5-ji Kara 9-ji Made

Japanese title: 5時から9時まで
English title:  From 5 to 9

10 episodes

Aired on Fuji TV
From 2015 October to December

Main cast:

Ishihara Satomi as Sakuraba Junko

Yamashita Tomohisa as Hoshikawa Takane

Tanaka Kei as Kiyomiya Makoto

Takanashi Rin as Yamabuchi Momoe

Hayami Mokomichi as Kimura Arthur

Furukawa Yuki as Mishima Satoshi

Yoshimoto Miyu as Ashigaka Kaori

Ono Takehiko as Terada Kouei

Kaga Mariko as Hoshikawa Hibari

Shison Jun as Hoshikawa Amane

Saeko as Mouri Masako

Nagatsuma Reo as Hachiya Renji

Takada Hyoga as Satonaka Yuki

Tsunematsu Yuri as Sakuraba Nene

Toda Keiko as Sakuraba Keiko

Ueshima Ryuhei as Sakuraba Mitsuru

Production credits:

Original work: Manga 5-ji Kara 9-ji Made by Aihara Miki

Screenwriter: Koyama Shota

Producer: Goto Hiroyuki, Kinjo Ayaka

Director: Hirano Shin, Tanimura Masaki

Music: Dewa Yoshiaki, Habuka Yuri

Review: +/-

Title: Girl teaches English at a language school. I guess, the timetable for her classes is from 5 to 9.

Girl: She's passionate about her job and her dream is to go to New York. She's pretty, kind and self-willed. I can believe that several men are in love with her.

Boy: He's a Buddhist monk, in charge of a temple, which is a kind of family "business". He's serious, earnest but lacks some social skills.

Other boys: As I said, there are two other men in love with Girl. I can't say much without spoilers but they are not really interesting.

Other girl: Her marriage with Boy has been arranged by her family and Boy's grandmother but she really wants to make it work.

Plots/relationships: Boy and Girl are both great characters and I believe that they can be together, that she fills something in his heart. However, the biggest problem of this drama is the pure stalking going on.

Of course, dramas have to contrive to make their characters meet again and again. I stopped counting the chance encounters in the drama I'm currently watching. Another way is to make one of the party interested. But since the other cannot reciprocate so soon, or there is no drama apparently, he (since it's usually the man) has to resort to stalking despite Girl's protests. I know I let it pass in Secret garden but the difference is that Girl here is clearly very upset to be pursued in that way. And it is upsetting to watch.

Something else I didn't like: the villains are caricatures. One of them has a motivation that doesn't make sense, as for the other, the motivation for their entire behaviour is revealed in the last minutes of the last episode... so too late.

Other characters: Families and her co-workers. There are two other relationships that are developped between secondary characters.

What the...?: Weird fakeouts.

Clichés: Embarrassing first meeting. Opposition of his family. Insta-love. Rain. Stalking.

Funny: Yes.

Bottom line: I watched it two months ago and I couldn't remember how it ended so I took it as a sign as I was unsure about the + or +/-. Once again, there was potential because most of the characters are interesting, even original, but I couldn't overlook some of its flaws.

Algernon ni Hanataba wo (2015)

Japanese title: アルジャーノンに花束を
Other title: Flowers for Algernon

10 episodes
Aired on TBS
From 2015 April to June

Main cast:

• Yamashita Tomohisa as Shiratori Sakuto
• Kuriyama Chiaki as Mochizuki Haruka
• Tanimura Mitsuki as Kawaguchi Rio
• Ishimaru Kanji as Hachisuka Daigo
• Kubota Masataka as Yanagawa Ryuichi
• Kudo Asuka as Hiyama Kosuke
• Hagiwara Masato as Takebe Junichiro
• Oomasa Aya as Koide Mai

  

Screenwriter: Nojima Shinji, Ikeda Natsuko

Producer: Han Choru, Sato Atsushi

Director: Yoshida Ken, Sakai Masahiro, Matsuda Ayato

Notes: Based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (which I haven't read).
Hey little sister from Buzzer beat, you're all grown up now.

Review: -

Title: It comes from the book. I like it, it's poetic and relevant. Algernon is the name of a mouse, who's been given a new substance that develops its intelligence.

Boy: He has the intellectual development of a child. He wants to be like everyone else and he is very persistent. He is good-natured and usually defuses the fights between his co-workers who are young offenders.

Girl: She is a researcher. She is impulsive and good-hearted.

