Gonna share my opinion on some J-dramas to get recommendations, get stuff off my chest, etc. Sorry about my poor writing skills but well i don’t like to read books so I can’t help it ? But I do diligently follow the CC on my tv as i watch my american darma lol… that’s why I’m so good at spelling (all these spelling errosr are due to this laptop keyboard/ my fast typing skills lol)
there are NO spoilers or PLOT summaries etc (unless you highlight) because I personally believe in going in as blind as possible so that I’m not bored/have some sort of preconception… plus there’s no NEED. I hate people who paste long summaries in their reviews. It’s like I came to read a review not the summary + review.
First I’ll share my pet-peeves as far as dramas go.
1. I hate korean drama. The main girl actress (in the 20s or whatever) always pisses me off. Her bitchy whining and complaining always does. It’s just boring to me. Plus they drag like no tomorrow. And I’m Korean so 🙂
2. I don’t like melodrama. By all means this does not mean any scene where someone cries but for some reason for k/j-dramas, especially k-dramas most of the crying scenes are just melodramatic. Especially korean dramas with making the male character cry. It’s not even crying, it’s like bawling and they like zoom in and they just show that scene for like what seems like 15 minutes. Well I can’t watch it, it’s too pathetic. And it’s not sad.
3. Draggy, slow etc is just UGH. I don’t like the draggy/slowness of j/k-dramas. There’s a ton more but I’ll just get into as I review the dramas that committ that “cliche” or whatever.
I wrote about it in my lang-8 blog~
HERE
But there’s still more than bother me.
ONTO THE Drama reviewS:
REALLY GOOD – As in it definitely made me want to watch the next episode. And the pace is good. None of them are draggy or slow.
They all have good BGM and theme song, etc.
Nobuta wo produce – It’s not melodramatic 🙂
Hanazakari no Kimitachi – I thought this show was gonna be s*** but I was mistaken. It was really nice to see a huge cast be utilized. I loved the comedy, and some of the “fan-service” bothered me.
watashitachi no kyoukasho – I was recommended this drama by someone and it just has a really good story. I’m just dying to find out more. Acting is really good… I don’t think it’s melodramatic.
Only problem is it’s sorta slow at times. It won best scriptwriter.
nodame cantabile – I already saw the anime so it made it less fun to watch but still very enjoyable. I would say drama v over anime v because as an anime it’s too “ordinary” while as a drama it’s weird. Weird = intersting.
GOOD
Last Friends – I think we all know there’s problems with the show like more development for Takeru or Sousuke, etc. But it was still mad fun to watch and I was excited to watch the next episode. They used the song way too much but I love that song.
Hana Yori Dango – Overrated. The melodrama sorta killed it for me. Also it was way too manga at times. There were parts that juts made me want to not watch the next episode. Like the end of episode 2 with
***the kiss. It’s so dumb and manga. I couldn’t stand it.*** And then the thing sakurako in ep 5? ***CHEESY* There were parts that made me cringe, embarrassed to be watching it.
Hana Yori Dango II – More melodramatic than part 1. I frikin’ hate how the j-dramas have to try to be all dramatic, which equals unnatural. You know how it is. They make someone go after someone. But then instead of running all the wya to the person, they stop like 10 feet away. Then they start talking with so many frikin’ pauses, like ridiculously slow. It’s so unnatural. It kills it.
Liar game – So I thought the ratings for this show was low with like the numbers around 11 or someting. But then I read somewhere it isn’t because it’s saturday night at 11 or 10. But anyways, it’s like almost addictive. It’s mad fun to watch. I’m also a fan of the actors so all the better. I really like fukunaga’s actor lol. Can’t wait for S2 and movie.
