Its a adorable mini- drama. I ship Yukimaru and Yamane hard! Their personality match each other even though Yamane would say otherwise. This drama have some informative aspect in contrast to other Japanese dramas. It give a glimpse of what the inside of a real Japanese news room looks like. In this drama, I believe the actors and actresses captured how Japanese news are broadcast.
The character develop of some of the actors and actresses are smooth even with only 5 episodes. It's a nice drama to watch when I want avoid being emotionally pulled.
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A Hidden Gem!
This was such a gem of a find! I don't understand why this was limited to only 5 episodes, unless there's a 2nd season? You could tell that the story was becoming cohesive by episode 4, and once you got midway to episode 5, you knew what was gonnna happen to our female lead. The truth about the farmer was actually surprising and refreshing! I loved the ending. It felt like an end to a season (rather than the end of the show).This was a light comedy and had an anime-flair to it. If you rely on subtitles (like me), then the arrows and labels on people/things may become overwhelming on screen. **If you're not used to watching anime, you might be bothered with the bits of added narration and arrows to explain a scene.** It didn't bother me too much.
I definitely do NOT recommend this show to someone who is NEW to J-Dramas or to someone who is not an anime geek. Why? Because the style of humor is expressed using the same exaggerated motions and expressions in anime/manga. It's meant to be ridiculous, but may come off as being ridiculous. You know? ;) ;p
Also, it's obviously low-budget. I actually stopped watching a few minutes into episode 1 because of that; plus it seemed too informational and became almost like an educational program. But when I watched the preview shown on Netflix, I laughed out loud, so I went back to the episode looking forward to the scene from the preview. Next thing I knew, I was counting how many episodes I had left and got sad when I entered episode 5. :(
I just couldn't believe I had only one episode left and it was only 5 episodes that made up the show. :(
Considering that it's only 5 episodes with a 45 minute episode length, I would re-watch this show with a friend.
It seemed like the entire cast had fun energy and chemistry with each other! This was such a funny show. It's so quirky and silly. The actress cast for the lead was a great choice. I have no idea who she is. I think she carried a good balance playing an airhead without becoming irritating.
Fingers crossed for season 2!!
P.S.
Music Rating: there is no music in this series.
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The first three episodes are sooo boring. There's no plot. Characters have no soul. There's just over the top humor.
Then, the last two episodes, the series starts to pick up momentum. Really moving moments. Characters start to develop a personality. Every ingredient for a good drama is finally there.
Then, it's over.
The series would really benefit from three or four more episodes. There are a lot of characters and opportunity to develop very interesting situations. But, all characters are robotic, soulless, caricatures. No one has a good background story. No one has a clear well-defined arc. Which is expected in a series with just 5 episodes.
The reporters waste so much of the show's limited running time making stories about silly stuff. If they spent each episode with an interesting piece of journalism. They could've expanded this show dramatic range so much.
But, they didn't.
And when they decide to try. It's too late. We're already in the last two episodes.
But, at least, those are two very good episodes. The main character has a very brief moment to shine. After spending three and half episodes being the over the top, silly, clumsy caricature newbie reporter. And she does. As does the person that is the target of the big story she's covering.
One very touching scene. Which was worth all the wait.
Also, the workplace aspect, had a lot of potential. It is a TV Station! There are lots of interesting stuff to see and learn about. But instead of showing. They just tell. Or write it on the screen for you to read about it. When it would be more interesting to be able to see! Or, even better, create a story around it!
One thing I really liked about this show is that it is beautifully shot. The very first shot of the series. A drone shot of the city, that approaches the TV station building, then enters through the door and shows every departament of the station on a (fake, but brilliant) single shot is fantastic.
If they had more time. If the had spent their limited time wisely. Developing the characters. Showing the workplace in more detail. Dropped the over the top humor sooner and gone for the "Interesting investigative story triggers a character's backstory" formula. It would've been a big hit!
But it was a big miss, instead.
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Hilarious Manga-ish TV station fun
While I didn’t read the original manga that this drama is based on, once you see the FL in action you’ll truly think of those fun manga slapstick elements. And that craziness of her shines throughout the whole show and totally works for me. So much baka fun ? …and while they treat her as the “baka” one she pulls it off like no other in the team because she's so dedicated to her job.Besides the outstanding FL the other freshmen/women in the TV station are also well chosen, each one being a different character and while they cover each other’s work specialty you’ll even get an insight in the different steps and departments of creating daily TV content. I can imagine that it’s similarly stressful in real life, hunting for relevant news, making them interesting to broadcast while keeping your audience rating at a high level and pleasing the commerical department.
