Unapologetic Reviews

Tokyo Tarareba Musume (Tokyo "What if" Woman) is about happiness. “Let’s get a woman’s happiness!” 30 is a huge turning point in a woman’s life. This story stars three women, former classmates who live in Tokyo. They gather at a small restaurant run by one’s father and chat about their lives. They often start their sentences with “What if…”, wondering about things they should have done differently. They all turn 30, and realise that they don’t have the husband and children they imagined they would by now. They decide to not mess around anymore, and take that goal seriously, because that is a woman’s happiness. With this in mind, they take risks, and from their previous stale lives try to build something more. This, however, leads to realisations and experiences that they would not have imagined. Rinko (Yoshitaka Yuriko) can be called the ringleader of the girls. She is also the “author” of the story. She narrates it, and in the drama there is an indication that it’s...

Dear Sister is an interesting drama. It’s mainly about the importance of family, especially siblings. Being an only child myself, I could just look on, and remember when as a little girl I so wanted a sibling. As the title suggests, the two main characters are sisters. Though I do have to note here that they are not the only siblings in the story. There are also two brothers and a brother with a sister, so you get all combinations. Let’s focus on the main storyline. The two sisters seem very different. Hazuki (Matsushita Nao) is the responsible one. Seemingly. She has a government job, a boyfriend, lives alone, looks after her mother. She wears shirts and pencil skirts. Misaki (Ishihara Satomi) is the younger, irresponsible sister. She left home at an early age, never got an education, works in shady places, has men issues. Because of these Hazuki sees her as the lucky child, the one who could always do what she wanted. However, she could be wrong. Assuming that Misaki is s...

Please Love the Useless Me ( Dame na Watashi ni Koishite Kudasai ) isn’t one of my favourites. It was very sweet and cute, but the main character can be annoying. Okay, she’s also very sweet, and when she clutched her meat pillow, I was reminded of her cat. This is obviously not a serious drama. It’s sometimes funny, but sometimes ridiculous. This drama is about growing up. Although the main character never seems to, she’s not alone. I’m well over 30, and sometimes I feel like an impostor as well, just playing being an adult. Being an adult is hard. There are jobs to find, relationships, people out for our money, etc. We have all probably felt that we are way in over our heads. Michiko, the main character knows she is. She’s unemployed, and hopelessly ensnared by her younger boyfriend. She needs help, and her old boss, Ayumu decides to help. Though actually, he could use some help himself. His restaurant is just starting up, and I think having a waitress as cute as her around...

After I saw this series, I started to read the manga, because I fell in love with the characters so much, I wasn’t ready to let them go. Therefore, I will make some references to the manga as well, though I haven’t read it all yet. Hapimari is about a lot of things. Fathers, marriage, love, happiness. It starts out with a strange event. A man proposes marriage to a woman he doesn’t even know. Interestingly, in the manga he’s actually her boss, which complicates things further. However, in the drama he’s not. I think they took that part out as it was a bit disturbing, almost bordering on a kind of harassment. It was also a conflict not closely related to the main story, which in the manga takes places over several more years than in the drama. So getting back to the story, a woman accepting a proposal by a strange, but wealthy man seems equally improbable. However, just as the man has a good reason for the propositions, so does the woman for accepting it. That doesn’t mean they b...

First of all, I have to say that I mainly started to watch From Five to Nine for Ishihara Satomi, whom I just adore! She’s not only incredibly beautiful, and I sometimes find myself staring at, but she also brings such warmth to all her performances. I also started to watch it as I’ve worked as an English teacher myself. I tried once to get a job in Japan, but apparently it’s impossible if you didn’t grow up in an English speaking country. This drama starts out a bit strangely, and frankly, throughout the story it was hard to understand Takane’s attraction to her. Sure, Junko is a lovely, vivacious, beautiful woman. Like I said, it’s very hard to not stare at Satomi sometimes, she’s that gorgeous, but one would think a monk would go deeper than that. Also, frankly, Takane’s very annoying, and I would probably have been more drastic in my refusal of him. So this drama is about a monk falling in love with an English teacher inexplicably fast and deep. He relentlessly pursues ...

