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.

Akumu-chan

Japanese title: 悪夢ちゃん

Aired on NTV
From October to December 2012
11 episodes
(A movie seems to be planned for 2014).

Main cast:

Kitagawa Keiko: Mutoi Ayami

Kimura Manatsu: Koto Yuiko

Gackt: Shiki Takashi

Yuka: Hirashima Kotoha

Kohinata Fumiyo: Koto Bannosuke

Update: Akumu-chan The Movie is to be released on May 2014.

Review: + !

Title: Akumu-chan is the nickname that Girl gives to a little girl who has predictive nighmares (akuma = bad dreams).

Girl: She's an elementary school teacher and pretends to be smiling all the time even though it's all fake. Her character is different from all the naturally nice girls in drama and the evolution of her character is really interesting. I love her (but I love Kitagawa Keiko).

Boy: He's a scientist and his true intentions are never clear. I was confused by his character who was nice but also slightly creepy. Maybe I would've been more interested in him with a different actor.

Plot: There is romance in this drama but it's in the backseat. The real stories are the story of Girl and also the stories of her pupils. One episode typically revolves around a pupil's problems and Little girl's dreams about it. There are interpretations of symbols in the dream and the stories are varied so it's really compelling. It's also slightly creepy and... really NTV? This is not a family drama. Though the mediocre special effects aren't scary, the themes can be disturbing for kids. The nighmares are really nighmares: there is physical and (more unsettling) emotional violence committed by children and/or on children. For grown-ups however, no problem.

Other characters: Little girl! So, so cute!! Can I adopt her (legally)?The other school teachers are typical comic reliefs. The nurse starts off weird but she becomes a real character later on.

Funny factor? See other characters.

Music: Serviceable.

Bottom line: At first, I stayed for the stand alone stories and the enigma of what these dreams are about. Then, I got engrossed in Girl's story as well. Though the finale was grandiloquent, I was impressed by how the stories told managed to make sense (I mean, once you've accepted that you can watch dreams in a TV). In the end, a + without question.

Absolute Boyfriend

Taiwanese title:  絕對達令 / Jue Dui Darling
Aired on FTV/GTV - April/July 2012
13 episodes

Main cast:

• Goo Hye Sun (dubbed): Guan Xiao Fei 官筱菲
• Jiro Wang: Wan Ni Te 萬奈特
• Kun Da: Yan Zong Shi 嚴宗史
• Cherry Hsia: Luo Mei Jia 羅美佳
• Na Wei Xun: Lei Wu Wu 雷霧霧

Notes:
- Still haven't read the manga.
- I will compare to the Japanese version.
- I DID NOT watch this drama entirely, I stopped at episode 4. So I'll review up to this point. I don't know if it gets better but this drama didn't hook me.

Review: DNF (episode 4 included)

Girl: Typical Taiwanese drama main character. She's earnest but dense when it comes to relationships (a bit too much in her case). She's likable but boringly standard: she doesn't have anything that stands out.

Boy: He's a robot. It's not as obvious as in the Japanese drama in which Night's moves are mechanical, we see him recharge, we see through his electronic eyes. However, Nai Te is socially awkward and too upfront about his love for Girl and it creates problems for her, more serious than in Zettai Kareshi in which they were mostly embarrassing. This Nai Te is more handsome than cute.

Other Boy: One of the biggest difference with ZK, he's actually closer to his manga counterpart, from what I've heard. He's a childhood friend of Girl and has a crush on her which he tries to hide by making fun of her. It's so obvious that I wanted to scream at Girl to get it already. I didn't really care for him at first because he was too serious and not fun at all but he grew on me by being good at his job and assertive.

Plot/Relationship: True triangle. But since Other Boy is in love with Girl from the start and Girl is more accepting of Boy than in ZK, I feel that there is less building to it. (When I stopped, I still didn't know what were Girl's feelings).

Subplots include how to earn money to pay for the robot (that leads to Jiro Wang cross dressing if you're into that kind of things ;) )and shenanigans at work (different from the manga in which they are in high school). Contrary to ZK, I'm not sure what their firm is into. Girl wants to be part of the pool of Secretaries but I really didn't care about this plot since it came out of nowhere and the actual secretaries were a cliché trio of meangirls.

Compared to ZK, I actually prefer the best friend storyline in this drama.

Other characters: I liked Other boy's brother and a random co-worker who played almost no role but who stood out because she seemed like a cynical person who walked into the craziness of a drama. I should also note that the inventor of the robot is more ostensibly extravagant.

Music: I remember that the opening theme song is quite good and I like the closing one which is... intense.


