show Warrateiitomo! He had nothing to lose and nothing to hope for. He said, “For the time being, do whatever you want!” Usually television is for people who wash plates while watching. This time, I made the dorama for really pay attention to what they are watching! On that point, the producer and I never wavered and creating a dorama where if you don’t watch attentively, you will not understand what is happening.

Kurashina Kana is never be meiwaku.

Oguma: Excuse me, I have a question I want to ask. Similar to Mother, this time the 7th episode had the killer and the lover’s recollection scene which lasted more than 30 minutes. Many doramas have recollection type scenes in them but I think that such a deliberate flashback are not done in other serial doramas.

Sakamoto: At the time of doing Mother, it was something I tried although there were dissenting opinions. In Mother’s recollection scene, the main character played by Matsuyuki Yatsuko did not appear. It was mostly acted by the abusive mother played by Ono Machiko. At that time, Ono Machiko wasn’t that famous. There were many people who thought that was out of place. In the first place, I didn’t intend to do that recollection scene. At the time that the dorama started airing, I received mail speaking ill of the abusive mother from people I knew. “She’s a pig who only knows how to depend on men!” 

Both: (Roar of laughter)

Sakamoto: Even now, I’ve kept that precious mail. (laughs) "A good for nothing for abuses her child!" I thought that she was misunderstood. So with that feeling, I had to explain it to these people although the dorama was already close to the ending…  Do you want to hear about some minor details?

Oguma: Yes please.

Sakamoto: At the 9th episode, Matsuyuki Yukiko’s character got caught, episode 10 was the trial and the 11th was the ending. Actually the whole of the 10th episode was supposed to be about the trial where the main character is judged but that was taken out and the recollection scene put in. I wrote the script for Ono Machiko’s character and then everyone became worried. (laughs)

Abiko: Is that because no one famous appeared?

Sakamoto: For the whole episode, the main character did not appear and usually the viewer would not accept it….

Soko o Nantoka

Back in 2004, there was this fun little movie called Swing Girls. When I saw Ueno Juri on screen, I knew she had that certain something. Swing Girls also had Kanjiya Shihori and Motokariya Yuika. Talk about talent! Motokariya Yuika has always had supporting roles in a lot of great shows especially Gonzo and Lady Joker.  Her agent knows how to get her involved in good shows.

While I hate overpushed idols, I always like when actors who have paid their dues doing supporting supporting roles get a chance to show what they can do. When I was doing my write up on Lady Joker, I was thinking I have not seen Motokariya Yuika as the lead in any show, which lead me to Soko o Nantoka.

The gimmick of Soko o Nantoka is that Motokariya Yuika plays Rakuko, a new lawyer who grew up poor and is saddled with debts. In true jdorama fashion, she doesn't look like she's slumming it except for eating a lot of nukazuke. If there are two Japanese foods that I will never try, they would be nukazuke and natto. Like Tokkan, she is partnered with a veteran with a muddy past who doesn't like her at first as she grows into her job.

I really hated the first three episodes of Soko o Nantoka. Its a lawyer show in name, but its just another one of those trying to uncover something's true feelings/fix people's lives doramas ie Shinzanmono with the forced over-sentimental ending. Why do so many jdoramas fall into this pattern? I wanted to quit this show cause it just felt so cliched but kept watching for reading practice.

Soko o Nantoka is a pretty crap show until the chikan episode. Very much a dorama version of Soredemo Ikite Yuku. It had a sappy ending but it didn't feel forced. The last two episodes were pretty good too with Taruko sensei from Suzuki sensei in a two part story.

The second half was better when the stories got more personal and more shoujo manga-like. After all, Soko o Nantoka is based on a shoujo manga. The straight up 'legal' stories in the first half were less legal and more generic sappy stories. Its when the Soko o Nantoka is a straight up shoujo manga story with legal elements that it works better although the two best stories in the series, the chikan and fire story were more of the serious variety.

As for Motokariya Yuika, she's not Ueno Juri but she's not Takei Emi either. I want to see her play the lead in a serious movie.Watchable second half with three stand out episodes.

Akuryo Byoutou

Once upon a time, I thought I was going to have a heart attack watching this movie called Ju-on. It was basically the last j-horror movie I have ever watched and I promised myself to never watch another one. I had watched It as a kid and that stuff scarred me for life but I still kept watching horror. Ju-on was on a whole other level of scary. However, the lure of Kaho and nurses was too much that I had to check out Akuryo Byoutou for myself, though its taken me a long time to get around to it.

Akuryo Byoutou is basically about cute nurses working nightshift in a hospital where they have to walk around the dark corridors at night with only a small flashlight and there is an old abandoned ward with no electricity.