Reinoryokusha Odagiri Kyoko no Uso (Spiritual Teacher, Kyoko Odagiri) wasn't the drama I first thought it was going to be. I thought it would have a lot of fake psychic stuff, pretending to do magic, and would be kind of annoying. Why I really started to watch was Ishihara Satomi, who I've seen in a few things, and that dress. Oh my, that is so gorgeous, I kind of want it. What I got was a detective series, actually. The cases seem to be supernatural at first glance, but of course they're not. I was happy that it was a detective series, because I'm growing to really love Japanese detective stories. Unlike most Western ones, the difference is that most "culprits" aren't really evil, and not doing things out of malicious intentions. Their motivation is often to help someone, or to save people. Therefore when the resolution comes, it's usually done in a kind way. The mysteries themselves are interesting, but not impossible to solve. I did figure s...

I started watching this drama not sure if it would be work, romance or comedy. It's a bit all three of them, but most of it is actually a comedy. The breast jokes would be a bit too much if it wasn't. The story itself revolves around a "Kabe Onna" (Wall Woman). She's a woman with very small breasts. She's the type who is bothered by it, but won't wear extreme push-up bras to compensate. While breasts are a central theme in the story, it's more about what she goes through with work, her love life, her family, and the people with whom she interacts. The story does lack a focus, and most of the time I was wondering where they were going with it. It felt more like a jumble of short stories with the same characters than a coherent thing. There were some other funny moments though, aside from the breast jokes. This drama starts out a bit offensively, and I did almost stop watching at the beginning. The new employee at the store has exceptionally big br...

I eagerly waited for this drama, because I'm a huge fan of MatsuJun. I also noticed that he happens to be extra cute when cooking or eating, and since he was going to play a Chocolatier in this drama, I hoped for many scenes like that. It didn't disappoint. The drama itself was very interesting. It was in a way centred around making chocolates, but not the technical side of it, rather the artistic one. As someone with an artistic disposition myself, some of the things discussed in it gave me thought. The other theme of the drama was relationships. Friendships, friends with benefits, love, marriage, unrequited love. The drama examines how relationships develop, and how people are in them. Learning to get out of the relationship what you want, and letting go when reality clashes with your hopes. This is more of an adult drama, as it has sex in it. Casual and non casual, and it's even discussed, which is pretty uncommon in Japanese dramas. However, I never did feel th...

I wanted to watch a cute, funny and romantic drama, and that is just what I got. I do remember watching the previous version of Itazura na Kiss , but I don't remember much of it. It didn't seem to have much of an impact, and that version was only 9 episodes, while this one is 16. The story is a love triangle, sort of. From the start we know that Kotoko is in love with Irie-kun. It's also not hard to deduct that Kin-chan is in love with Kotoko. Irie-kun doesn't even seem to know that Kotoko exists, until she presents him with a love letter that of course, no surprise, he turns down. What happens after that is years and years of Kotoko being hopelessly devoted. Yes, this drama takes place over 3-4 years. Kotoko is in class F at the beginning, and Irie is in A. Fs, people who are perhaps not that book smart, and As, who are seem to be a world apart. Can two people so different find each other? Can it work? At one point Irie confesses that he had no troubles until ...

Papa Wa Idol or Papadoru is a funny family drama. It's about an idol, Nishikido Ryo, a member of Kanjani8, who falls in love with a woman, and marries her. Now, as a European person, this whole idol thing is a bit strange for me. I understand that people think these guys shouldn't get married, because that destroys the illusion of their availability, but in reality, they really aren't available for the average Jane. In fact, ironically, this could be about the realisation of a fan. After all, all fans dream of marrying their idol. If we go by this drama, marrying an idol is the easy part. The life after is the hard part. The story doesn't show much of the romance, it focuses on the start of the marriage itself. Haruka, the new wife, already has three children from her previous marriage. The drama mainly centers around Nishikido being an idol, and how he tries to become a husband and a father while hiding the whole thing from the public. This provides lots of oc...

