Currently watching: Kaeru no Oujo-sama

This series tells the tale of a Japanese actress and singer who, unable to find work on Broadway, returns to Japan to coach a group of amateurs in a small town amateur dramatic club. However, the town is threatened with the creation of a giant waste processing plant.

Amami Yuki, who has a lot of experience on the stage, is great in the lead role. The programme tries to add a dash of Broadway magic by dipping into English every now and then. But in the scenes which involve Americans the English is pronounced very clearly, with a distinct lack of Noo Yawk accents. It makes them feel a bit like they're a dialogue from an English lesson.

It reminds me far too much of Hula Girls with the conflict between dreams of stardom and grim reality. Some of the characters are the same too: There's a clumsy one, and a shy one. And although I liked Hula Girls, I'm not sure if I want to watch a fifty-minute version every week.

However, I will compliment it for a scene in which Amami Yuki kicks a cigarette out of a man's mouth. Possibly the coolest thing I've seen this year.

Just finished: BOSS 2

*spoilers, in a manner of speaking... *

It couldn’t last, I suppose. The early promise lasted up until episode ten, but in the extended finale BOSS ran out of steam. One of the team is shot and seriously wounded, yet no one seems very upset by this. Certainly not the writers, who only give him a couple of thirty-second scenes to finish off his story.

Episode ten ended on high drama with everyone arrested on a variety of charges, but by the end of the first ten minutes of episode eleven, our heroes were set free thanks to a friendly superior. After that it was business as usual.

The last episode felt most like first series of BOSS, with a lot of mock drama but no real sense that anyone was in danger. The sudden appearance of another enemy to be defeated was fairly predictable once I’d realised they’d caught everybody but there were still fifteen minutes left to go.

The team discuss the case. Meanwhile, that's a very nice-looking screensaver

So, a bit of a disappointment at the end. And the final scene has Amami Yuki striding purposefully through an airport again. Only this time she is interrupted by a character from another drama. I have no idea what all that was about.

The final caption seemed to promise further episodes. Well, I suppose I'll watch them, but I'm not holding my breath.

Still watching: BOSS 2

A sudden but welcome return to work means my opportunities to watch J-dramas have decreased. And so has my chance to learn Japanese, since I can no longer get to the lesson on time (boo). But I need the money more than anything else, so I’ll just have to take the rough with the smooth.

However, I can be cheered up by the second series of BOSS, which has surprised me by being far better than I was expecting. From Amami Yuki’s sexy roundhouse kick during the opening credits to the solution to the crime which usually makes some kind of sense, this show is smarter and more assured than previously. Perhaps my expectations were so low that anything would’ve impressed me, but I am enjoying this a lot more than the first series.

Occasionally it slips back into it’s bad old habits. A couple of scenes with the K-pop band 2PM had nothing to do with the story at all and was nothing more than an attempt at boosting the ratings (which it didn’t, by the way) and the criminals still aren’t very threatening. But the comedy and crime-solving mix together with more confidence than last year.

Am I really going to watch: BOSS 2?

That’s the question I’m asking myself. BOSS is a comedy show and a detective show rolled into one, and I'm not convinced it's very good at either. But I like the cast and because I finished the first series I watched the first episode of BOSS 2 just to see how they continue the story of this group of hopeless yet apparently brilliant detectives.

Two years have passed since the first season, and in that time Osawa Eriko (Amami Yuki) has been to America and back. The opening two episodes deals with Kimoto Mami (Toda Erika’s character), and her departure from the show. She leaves the force in disgrace, then comes back, only to be kidnapped by a serial killer and then finally saved.

The rest of the team use clever new policing techniques to track the criminal, and the humour seems to be more obvious this time around. Perhaps that’s this shows greatest weakness: the silly jokes don’t really go with the idea of intelligent crime-solving. But there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. For example, shows like Keizoku 1 and 2, Trick, and Puzzle had some very stupid jokes in, but they also gave the characters a chance to be clever. For most of the first season of BOSS, the stories were solved by a last minute revelation or lucky discovery rather than any detective work. However, in the first two episodes of BOSS 2 there are a couple of nice ideas that makes me wonder if the writers have decided to make an effort this time.

Then again, the opening story of any series is usually its strongest, so I'm not getting my hopes up too much. It’s like when you've bought a cheap bottle of wine, and you don’t dislike it enough to stop completely, and you think maybe you'll get used to it after the next glass. That's how I feel about BOSS 2. I'll give it two more episodes... And then perhaps two more...

Currently watching : GOLD

Goodness me, are the writers going for the record number of speeches in the space of one hour? The lasting impression I got from this was the speed in which every character's story was set up. Perhaps this is necessary to tell the story in the long term, but it did leave the first episode rather word-heavy. I think pretty much everyone got the chance to explain their feelings in some detail, which left little room for anything else.