Other girl: She is a student, nice and shy, but also brave.

As you can see, I'm not really inspired...

Plot / relationships: I don't know if this comes from the source material but I didn't care for the pacing. It felt like it took forever to get to the premise and then raced through the consequences. Moreover, it doesn't use that time to make the characters more dimensional. And I didn't really believe in the main love story. It got too intense too fast.

Other characters: I was more interested in the circle of friends around Boy. The character of the mother which is super important (according to the Wiki article) was not convincing. She was everything and its contrary.

Funny factor: Not at all.

Bottom line: The premise was not my jam but I went into it open-minded. I was not convinced. Though there was an interesting twist leading to a dilemma, it was not enough. It didn't even make me want to read the book.

Bad guy

Korean title: 나쁜 남자
Other title: Bad boy

17 episodes
Aired on SBS
From 2010 May to August

Main cast:

Kim Nam Gil as Shim Gun Wook

Han Ga In as Moon Jae In

Kim Jae Wook as Hong Tae Sung

Oh Yun Soo as Hong Tae Ra

Jung So Min as Hong Mo Ne

Kim Hye Ok as Mrs. Shin

Jun Gook Hwan as President Hong

Shim Eun Kyung as Moon Won In

Kim Eung Soo

Notes:

- Hello Paper fan teacher from Nodame cantabile! It's funny because Shim Eun Kyung who plays Girl's sister in this drama is playing the Nodame role in the Korean adaptation.

- Hello cute little girl also seen in Rooftop Prince!

- Hey guy from Coffee Prince in a major role!

- Strong feelings about that one. I'm going to have a spoiler space about it. It could have been a Fav but nope. It's been a few days so I'm not mad anymore, just bitter.

- Finally, I decided to start putting the production credits from Drama Wiki because these people are even more responsible for the end product than the cast.

Production credits :

Producer: Goo Bon Geun

Director: Lee Hyung Min

Screenwriter: Kim Jae Eun

 

Review: +

Title: I get it but it's hard to be more generic. Just "Guy" maybe?

Boy: I don't think you can go more mysterious-loner-dude-y than that. This drama lives or dies on his Boy. And he is SO good. He can do the single tear, the goofy smile, the smirk, anything. I read that actor Kim Nam Gil stole the show in another drama and I'm not surprised since I found him very charismatic. He had to, since the drama relies a lot on his character being that way. To sum up, all the pluses in the world for him.

Girl: All the pluses for her too. She is a art consultant (I had to get past the fact that it's a rom-com job despite not being on that list) from a poor background. She wants to be a social climber. Like Boy, she has an agenda, she drives the narrative. She is smart and level-headed but not boring. She's someome you'd like as a friend and it's the first time I wrote that about a drama's character.

Boy: The black sheep of his family. I'm not in love with him but he is touching. I feel for him.

Girl: A young spoiled girl but not the annoying brat type. She is cute and lively, passionnate and open-hearted. 

Girl: She's an unsatisfied married woman who always puts her duty to her family first. She could have been a cliché but she's a strong character and her story was well-handled.

Plot/relationships: The plot was so good. It was hard to see where it was going. It's driven by the characters' motivations, it makes you care about the characters, the pacing is great, revelations are dished out progressively. Fab! Triple Fab... But, triple but, at one point, characters act in stupid ways just to allow a plot point that makes no sense. And the end is completely botched. I was so mad. I've never been so mad... it doesn't ruin everything, I'd still recommend it but no to the end.
I'm just going to paraphrase one of my favourite reviews ever: "For about nine-tenths of the drama, this is perfect. The drama is tense, there’s a palpable sense of mystery, of trying to figure out along with the characters what the next move is, what the next layer is, how the disparate pieces that don’t make sense fit into a cohesive picture.
And then the bottom falls out catastrophically.
The last two episodes in which we get "resolutions" are just so terribly written that I think the screenwriter should get an MRI, because I think he had a stroke on page 85 and then ignored the smell of burnt toast to keep typing."

Funny factor? Nope.

Bottom line: It should have been a Fav! I'm mad it's not a Fav because of [spoiler].

But watch it! Just don't watch *first degree spoiler* the last two episodes and imagine it's the end.

However, I still need to dish on what I hated, so full blown spoilers coming  after the jump. You should really watch the show before reading this because, for one thing, you won't understand what I'm talking about and second, it will colour your experience of the show and you don't want that. Anyway, you will probably binge-watch it in days like I did so you're coming back soon.