Konkatsu!  (Marriage Hunt!) is a romantic drama with some comedy. It's about a Amamiya Kuniyuki finding a government job after many years of being unemployed, but lying about wanting to get married to his long-time girlfriend, since he doesn't even have a girlfriend. He gets hired specifically because the district president wants to promote marriage, and help the declining birthrates in her district. Therefore, Kuni goes on a marriage hunt along with some friends and co-workers to keep his job. The drama isn't just about a marriage hunt, but also Kuni's district, which is becoming abandoned. He doesn't want to leave, so he has to find ways to save it. The characters were generally likeable, and well acted, believable. I especially liked Ueto Aya's performance. I have seen her in some other dramas and she always feels fresh, and sweet. Her character, Tobita Haruno, is a shining sun in the otherwise dreary sets of the declining district. She plays one of ...

Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (Solve the Mystery after Dinner) is a detective drama. I found it similar to Meitante no Okite  in that the endings of the episodes are not very satisfying. If you compare them to Western detective stories, then there the perp is always evil, with evil intentions. Here that's not always the case. Actually, I often found myself sad for the killer, wishing they wouldn't have done it, that they found another way. I even cried at the end a few times. Another reason why it reminded me of  Meitante no Okite  was that it's also not a completely serious drama. While at times it's moving, you also get moments of hilarity and utter ridiculousness. In a way those things keep it from becoming too serious. The episodes all follow a pattern, which does characterise detective dramas as a whole in the world. If you just think about Poirot and his customary reveal, then you realise that having a pattern is not that strange after all. The dram...

Jotei is an adult drama. It has themes of sex, prostitution, yakuza and political corruption. For the non-Japanese viewer it's especially interesting as it gives us a glimpse of the Japanese way of thinking about sex and virginity. In a way it's a modern geisha story and sometimes made me think of the geisha books I've read. It's a story that can be most understood and appreciated by women. The main reason why I recommend it most for women is because the story is told as narrated by the main protagonist, a woman named Tachibana Ayaka. It is through her eyes that we see the problems she faces on her road to becoming a "Jotei"; an empress. A Jotei is a woman who is very important in the nightlife of Ginza, the main entertainment district of Tokyo. She starts out as a regular girl who looses her mother at 18 and is left alone. She then learns that her father is still alive and left them to become a powerful person. She decides to become powerful herself and...

If you don't drink wine or alcohol, I don't recommend watching this drama. This is the kind of story where you learn a lot on a subject, in this case wine, mostly French wines. It does drive you to drink, though do be careful, it's easy to overindulge in wine while watching it. The story itself is interesting as well. Kanzaki Shizuku is the son of a famous wine critique, but he doesn't drink wine for an emotional reason. When his father dies, he has compete with Tomine Issei, who is also a wine critique adopted by his father shortly before he passed away. The competition is made up of seven riddles written by the father that all lead to a wine. The one who gets the most right gains the wine collection worth 2 billion yen. Though Shizuku doesn't want the money, he ends up competing anyway in order to learn more about the father he never understood while alive. Issei is not really interested in the money either, he wants to surpass the old man. Kanzaki Shiz...

This drama is a high-school drama. It has all the usual characteristics of dramas that are about teenagers. You have some fighting, studying and the troubles of growing up and figuring out your own path in life. Watching this drama you will probably not come across anything that is new on this subject, since it has been done many times before. However, this story is still worth watching just for the fun of it. It doesn't want to take itself seriously. The way the story is told makes you seriously consider that it's more like a parody of the genre, rather than an actual take on it. It doesn't lack a story and likable characters. The main protagonist is a boy names Daichi, who is the son of a doctor who has a small general clinic. He is played by the very cute Narimiya Hiroki, who has a memorable smile. He is the "Yankee". In Japan a "Yankee" is a sort of a juvenile delinquent. He skips school a lot, gets into fights and is generally bad news. As can...