What time there was left was given to building up the relationship between boss and mother of three gifted althetes (played by Amami Yuki) and her new secretary (Nagasawa Masami) and to establish the role in all of this of the estranged good-for-nothing husband.

So far, so complicated. No idea which way this is going to go, but I guess there'll be tears before bedtime.

Perhaps the one scene that stood out – if not for the right reasons – was when the daughter professed her love for her coach. The scene ends by cutting to Yuki watching the conversation on a TV in her office. I don't know much about security cameras, but I'm guessing those that film in colour and in widescreen are pretty rare!

Currently watching: The Queen’s Classroom

Downloaded on a whim, I’ve found myself quite entertained by this series (also known as Jyoou no Kyoushitsu) set during the last year of elementary school in a class lead by a manipulative, mean teacher (an inch perfect performance by Amami Yuki, also seen recently in Boss). By awarding favours to students who do well, and punishing those who don’t, she creates divisions and mistrust between the haves and have-nots and the story could potentially be the basis of some in-depth musing on society. Except that it’s played for laughs. And tears.

Since I’ve already watched Seigi no Mikata, it was a bit weird to see a younger Shida Mirai playing what is essentially the same down-trodden yet plucky character as she did in Seigi no Mikata. It felt a lot like a prequel in some ways. Which is no bad thing.

Perhaps the most interesting part is during the credits at the end when, as if the producers were worried that Amami Yuki's coldly perfect performance as the evil teacher might make viewers think she really is like that, she comes out of character, bows in gratitude to the crew while walking from the set and before you know it, she’s doing a happy dance in the playground! Almost entirely unnecessary, but then again… why not?

Just finished: Boss

Spoilers ahead. Steady as you go...



After being fairly unremarkable for most of the series, the final two episodes of this series do make a valiant attempt at increasing the tension and, for a while, it does look as if some of the lead characters are in peril. Mostly, though, that peril only lasts for thirty seconds or so before disappearing.

So while everyone makes it to the end in one piece, the final scene is a fairly cack-handed attempt at building up suspense about the possibility of a second series. All of a sudden, the boss is going back to the US. Why? No idea. But wait – she’s just got a phone call! Maybe that’ll convince her to stay.

Or not.

In the end, it was an entertaining series, but somewhat underwhelming. I got the impression – with swooping computer graphics to set up scenes, and the occasional use of profiling and psychology bits – that this was originally going to be more based around crimes and detection rather than focusing on the characters before somewhere along the line it turned into something more light-hearted.

Currently watching: BOSS

So, in the mini-tussle between BOSS and Bloody Monday, BOSS won out simply because the files are smaller and quicker to download. Up to episode eight so far.

BOSS has turned out to be quite light-hearted in its characterisations and while this could act as a nice counterbalance to the weighty concerns of their job, the fact is the cases never seem to be too threatening. It's clear that none of the main characters are at threat which takes away any urgency, and even minor supporting characters seem to have remarkable luck when being shot at.

The cases rely very little on clever deduction, preferring instead the sudden discovery/revelation almost before its too late. So the story needs the interplay between the team to be sharp to keep the viewer interested. This is where the actors have to prop up some pretty drama-by-numbers writing. Amami Yuki is almost perfect as the beautiful career woman guiding her disparate band - when the mask slips and her vulnerable self appears it's never over-played.

But its Nukumizu Youichi who steals most of the scenes. After liking him in Lost Time Life, Camouflage, and the film Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers, this is the first time I've seen him playing a regular character in a weekly serial. His self-depreciating humour is used well even with a script that doesn't make too many demands on him, and he makes a nice change from the endlessly perfect faces that populate Japanese TV.

Just browsing

Now that I’ve finished Akihabara@Deep, I’ve started looking around for something to replace it. Recently, I’ve seen good things written about Boss and Bloody Monday, so I thought I’d download the first episodes of each to give them a go.

While I enjoyed them both, they have similar styles and along with Liar Game 2, there’s quite a lot of unexpected twists, close-ups of clever people looking thoughtful, an awful lot of Toda Erika (pictured) (Liar Game 2, Boss) and an enormous amount of Kichise Michiko (all three!). I’d previously only seen her in Liar Game, where her character is a cold emotionless organiser of the games. As such, her acting skills were never really stretched, so it was a surprise to see her smile, laugh, pick things up, etc.



The trouble is, with all three programmes based around people pitting their wits against each other, it could get quite samey. One’s going to have to be put to one side for now. I just have to decide which, though. Could be tricky.