Also to be mentioned is how they don’t only focus on the main story, also lots of other elements, like that one superior who constantly eats whatever while he’s in a scene, then you’ll also get some authentic local Hokkaido food porn, e.g. Jingisukan (I ate when I visited there).
So overall to me a fun drama in a style only the Japanese can pull off and as I see that the manga is quite long, I’ll demand more episodes !
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Modest yet Entertaining Wholesomeness (+ a Really Long Review)
I don't think this show will probably blow anyone's socks off, but I also think that not every show has to. And either way, what we have here is something happy, funny, and sometimes even moving. And, while some of the acting perhaps could be better, solid writing and interesting characters manage to make up for it. Our earnest protagonist is loveable (if a bit dull), and her ridiculous antics manage to be funny without causing any harm.The production was all very solid. Nothing too fancy, and you couldn't really call the cinematography artistic, but this is mainly a comedy show and we don't need to expect too much in that area. And in the area of comedy, it delivers. I found myself laughing out loud at every episode. So, even if some could consider this show mediocre in some regards, I still thought it was fun, and it made my day a little brighter. I recommend this drama.
WARNING: From here on out I'm rambling. For a while.
In recognition of the fact that all my positive reviews are very short, I will now take some liberties to list the things I liked about this show. Feel free to tune out if you were just looking to see whether or not you wanted to watch this.
From the get go, I appreciated the framing of the main character. When you have a character which is very charismatic, admired by other characters, or (in this case) somewhat unrelatable for the average viewer, it can be difficult to empathize with the character enough to become invested in them. There are a few ways around this which are commonly employed in modern media. The most common is to use a "save the cat" moment, which is where the protagonist does something good, which endears them to the viewer. However, this technique (especially when used early on, when it's most effective) sets a very clear first impression for the viewer, which is that the main character is someone who is prone to saving or helping others. If your character is generally empathetic but not necessarily defined by that trait, you may not want to leave that impression from the get go. That's where the second technique comes in, the one which was used by this show. Succinctly: "The straight man." Known for being the rational wall to bounce humor off of, straight men can get a bad wrap as shortcuts to cheap comedy, but when used right they can elevate humor or even be used in other situations, like forming a connection with your bizarre characters through the medium of a normal person who inhabits the world of the show. This technique is used very well in this show, with our straight man narrating several scenes, both for comedy and to introduce the antics of our protagonist. Also, having the straight man try his best in the conventional ways helps to highlight the benefits of the protagonist's unorthodox methods, benefits which may otherwise be unclear and lead to the viewer disliking them for simply being stupid.
A common trope in Jdramas and Japanese media in general is the weird but wise old man, who offers wisdom to our characters while engaging in strange, often humorous behaviors. The News Station Director in this show perfectly fits this archetype, but in this case there is some unique revelations which emerge from that. The problem with having a wise character is that it implies that you must have writers who are also wise, which may sometimes be an issue. Luckily, in this case, the writers were able to give the wisdom character several interesting and even surprising pieces of advice and information which changes the way certain parts of the show could be seen. A few words about the necessity of stupid people transforms our view of the protagonist from bumbling idiot to earnest learner who affords new opportunities. This idea then became a theme throughout the series, and in my opinion was pretty well demonstrated by the show. Perhaps you could even extract some societal implication from this message about how everyone has their own worth, but this comedy tv show doesn't choose to dive too deep into that so neither shall I.
The nature of an ensemble cast means balancing several characters, their motivations, their personalities, and (in a good show) their arcs of learning and evolution. While the cast is quite large for under four hours of screen time, the show manages to keep them all straight by dividing them into distinct groups with distinct roles and personalities. Within the television stations, there are the new members and the old, who are also divided by their respective specialties. Then you have the new members, who can also be considered the main cast of the show. While the main character and the straight man are certainly the focus, each of the five new members (and also the weather guy) are given some focus across the series, giving greater catharsis when they all come together at the end. The characters outside of the news stations are so few and specialized that is isn't difficult to keep track of them all. Importantly, while all the characters are in the show all the time, we are given more in-depth instructions of them gradually, and there are no heavy exposition dumps to make us loose interest or start forgetting things. This is also helped by each character having relatively simple yet still dynamic personalities.
