[drama] Kiken na Aneki
When I'm not watching current dramas, I tend to pick up old ones, mostly with actors that I remembered liking way before I started actively watching jdramas. This one featured Moriyama Mirai, whom I liked thanks to the Water Boys series, and I also caught a bit of the show when I was in Japan, although at that time my Japanese was far from intelligible. I also had a very deep impression despite my lack of understanding due to the ED song, which was Pop Star by Hirai Ken.
When I first read the summary of the drama, I wasn't really sure what I was getting in for. I haven't actually seen a family comedy before (Atadan was after I finished Kiken), but I thought, hey, you can't really go wrong with comedy, right?
I was kind of horribly wrong about that. Kiken na Aneki is funny, sometimes, but there's also a surprising level of realism in the show for reasons I can't fathom. The main gist of Kiken na Aneki is basically about an elder sister trying to pay off a family debt without involving her younger brother, who's an aspiring doctor, in it, but a lot of the drama actually stems from how glaringly different their personalities are. Hiroko is a bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl who tries her best to overcome obstacles in her life and also tries to help others along the way. Yutaro, on the other hand, is pragmatic to a fault and also a little neurotic.
It's actually pretty hard to summarise what Kiken na Aneki is about, and most of the time the drama deals with episodic issues that are usually resolved at the end of the episode (except for the over-arcing issues like the family debt thing), but the regular arguments between the sister and the brother are pretty uncomfortable to sit through. Not because it's ridiculous and there's a lot of yelling, because there isn't, but the level of intensity and how both parties are both in the wrong and the right, and how even the viewer can't really choose between them (because normally I think dramas tend to be rather black and white, instead of forcing you to choose or even promote ambivalency), and I do feel bad for both characters who choose to feel the way they did in the show.
I think Kiken na Aneki is very much a Your Mileage May Vary show, I did like what I watched, and I enjoyed watching it, but it's not a show that I would probably view again due to the constant arguments and general overall uncomfortable-ness. I like Yutaro and I like Hiroko, and there are some laughs in the show because Moriyama Mirai has very excellent D: and :[ faces, but I firmly believe that theirs is a family relationship doomed from the very beginning due to glaring personality differences. While it makes for excellent drama and is highly realistic and I will applaud the directing for that, it may also turn a lot of people off.
When I first read the summary of the drama, I wasn't really sure what I was getting in for. I haven't actually seen a family comedy before (Atadan was after I finished Kiken), but I thought, hey, you can't really go wrong with comedy, right?
I was kind of horribly wrong about that. Kiken na Aneki is funny, sometimes, but there's also a surprising level of realism in the show for reasons I can't fathom. The main gist of Kiken na Aneki is basically about an elder sister trying to pay off a family debt without involving her younger brother, who's an aspiring doctor, in it, but a lot of the drama actually stems from how glaringly different their personalities are. Hiroko is a bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl who tries her best to overcome obstacles in her life and also tries to help others along the way. Yutaro, on the other hand, is pragmatic to a fault and also a little neurotic.
It's actually pretty hard to summarise what Kiken na Aneki is about, and most of the time the drama deals with episodic issues that are usually resolved at the end of the episode (except for the over-arcing issues like the family debt thing), but the regular arguments between the sister and the brother are pretty uncomfortable to sit through. Not because it's ridiculous and there's a lot of yelling, because there isn't, but the level of intensity and how both parties are both in the wrong and the right, and how even the viewer can't really choose between them (because normally I think dramas tend to be rather black and white, instead of forcing you to choose or even promote ambivalency), and I do feel bad for both characters who choose to feel the way they did in the show.
I think Kiken na Aneki is very much a Your Mileage May Vary show, I did like what I watched, and I enjoyed watching it, but it's not a show that I would probably view again due to the constant arguments and general overall uncomfortable-ness. I like Yutaro and I like Hiroko, and there are some laughs in the show because Moriyama Mirai has very excellent D: and :[ faces, but I firmly believe that theirs is a family relationship doomed from the very beginning due to glaring personality differences. While it makes for excellent drama and is highly realistic and I will applaud the directing for that, it may also turn a lot of people off.