LIFE – The pace for this show is mad good. It’s fast and I just wanted to find out what happens next. I guess there’s some problems with the story… But it was just mad fun to watch, you can watch this whole show in like 2 days. Plus the acting, directing, camera stuff was done with thought.
above average
joou no kyoushitsu – I loved some of the stuff akutsu-sensei said. but my problem is that the pace is sorta slow as in boring.
haken no hinkaku – sorta slow at times. I liked the haruko vs. shouji~
zettai kareshi – only saw couple eps
average
Propose Daisakusen – Well it deteriorated and I’m not that big of fan of yamashita. I think it’s bad when I care more about tsuru x eri than rei x ken. too much drama cliche.. Examples: ken running every episode for what seemed like 10 minutes of the episode, using the theme song during the ep as well as at the end of the ep. The ending was terrible, it was like slap in the face. And the BGM wasn’t that great for me.
bloody monday – melodramatic [crying], boring at times. I don’t like haruma-actor at all. They always make him cry, why? He always plays characters I hate? It all started with 14 sai. There’s good twists but it’s like boring half the time.
1 litter of tears – Mad overrated. Too much drama cliche. Let’s see the rain. Yes, how many times did they make it rain hard for dramatic effect. It was so convenient. There were way too many cliche “lines”. I think these are lines that any drama/anime fan would understand and can respond to [in Japanese]. Some of the conflicts was just too trite ie her brother/soccer thing. That shit was painful too watch. That plot is just like cheap and I just don’t like it. I wish they would’ve made it more deep/complex than just these done-to-death family theme crap (the cliche lines, melodramatic crying). melodramatic. I did enjoy it to an extent and of course I wanted to know how it ended but I totally see where the haters are coming from. I heard the book is better~ and FYI the haruto character was added from the request of aya’s actual mother to represent helplessness…
seigi no mikata = too average. BGM drove me nuts after a couple eps 😦
Became a fan of yamada yuu and shida mirai. It was funny cause obviously it’s a comedy. It got into a slump somewhere along the way.
14 sai – too melodramatic, childish. My favorite character was kiritani-mom~ lol. I would’ve dropped it if it wasn’t for that Mr. children’s song~
Plus it’s slow…
yume to ame no ato ni- watching now. really bad BGM. It reminds me of the 90s or something lol.
densha otoko – boring… dry… slow… sorta cliche like the scenes where yamada ***gets into trouble incessently*** as if they’re using that to fill up the time. Those scenes are not funny so.. well more like frustrating. I don’t get the popularity with the show when it’s this boring.
tantei gakuen Q – almost done watching but as of now. It’s just been deteriorating or maybe…
kekkon dekinai otoko = boring.. I hate michiru or maybe it’s the actress. It just seems too over-acting like the way she moves her head when she emphasizes something while she talks.
saitou-san – only saw one ep
Bad
mei-chan no shitsuji – why did it win best drama. WAS THERE NO GOOD DRAMA that season. I’m a fan of mizushima hiro after I saw ikepara but damn this show’s bad. I wish I never watched it. Yamada Yuu is good and so is mizushima h. but the __ nana (mei) is just eh. I never really liked her. Her acting always felt like passable but not good or anything special. It seems like everything she’s in is bad but maybe one day she’ll prove me wrong. But anyways the problem is the script.. it’s just too childish and like vague.
gokusen 1 / II – S1 – Every episode’s plot felt like a shonen school anime’s filler ep plot. I especially hated the one with the child cause I hate it when they pull the child-sympathy crap. Mad boring. I like some of the comedy parts/
=====
Please recommend me some good drama that isn’t melodramatic and isn’t sluggish/draggy/slow. 宜しく！
And don’t write/paste the plot summary. I like going in blind because knowing what happens makes it boring to watch..
Oh and I can’t wait till Mad Men starts in AUGUST~~
Gonna share my opinion on some Japanese dramas to get recommendations, get stuff off my chest, etc.Sorry about my poor writing skills but well i don’t like to read books so I can’t help it ? Another blog with jdrama reviews
First I’ll share my pet-peeves as far as dramas go.
1. I hate korean drama. The main girl actress (in the 20s or whatever) always pisses me off. Her bitchy whining and complaining always does. The ajumma bitching is bad too. Not sure which is worse(probably ajumma cause they have more years on them so more experience in bitching). It’s just boring to me. Plus they drag like no tomorrow. There’s like way more reasons than this but I’ll leave it there. And I’m Korean so 🙂
2. I don’t like melodrama. By all means this does not mean any scene where someone cries but for some reason for k/j-dramas, especially k-dramas most of the crying scenes are just melodramatic. Especially korean dramas with making the male character cry… It’s not even crying, it’s like bawling and they like zoom in and they just show that scene for like what seems like 15 minutes. PLUS the music makes it a whole lot worse, the melodramatic BGM. Well I can’t watch it, it’s too pathetic. And it’s not sad.
