JDrama: The season wrap up (spring '08)

CHANGE
Seems to be the big thing in this season as it is yet another Kimura Takuya drama. This time he plays the son a member of parliament whose father and brother die in an accident which leaves him as the natural successor. Problem is that he hates politics and wants to continue teaching at an elementary school. But he gets persuaded, wins the by-election and through some misfortunes and accidents becomes the new prime minister of Japan. This is rather unrealistic, of course, and the message the series is trying to bring across is rather blunt. But the way they portray the new prime minister as someone who listens to the people and cares for their sorrows and worries is done very nicely and not too obvious. There are some funny moments as well, and it is especially nice to see some members of the cast of "Hero" act together once again (Kimura Takuya, Abe Hiroshi, Fukatsu Eri). I enjoy watching this. (7,5/10)

Zettai Kareshi
Cyborgs, robots, machines and their quest to become human. Sounds familiar? Well, this isn't a Star Trek Data like story and the Frankenstein moments don't come in that often. Here we have a company who developed a lover robot to please all the needs of young women nowadays. Aibu Saki is a temporary worker at a sweets company who by chance runs into the people of the robot factory after she was rejected by the guy she secretly was in love with. Model 01 turns out to be a rather dumb but nice cyborg who tries to please his girlfriend all the time. This leads to some hilarious situations at her workplace, with her parents, at her favourite bar and so on. A nice manga adaption with nice actors, although at some points it gets a little bit out of hand. Still I liked this series a lot. (7/10)

Muri na Renai
A music business manager (Sakai Masaaki) who just celebrated his 60th birthday falls in love with a younger actress (Natsukawa Yui) who works several part-time jobs to get by. She herself has to look after her wannabe writer ex-boyfriend (Tokui Yoshimi) who just dropped by at her place because he's out of money again. This somehow sounds like a boring story but the way the actors portray their characters really brings this to life. It's not overly chaotic, but the speed and "action" is great and the dialogues are funny. If you are looking for agood laugh you should turn to this one. (6/10)

Osen
Another drama about food. Well, not food in particular, but more about the Japanese way of cherishing and celebrating their way of presenting an consumning food in a nice atmosphere at a traditional restaurant. This story is about a young chef (Uchi Hiroki)who is fed up with modern style cooking and remembers a restaurant from his childhood whose owner invited him to train there. When he arrives at the place he finds out that the owner has changed. The person in charge now is a young proprietress (Aoi Yu) who seems to be very fond of alcohol. But he soon discovers that there's more to good cooking and making great dishes than just skill.
I always like these food orientated dramas because I really get hungry when I watch those. This is one of the better ones as the story is nice, there's some twists and turns and the cast is very good as well. (7/10)

Hokaben
Ueto Aya as a lawyer? Sounds rather strange to me. I always had her filed under young and hip characters who don't really care about rules and norms. Well, there's some of that in this series as well, but she seems to be a little bit more serious here. She plays a lawyer who just got employed by a huge law firm which concentrates on business clients. Ueto's character wants to help the weak and has herself transferred to the "pro bono" section, a rather lowly part of the company. Her boss (Kitamura Kazuki) there seems to be rather unmotivated and lazy, but he comes to help her and is always there to give her important clues and sometimes even teach her a lesson about life.
This falls in the same vein as "Change" as the main message is that there needs to be hope in society and you have to help people in need. But this series being another manga adaption it's also a bit more flashy. I just watched the first couple of episodes, but it looks interesting anough to continue watching it. (6,5/10)

Battery
Hooray, another Baseball drama. I have been waiting for this ever since I finished watching "H2" (and I have watched "H2" over and over again). unfortunately the subs are a bit slow so I was watching this without any translation. This one isn't about a high school team, if I understood it correctly, but these kids are playing in a middle school team. Takada Sho plays a catcher who is fascinated by a young pitcher (played by Nakayama Yuma) who is throwing a very hard fastball. Throwing so hard that noone is able to catch his pitches he gets frustrated and doesn't expect much from the town his parents brought him and his younger brother to. But Takada tries everything to persuade him and together they form the new battery of their school team.
Although the story sounds rather interesting from the outset the actors ruin this a little bit. Everything seems to be rather stiff and there isn't any emotion in it. This looks like a series made for promotional use only and with main actors like this it has to be considered a failure. (4/10)

Puzzle
Puzzle is one of those episodic dramas where there is no story which gets told over all episodes but instead each episode stands for itself. In this one a teacher (Ishihara Satomi) and her students (Yamamoto Yosuke, Kimura Ryo, Nagayama Kento) always set out to solve a riddle which might lead to some money or prize, something very important to the greedy teacher.
The episodes revolve around a classic whodunnit plot with the teacher and the students solving it in the end. Nothing special really, but there are some funny moments and at some points the acting is just hilarious. What makes this rather strange is that a young actress like Ishihara Satomi is supposed to play a teacher in her 30's and this doesn't work out really. (5/10)