Akuryo Byoutou is filled with staples of the j-horror genre ranging from woman in white to dead schoolgirls to silent ghosts that just stand there. Its my favourite thing about the j-horror genre,  the camera pans around you see a short glimpse of a head at the window thinking 'wtf was that' and it pans back and its not there. Less is scarier.

I also liked how the early episodes are told as flashback. Something happens to a character at the end of an episode and the next one we find out what actually happened and how they are connected to Kaho's character, Runa. The horror of inevitability.

Unfortunately after the halfway mark, Akuryo Byoutou stops being scary when things start getting explained and the show is forced to show more. Ghosts/monsters are scary when you don't see the whole thing and only see a glimpse. Imagination is scarier than the real thing.

Second half is more of a Blair Witch and zombie movie and the finale is something else entirely. I had fun watching. The horror genre really lends itself to low budget shows and I'm surprised there are not more them being made. I found Akuryo Byoutou fun and watchable.

Doctors : Saikyou no Meii 2 ep 6-9

Doctors 2 was a show that could have been great but ultimately the writer, Fukuda Yasushi did not take the series anywhere exciting. I really enjoyed Moriyama making a conscious effort to be good to great comedic effect but that was only 1 episode. We had Sagara proclaiming he was going for the director position but that did not bring any interesting results.

I can get behind the kuro Sagara idea...

I couldn't believe episode 9 was the last one. There was no time to take the show someplace interesting. The series became another one of Sagara's plans. Nothing wrong with playing safe. Maybe it was the studio directive or Fukuda Yasushi didn't think he could go anywhere new but I'd much rather he tried and failed than rerun season 1 again. Fukuda Yasushi had already spent the enemy of my enemy is my friend bullet in the dorama special.

Sagara needed to get fail and Moriyama needed to win either accidentally or deliberately. Sagara needed to discover that he was trying to be too clever. The only thing I was thinking about during the last episode was how much more exciting the operations in Iryuu were. Hard to believe Doctors 2 averaged an 18% rating which is 4% higher than the much better season 1. Ultimately, its the same thing as season 1. Watchable with a few very funny Moriyama episodes but  I feel let down by its lack of ambition.

Rewatching Lady Joker eps 4-7 with English subs

I take back the one negative thing I had to say about Lady Joker now that incyphe has subbed the whole thing. Watching with English subs has opened my eyes to the story and I am no longer bored with the minimal action at the end. It became even more clear to me that this is a dorama not about Lady Joker but about society and the systems that regulate it and it does it in a non-preachy way.

First there is the company level, represented by the head of Hinode, Shiroyama. As I said previously, I'll take a nice guy character any day as long as he has to make difficult decisions and Shiroyama made them throughout the series. Shiroyama had to weigh his responsibilities to his company, colleagues, shareholders and family.

We can understand the decisions that he made and in the end, the common good trumps the right of the company. It is good to see a boss who would not let his subordinate fall on the sword by himself. It was Shiroyama's sacrifice that allowed the prosecutors to get some of the henchmen of the Okada Association but in the end the none of the bigwigs nor the powers behind Okada Association were prosecuted. Was the cost of his life and legacy worth it for something so futile?

The second system is of course the police. Hesitant to move against one of their own because fear of scandal. They end up applying pressure on the wrong person and the suicide of Lan Evo's superior made the police even more afraid of the truth. Goda, unable to do anything as a policeman can only hound and tail Lan Evo everyday.

Slowly Lan Evo cracked under the pressure. At first relieved that the police won't be coming after him, its even worst when he is overcome with guilt and realises that the police won't even catch him even if he confesses. Lan Evo hated the system so much that he wanted to humiliate the police and in the end he cannot even pay for his crimes the police always protects its face and its own.

The Lady Joker case made both Hinode Beer and the police look bad and only Hinode Beer was willing to come clean. The publicly traded company that has no obligation to law and order takes and extra step while the police cower and don't even offer protection to Shiroyama because he has violated the unwritten rules.

The third party is the mass media and prosecution. Charged with uncovering the truth, reporting against those in power will only result in physical harm and after the sacrifices throughout the series, the puppet masters do not flinch as order is restored to society.

Lady Joker is a bleak story with many players and watching with subs has made me realise their importance in their roles and how they have to soldier on, despite the unwritten rules of society. I'm glad Lady Joker was subbed cause now I think its a jdorama masterpiece. I'd put Lady Joker up there with the flawless classic jdoramas like Hagetaka and KDO. Well, except for the overacting dude police dude who furrows his eyebrows all the time like he's trying to turn into a super saiyan. Pimp this show to every jdorama fan you know cause it should have had a 40% rating.