LIKE in koreanversion of HYD (which I didn’t watch) gawd I hate JANDI, I don’t know if I hate her name more. so ridiculous!! lol.
Domyouji is crying WTF. And I heard Hanazawa Rui cries too. LOL Hanazawa Rui crying… No not the hanazawwa rui part, the guy who plays hanazawa rui in the korean V. He can’t act at all so that scene musta been hella funny.
Actually I don’t remember if Domyouji cries in HYD or II but I think he probably didn’t and if he did it probably not as melo as this? Well HYD is pretty melo in its own respects like that rain scene in II.
3. Draggy, slow etc is just UGH. I don’t like the draggy/slowness of j/k-dramas. There’s a ton more but I’ll just get into as I review the dramas that commit that “cliche” or whatever. Basically I hate TYPICAL K-J-drama.
I wrote about it in my lang-8 blog~HERE and HERE. But there’s still more than bother me.
If you want to know my anime peeves HERE (more reviews in the profile sectioN). there’s a lot of spoiler lol cause they don’t allow spoiler tags nemore but anyways all the hater ones are hilarious for the most part.
Drama reviews:Sorry if some of the pictures are really random but I wanted interesting/pretty screenshots.
REALLY GOOD – As in it definitely made me want to watch the next episode. Also the pace is good. None of them are draggy or slow. They all have good BGM and theme song, etc.
Nobuta wo produce (2005) – It’s not melodramatic 🙂 The comedy/drama/portray l of etc etc is just done so well. If you pay attention and think about stuff that you can see how the several plots in the episode connect to each other (I only realized it when I read the dramanote entries). There were parts where the quality was just high like episode 4 (That scene was awesome and I couldn’t predict it). It won all those awards and it was my first high school J-drama (good choice :)) I loved Akira’s “lingo”, it was cute. It was like okay and then I kept watching and the next thing I knew I was on ep 10 and well that’s the last ep. I really enjoyed watching this! JAPANESE SUBS on that russian site with the j-drama subs!
Hanazakari no Kimitachi (2007) – I thought this show was gonna be s***from the ikemen paradise/picture but I was mistaken. It’s just fun to watch. It was really nice to see a huge cast be utilized. I loved most of the comedy (hated some of it? the fanservicey/dumb kind?), but some of the “fan-service” bothered me. Some of the comedy is cheap/forced/fan-service/the-obvious to the point I can’t stand it but they ALSO have good/actual comedy too so I don’t know…. I want to forgive it… The background music is to die for. I was so amazed that a J-drama could have such good BGM that I didn’t get sick of by ep 5 if I’m lucky. Episode 1 was all right and then it just got better and better and so I got into it. It’s like a good teen movie for me and it’s not vulgar/crude like some american teen/parody movies because… it’s japanese. Usually cruder the worse the movie?
GOOD NEWS: japanese subs for ep 1-6 here!
watashitachi no kyoukasho (2007)–
I was recommended this drama by someone and it just has a really good story. I was just dying to find out more eevery episode. Acting is really good… I don’t think it’s melodramatic.. to me melodramatic are the the dramas i listed in the average/below average sections.. The only problem is that it’s sorta slow at times. Even though it’s slow I still watched 2/3 eps in a day (which is i still want to put it here even though it’s slow-paced). It won best scriptwriter and as expected there are twists and all that. I love the ending song / the scene they show with it….. In fact the BGM was REALY good irregardless of the repetition because they were like classical songs/intense songs by rafmonaiv? lol (that composer shows up in nodame too but different song) with an orchestra or something. They chose the PERFECT songs for the sad/intense/etc type type scenes and I never got sick of the song… they really elevated any scene they were used in. I don’t recall hearing any of those songs before I watched the drama but I’m so glad I heard these songs…. especially that intense song… it works with the scene so well. Also Susumu from HYD is in this & his hairstyle is good so I was really pleasantly surprised. I love his voice. lol. and his role is quite diff from susumu to say the least (in a good way)
Continue reading →
초롱이 ★ ごきげんよう 