General Knowledge

I think one of the reasons that I like J-dorama more is that they offer not only a story but also a lot of portions of human’s life.

It does not mean that I dislike other dramas. I do love watching other Asian drama such as Taiwanese and recent Korean Dramas (previously Korean Dramas often present a dramatic plot) because they cast good-looking actors and actreess and yet the stories are mostly full of humour, which I like very much. However, most of the time, the stories have similar characteristics and sometimes those are too good to be true (you know what I mean). Moreover somehow, the endings are easy to guess. Even worse, as the effect of this situation, my country loves copying that kind of drama.

Maybe the reason why J-dorama is slightly different from the others is because Japan used to be an isolated country where the inhabitants keep the traditions firmly from generation to generation and those elements still appear in the doramas. My Japanese lady boss at Japanese Chamber of Commerce (place where I did my placement before) often commented how weird Japanese people are. According to her, they do have some habits and behaviors that others just cannot understand. Thus by watching Japanese movies or dramas, I learn the cultures too.

Most of Japanese are still following these patterns such as they would keep distance from each other and prefer not doing or doing less physical contact with the person he/she is talking too. Especially for Japanese business partners they will bow down towards each other the deeper the bow shows the rank of positions they have in the business. When Japanese businessmen meet with foreign business partner from Western or Europe, they will finally shake hand but trying not to squeeze to hard in order to show their respects. Secondly, do not be surprise when your Japanese colleagues never say “no”

Anyway here are some J-dee according to their categories:

• About deseases–Kamisama mou sukoshi dake (God please give me a little more time): A story of a high school girl who accidentally got infected by HIV virus, which in 10-years time it will change into AIDS (starring: Takeshi Kaneshiro and Kyoko Fukada); Summer Snow: a comedic love story between an orphan bike shop’s owner (Natsuo) who has a deaf ototou (younger brother) and an accidentally pregnant imoutou and He can’t help to fall in love with a girl (Yuki) who is carrying a mortal heart desease (starring: Ryoko Hirosue, Dohmoto Tsuyoshi, and Oguri Shun). Sekai no chuushin de, ai wo sakebu (Crying out love, in the center of the world): a flashback dramatic story of a high school boy who fell in love with a girl with leukemia (cancer blood) disease who is finally died and the boy just couldn’t forget her until 15 years afterwards.

• About cuisines–Little Chef: a female Japanese chef who cooks amazing legendary French cuisines especially made for each of her customers. Here you will learn a lot of French food and their specialities (starring: Hiroshi Abe and Ueto Aya); Food Fight: a legend of unbeatable food-eating champion in an illegal competition (starring: SMAP-Kusanagi and Kyoko Fukada). I think I should add Lunch Queen into this category.

• About Music: Nodame Cantabile: a genius-pervert pianist, Nodame, who slowly becomes more and more serious with piano’s music as she wishes to be a qualified wife of Chiaki, a genius-handsome pianist violinist and conductor who used to have a flying and drown phobia (starring: Ueno Juri and Shinichi Tamaki); Long Vacation–Japanese runaway bride story featuring Sena (Kimutaku), a student of piano’s department who was also ex-roomate of the runaway groom.

• About sports: Most of the times it’s all about Kimutaku such as Pride–Ice Hockey star; Engine–Formula racing;

• About occupations: Good Luck–pilot’s story; Hero–lawyer; Big Wing & Yamato Nadeshiko–stewardess; Beautiful Life–a barber; Kimi wa Petto: business woman and a dancer.

• And of course about high-school life: (the famous) GTO; Gokushen 1&2; Hana Yori Dango 1&2; and Stand-up

And still more…

Anyway that’s what this page is all about 🙂