Around 40
A slightly more serious story about three women in their mid- to late-thirties. Amami Yuki plays a psychiatrist who always hangs out with her friends, a housewife and mother (Matsushita Yuki) and a journalist (Otsuka Nene). Both of them always talk to her about marrying but she doesn't seem to find the right man. This changes when the character of Fujiki Naohito gets a job at her hospital.
This is a nice difference from all those series aimed at young people. The pace is slow which allows the chracaters to develop nicely. (7/10)


Kimi Hannin janai yo ne?
Yet another of those episode based dramas, just like "Puzzle". In this one a rookie police officer (Kaname Jun) who has a lot of money from his family and an aspiring crime story writer (Kanjiya Shihori) team up to solve cases. All in all this gets a little bit to chaotic at times and what makes this rather unexciting is that you know right from the start who is the criminal because it's always the person the rookie officer falls in love with at the beginning of each episode. So in that sense it's no classic whodunnit story but rather a "how was it done?". It is a funny series, of course, but not overly funny. One thing that's slightly interesting and what keeps me at watching this is that there seems to be some overriding storyline which tells something about what happened in the past of Kanjiya's character. Flashbacks suggest she might have suffered some kind of trauma or shock.
Average stuff. (5/10)

Rookies
Another baseball drama and this one is way better than "Battery". In this one it's all about a baseball club at a high school who had to pull out because they were involved in a brawl a few months ago when one of their players hit the opposing pitcher with his bat on purpose. Those scenes are rather drastic with blood dripping and so on.
Ever since the team members lost interest in school and sports and are just goofing around at school, creating disturbances and wreaking havoc. Enter Kawato Koichi (Sato Ryuta), a higly motivated teacher who had some troubles in the past himself. He is struggling to convince the team members to get together again and create a goal. He wants them to aim for a spot in the famous Koshien tournament.
This has a lot of the usual teacher-student movies which all seemed to have started with "GTO", but I really like the baseball aspect in this. The students characters are nicely developed, the acting is good and the story is told in a nice pace. It's especially interesting to see Nakao Akiyoshi again since he was in "H2" as well. Although his character is completely different in this series (and that'S not because he was a catcher there and is an outfielder here).
I really like this one. (7/10)

Gokusen 3
Speaking of "GTO", here we go again with what seems like to be one of the most popular television series in Japan in the past few years. I first got in touch with the Gokusen universe when I was watching the anime series and I really liked the first season of the drama series. The second season already felt like a rather lukewarm remake, although the acting really made up for some loopholes in the script. But this one should really be the last one. Nakama Yukie is there for her students again, who sit in the same old dirty classroom all day without any motivation to do anything for their graduation. Hopeless cases all over again. What's slightly different here is that there are two class leaders (Miura Haruma, Takaki Yuya), but that is solved rather quickly. The head teacher (Namase Katsuhisa) is there as well, there's also the Yakuza family and Yankumi's object of desire is played by Koizumi Kotaro this time. If you liked the previous seasons you will definetely like this one again, although it is getting a little rusty. I wonder if they will go for another one or if they will shoot a movie next. (6/10)

Hachi-One Diver
I am not really into chess, although I sometimes watch a special program they show on German TV. So I don't have any clue about shogi, the Japanese version of what in the western world is known as "the royal game". Here we follow the life of a former professional shogi player (Mizobata Junpei) who now roams the streets of Tokyo to make a living by playing for money. When he gets defeated by a girl (Naka Riisa) in Akihabara he is completely devastated and he's in an even greater shock when he finds out she works as a maid who visits her customers to clean their rooms. She helps him to get back on track and to find his own way of playing shogi.
Another manga adaption which you can clearly recognize when you take a look a the costume Naka Riisa has to wear. There are some rather naughty scenes as well, but this makes it a bit more funny as well. I don't know if I miss out on things because I don't know the rules of shogi, but this feels a little bit like a grown up version of "Hikaru no Go". (6,5/10)

Ryokiteki na Kanojo
An adaption of a Korean hit movie remade for Japanese television and they got a big name with Kusanagi Tsuyoshi for this one. He plays a scientist at a marine laboratory at a university who one day runs into a woman (Tanaka Rena) who wants to be a writer. This meeting changes his life as the woman not only turns out to be rather crazy but she also moves into the apartment next to his one and completely turns his calm and relaxed life upside down.
I like the way they start the story on a very funny and happy note and than slowly turn it into a more serious drama. The cast helps to create a nice atmosphere and although there are funny outbursts of comic relief the way the script tells the story of the couple finding their way towards each other is nice. I had fun watching this. (7,5/10)

* Winter 2008 Wrap Up
* Fall 2007 Wrap Up
* Summer 2007 Wrap Up
* Spring 2007 Wrap Up