To clarify a bit about my note with the acting: Acting is something which can be difficult to judge, and how good it is can be subjective across viewers. It is even more difficult if you're watching something from another culture, where certain actions and behaviors may be more or less common. However, certain things can be seen which cross boundaries as a marker of less-than-stellar acting. Namely: lack of expression. Unless a monolithic appearance is a marker of their personality or a subject of comedy, a character's face will generally need to display a variety of emotions depending on the situation. In this show, some of the actors (especially the lead actress) could be seen to be heavily favoring certain expressions, which is certainly something you'd notice. However, there is a difference between noticing something and having it detract from the viewing experience. In a serious drama, where every scene is carried with a level of weight and importance, having bad acting can pull you out of the scene and ruin immersion. In a comedy show, however, where you are perhaps more removed from the fictional situations, it's far less distracting. In the best of cases, it can even become so bad that it's funny again, in which case the show benefits from it. This is, as for as I'm aware, the main draw of extreme exaggeration of facial expression in many Jdramas. The level of reaction is so absurd that it becomes funny, at the cost of the realism of the character (which may or may not matter, depending on the tone).
In the world of television, shows can generally be described as being entirely narrative, entirely episodic, and then the ones which are a mix of both. Generally, things like sitcoms and weekly cartoons fall into the later category, and this show too, happens to land there. That's where things start getting interesting. A show can change a lot depending on the balance of these two elements. Too much episodic, and the show feels like it's never progressing. Too much narrative, and the viewer might miss something or be bogged down by too many plot lines. This show manages to strike a compelling balance. This is accomplished because the main character is generally static across the show, and other minor characters fit their arcs into a single episode. The only exception in this case is the straight man, who's evolution is natural and predictable enough to probably not be too surprising or confusing for any viewers dropping in or returning after a while. Like other great shows of this type, the show manages to be appealing for binge watching by leveraging the sort of slow burn evolution which gives you just enough plot to draw you in and keep you watching. In the worst of cases this can lead to bitter disappointment as you realize the show will never reach the point that you're hoping for, but in the best of cases it can reward you for your wait while letting you build a connection with the characters along the way.
There's a few spoilers in this part:
I liked the logo of the TV Station. Also, I liked how all the editors wore nearly the same type of classes. Also also, I liked how after the weather man's confidence arc he started wearing different funny costumes for every report. Also also also, I appreciated how they always had so many extras in the studio to give the appearance of a busy workplace, it made the show a lot more convincing. Also also also also, I really liked the camera guys in the violin episode; I think they were pretty cool. Also also also also also, I think a romance between the main character and the straight man would have been way too cliché, and I'm glad that didn't happen. Also also also also also also, I really liked the climax, it was very tense and satisfying to see all the hints and foreshadowing that had been laid out throughout the show come to fruition. Also also also also also also also I liked the scene at the very end with the sheep, it was pretty cute.
Okay, I guess I'm done rambling. That was certainly my longest review ever, although probably not by as much as you'd think. I'm pretty impressed that you managed to read this far, unless you just skipped to the conclusion to see what I'd say. News flash: (haha, get it?) The conclusion already happened, before my rambling. I don't need to do another one. What is this, English class? I don't care. And I can write in fragments too. While I'm at it, a dangling participle was written. And. I. Didn't. Use. Punctuation. Properly. What are you gonna do about it? Huh? I'm probably delusional, based on this review anyway. Regardless, the review is done. Probably.
P.S.
It wasn't, but now it is.
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This review may contain spoilers
Such a fun drama!
Really enjoyed this drama. It was pure comedy and so fun to watch!The FL is an airhead who takes life as it comes and is always enthusiastic. Her candid nature and empathy made her a great watch. Loved her hilarious mistakes and reactions.
The ML is the complete opposite of the FL: doesn't talk too much, is serious about life and isn't too enthusiastic. He has a strong dislike for the main lead; a great premise for a romantic relationship. However, I still can't believe that they made such a wonderful show with such great characters and did not have any romance between them! Not that I am complaining. It was a great watch nonetheless.
Here's hoping for another season where we watch our FL grow into a professional newscaster.
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