10 Jdramas whose popularity I do not get - get out your brickbats
Here are popular jdramas where I do not get the love. These aren't the genuinely bad jdramas (like Jotei or Delicious Gakuin) but jdramas which many many people adore. And I am left rolling my eyes and wondering why.
(1) LONG VACATION - I think I am about to be drummed out of the drama-lovers community for putting this here but - there it is. I tried it twice and gave up by ep 4 both times. The production values are nonexistent, the heroine is a terrifying harpy, and the whole thing is deadly dull. Yeah yeah yeah, it's a classic. Classic of my boredom.
(2) LOVE GENERATION - I hate to put Kimutaku's dramas on this twice but Good God! I tried watching this in Chiang Mai when I had no other entertainment options except this, unsubtitled Thai dramas on TV, or agressive mosquito-swatting, and the two latter options were still more fun. The heroine is unhinged but supposed to come across as cute. She is so irritating it's nails on chalkboard. Kimutaku himself - I got bored with him in it.
(3) HANA KIMI - worst manga adaptation ever. Yes, even worse than the Taiwanese Peach Girl - the latter was just dull, it didn't utterly wreck the premise of the original. Not only that, but even taken in abstraction, this nonsensical over-the-top plotless, logicless, unacted wonder of scands of skeletal pretty boys, would be atrocious as a drama by any definition.
(4) LIAR GAME - it has no character development and its plot is so primitive it cannot cover for any lack on the character score. Now in its second season, I just want it to be over so Matsuda Shota and Toda Erika would be in something I actually want to watch. Heck, I'll even take Jotei over this.
(5) NODAME CANTABILE - and now I prepare for brickbats. But the ridiculously over-the-top mugging, the comedy so subtle that it can be enjoyed by a two-year-old with brain issues, irritating as hell characters, and a European played by Japanese in whiteface. No thanks. Not even Tamaki Hiroshi's considerable gorgeousness can save this.
(6) VAMPIRE GIGOLO - the name says it all. That and the $10 they must have spent on design for the entire production.
(7) NOBUTA WO PRODUCE - If I don't get kicked out for Long Vacation and Nodame Cantabile hate, this is bound to do it. Acclaimed blah blah blah blah blah. Maybe I am just too old but the struggles of three highschoolers to grow up are about as exciting as a encyclopedia on beetles.
(8) ZETTAI KARESHI - it might be an OK drama on its own, I am not sure. But what is the point of adapting a manga only to gut it and change everything about it? I'd say that's the worst manga adaptation I've seen except that could never be while Hana Kimi exists.
(9) KIMI WA PETTO - Sorry. The idea of keeping a real live person as a pet (even if said person is OK with it) is too appalling for me. Maybe if you are into the BDSM scene that is more your bag, but as for me I cringed through half of this drama before finally giving in to inevitable and dumping it. And then promptly doing a happiness dance.
(10) BOKU DATE NO MADONNA - God - why! Why why why why why! Yet another one with dull as dishwater hero and an unbearable heroine. She is supposed to be adorable but comes across as immature unhinged stalker to me. A restraining order was invented for her.
(10 tie - I cheated) KYOU KYOU KOYUSHI 2003 - a bit of an odd duck. I fully appreciate this is a well-written and well-acted drama but let's be frank - this was so creepy, twisted and horrifying, it put me off jdramas for, literally, months. There are dramas that teeter on the verge of "too messed up to bear" (see Byaukuyakuyu or however you spell that) and then there is this, which falls over into the abyss. When a high school teacher who makes his student believe she is dying from cancer and then takes advantage of her weakened emotional state and said student are about the most normal couple in this - I am out.
ETA: How could I forget MEI CHAN NO SHITSUJI. Clearly taking place in some other universe where behaviors are inexplicable and personalities not like anything we see on earth, I could not take the nonsense for too long. And don't get me started on (again) the BDSM implications of butler roles. It's genderfail even if genders are reversed.
Yours?
(1) LONG VACATION - I think I am about to be drummed out of the drama-lovers community for putting this here but - there it is. I tried it twice and gave up by ep 4 both times. The production values are nonexistent, the heroine is a terrifying harpy, and the whole thing is deadly dull. Yeah yeah yeah, it's a classic. Classic of my boredom.
(2) LOVE GENERATION - I hate to put Kimutaku's dramas on this twice but Good God! I tried watching this in Chiang Mai when I had no other entertainment options except this, unsubtitled Thai dramas on TV, or agressive mosquito-swatting, and the two latter options were still more fun. The heroine is unhinged but supposed to come across as cute. She is so irritating it's nails on chalkboard. Kimutaku himself - I got bored with him in it.
(3) HANA KIMI - worst manga adaptation ever. Yes, even worse than the Taiwanese Peach Girl - the latter was just dull, it didn't utterly wreck the premise of the original. Not only that, but even taken in abstraction, this nonsensical over-the-top plotless, logicless, unacted wonder of scands of skeletal pretty boys, would be atrocious as a drama by any definition.
(4) LIAR GAME - it has no character development and its plot is so primitive it cannot cover for any lack on the character score. Now in its second season, I just want it to be over so Matsuda Shota and Toda Erika would be in something I actually want to watch. Heck, I'll even take Jotei over this.
(5) NODAME CANTABILE - and now I prepare for brickbats. But the ridiculously over-the-top mugging, the comedy so subtle that it can be enjoyed by a two-year-old with brain issues, irritating as hell characters, and a European played by Japanese in whiteface. No thanks. Not even Tamaki Hiroshi's considerable gorgeousness can save this.
(6) VAMPIRE GIGOLO - the name says it all. That and the $10 they must have spent on design for the entire production.
(7) NOBUTA WO PRODUCE - If I don't get kicked out for Long Vacation and Nodame Cantabile hate, this is bound to do it. Acclaimed blah blah blah blah blah. Maybe I am just too old but the struggles of three highschoolers to grow up are about as exciting as a encyclopedia on beetles.
(8) ZETTAI KARESHI - it might be an OK drama on its own, I am not sure. But what is the point of adapting a manga only to gut it and change everything about it? I'd say that's the worst manga adaptation I've seen except that could never be while Hana Kimi exists.
(9) KIMI WA PETTO - Sorry. The idea of keeping a real live person as a pet (even if said person is OK with it) is too appalling for me. Maybe if you are into the BDSM scene that is more your bag, but as for me I cringed through half of this drama before finally giving in to inevitable and dumping it. And then promptly doing a happiness dance.
(10) BOKU DATE NO MADONNA - God - why! Why why why why why! Yet another one with dull as dishwater hero and an unbearable heroine. She is supposed to be adorable but comes across as immature unhinged stalker to me. A restraining order was invented for her.
(10 tie - I cheated) KYOU KYOU KOYUSHI 2003 - a bit of an odd duck. I fully appreciate this is a well-written and well-acted drama but let's be frank - this was so creepy, twisted and horrifying, it put me off jdramas for, literally, months. There are dramas that teeter on the verge of "too messed up to bear" (see Byaukuyakuyu or however you spell that) and then there is this, which falls over into the abyss. When a high school teacher who makes his student believe she is dying from cancer and then takes advantage of her weakened emotional state and said student are about the most normal couple in this - I am out.
ETA: How could I forget MEI CHAN NO SHITSUJI. Clearly taking place in some other universe where behaviors are inexplicable and personalities not like anything we see on earth, I could not take the nonsense for too long. And don't get me started on (again) the BDSM implications of butler roles. It's genderfail even if genders are reversed.
Yours?