Not long ago I was asked why I love Japanese dramas so much. I answered that it's because they're different from what I'm used to. The American dramas always have complex stories and a lot of sex, everyone ending up in bed together. Latin-American soaps have confusion over parenthood, a lot of shouting and passion. All are predictable and after a while boring. What I failed to say was that I always learned something from Japanese dramas. So, the question is, what did I learn from "Virgin Road"? I have learned many things from this drama. First of all, I learned what it means to be a father. I always knew from experience that being a father not only meant donating a sperm, but careing. Kissing bruised knees. A father is someone who loves his daughter unconditionally. Someone who stands beside her no matter what. The same goes for a family. A family is a group of people who love each other unconditionally, blood not being an issue. I also learned that moth...

This is one drama that doesn't take itself seriously. Well, except for the last about five minutes. The initial concept is that it takes the clichés you can find in classical detective stories and ridicules them in a style not unlike the "Horror Movie", "Date Movie", etc. method. Except for the little fact that the three main characters actually know that they are in a drama with that goal, but this only increases the hilarity of the situations. The whole thing is actually funny and the episodes provide good entertainment. For non-Japanese viewers I do have to note that the detective story concepts seem strange to us sometimes. This is because it's based on more Japanese detective stories than Western ones. The series I can find the most connection with is actually the anime "Detective Conan". Therefore I do advise watching a few episodes of that before watching this drama in order to understand some of the references. Each episode can be v...

The frame of the story is that eight people, four women and four men, date each other for a week to find out what they want out of their love lives. As is usual for a Japanese drama; it ends up being about more than just love. It discusses our motivations to live and love, what we really look for in a relationship. Sometimes you just need to give people a chance, and find out who they really are. In the beginning you may think you have it all figured out, but the ending will surprise you. Half the fun is trying to predict who will be with whom. This is also a drama about finding friends, and then letting them help in the course of their lives. No one is left untouched by the shuffle. Tanihara Shosuke plays the psychologist Kikuta Masato. He is in a way the main character and motivator in the shuffle. As the oldest member of the team he pulls the strings, and helps the others deal with the hurdles in their lives. I do have to note that Daigo, the singer of BREAKERZ has his o...

At first glance this may seem like a love drama, but it is not. I did root for the other guy, but there really never was a chance of the main character ending up with anyone else. What the story is actually about is the relationship of a man and his daughter and how they deal with her becoming a woman. It is often hard for a single father to let go, but we do see a lot of growth in him. Another aspect of the drama is the difficulties of growing up and separating from the parents from the girl's point of view. The first job and the first love are hard enough to deal with, but she also has an overbearing father on her hands. At times the story is funny in an embarrassing way, but also very heart-warming. The running musical theme of the drama is sung by the father and is titled "Kimi no kaeru basho". It's a lovely song full of the same warmth as the story itself.

Suppli mostly takes place at an advertising agency. While part of it is about the actual work, you also get insight into some of its workers' lives. The main character, Fuji-san (Ito Misaki) is a woman of 28. It's a difficult time for women and a lot of the drama centers around that fact. She is faced with the decision of what is more important in life; work or romance. Being unmarried and recently single, she puts all her effort into work. She lives alone, and mostly works alone, at her own pace. That is convenient as she doesn't have to deal with others, but also lonely. Yu-kun is the other main character, who is played by KAT-TUN member Kazuya Kamenashi. He is young and inexperienced, drifting from one job to the other, not really knowing what he wants to do. To him, a beautiful day is wasted in the office. He still has to take the part-time job at Fuji-san's firm and slowly, guided by Fuji-san he realises that advertising is actually something that interests ...