Bottom line: I haven't spend enough time on this drama to feel strongly about it (in a good or bad way) so this review must be boring. But there wasn't any character or story I care enough about. SO DNF.

Zettai Kareshi

Other title: Absolute Boyfriend
Japanese title: 絶対彼氏。

Aired on Fuji TV - Spring 2008
11 episodes + Special

Main cast:

Aibu Saki as Izawa Riiko

Hayami Mokomichi as Tenjo Night

Mizushima Hiro as Asamoto Soshi

Sasaki Kuranosuke as Namikiri Gaku

Maya Miki as Wakabayashi Fujiko

Ueno Natsuhi as Ito Mika

Nakamura Shunsuke as Asamoto Masashi

Minemura Rie as Yoshioka Tetsuko

+ in the Special:

Kuninaka Ryoko as Kamiya Ayumi

Uchida Asahi as Nanase Jun

Notes:

- I haven't read the manga this drama is based one.
- Since I watched it just after Buzzer beat, I couldn't help but notice that Aibu Saki and Maya Miki star in both, and that they have characters called Kamiya and Riiko (Riko in BB).
- I want to watch the Taiwanese adaptation to compare but I haven't to this point.
- I watched this drama twice and I didn't remember much from the first time. I have to say that I liked it better the first time maybe because I had such low expectations.

Review: +/-

Title: Makes sense since 01 or Tenjo Night is a robot conceived to be the Ultimate boyfriend.

Girl: She's more of a relatable character. She doesn't have confidence in her skills and in one episode, she was a bit too defeatist (which is realistic but rarely makes for a nice viewing experience). However, she is energetic, funny-cute but not in a grating way. She was well-acted too.

Boy: He's a robot. That's the premise. The actor and the sound made a good job of making us aware of that. So Night was designed to love Riiko but he is totally clueless and keeps doing embarrassing stuff. However, he is very earnest and we end up caring for him. I also noticed that he doesn't have many facial expressions but still we know what he's "feeling".

Other boy: His family owns the company for which Riiko works as a temp. At first, he's slacking, seemingly not caring about work. Then we realise that he is actually caring about his grandfather's legacy. And writing this part of my review, I realise that I don't have much to say about him. Although we see that he is loyal and perseverant, he's kind of bland in my mind.

Relationship/plot: I have a problem with the premise. It's tragic. When I first started to watch, I thought: "This can't end well." It's also a problem with love triangles. Real love triangles which are the ones where the two love interests have equal chances with the one in the middle. Some dramas take the easy road and make one love interest less interesting or make us know from the beginning which one we should root for. But the main problem is that Night is a robot and it raises deep issues. It's really hard to pull off putting these issues in the center of a light drama. That's why, the first time I watched, I was worried and then pleasantly surprised by how it was dealt. But, the second time, I couldn't gloss over the seriousness/wrongness of what happens.

Apart from that, the relationships between people and how they progressed are believable.

The B-plot, which at first bored me, then made me think I'd like to see more of it, unravels slowly. The company where they work made pastries and the plot is about Riiko gaining confidence in her talent as a pâtissier and Soshi pushing for a return to the roots of the company (valuing taste over aspect) and working towards a goal. We learned of Riiko's dream of becoming a pâtissier some episodes into the drama and I wish it was more prominent before because it seems to come out of the blue.

The Special takes place three years after the final. It goes deep into the ethical issues by making a storyline with new characters. Which requires to care about them but it's hard to because they are new characters that we don't see much and were "antagonists". We're also too busy caring about the original characters. Speaking of which, I was disappointed not to see more of the Asamoto pastries plot. It felt like it was ditched in the middle of the special to make place for the "new" storyline. Of course, this new storyline has a point and is linked to the main one but for me it felt artificial. Now that I think about it, it feels like an after thought. "Oops! We forgot to deal with these issues! Let's do a special."

Other characters: There is the crazy landlady, the wise women who owns a bar. Most people are good people. One is perfect, like she is not jealous, not envious, she is confident, gracious... Does this kind of people exist? Well, not all characters are like these, some are "enemies" but they have clear motivations that make them complex and not total cartoons.

Funny Factor? Yes, at the beginning. Comes from some characters and Night's embarrassing actions.

Music: I liked the music but it was more of a background music. This isn't a criticism since I think some dramas go overboard with their use of music.

Bottom line: I'm sorry I can't get past the premise.
It's still not a minus because I give minus to dramas that triggered deep annoyance in me or caused me an bitter shock.

Wow, that was hard not to spoil! Hope it makes sense!