[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Kameruka

Back to topic, do you still watching J-Dramas lately?

No. It has been a very long time since I watched J-drama.

Originally Posted by Kameruka

I still remember when it popularity exploded after Beautiful Life was shown and it spread like wildfire.

Beautiful Life (2000) was great because of the lovely Tokiwa Takako. But I believe the last J-drama series I watched that I really, really enjoyed was Dekichatta Kekkon (Shotgun Marriage; 2001), starring Takenouchi Yutaka and perennial cutie pie Ryoko Hirosue.

Originally Posted by Grifis

I don't know if there was a golden age for Jdrama.

There was one. Or, at the very least, a short-lived "Japan wave" that started in the late 90s and lasted until the early 2000s. In Singapore, I recall it swelled with the massive hit Beach Boys (1997), the rom-com that catapulted the aforementioned to Takenouchi and Ryoko into prime-time fame along with Sorimachi Takashi. (Incidentally, I've always suspected that the main trio of Samurai Champloo was at the very least unconsciously inspired by the Beach Boys cast. The similarities, in terms of character designs and relationships, were too coincidental to ignore: Sorimachi as Mugen, Takenouchi as Jin, and Ryoko as Fuu.)

But even before Beach Boys, there was the mega hit Hitotsu Yane no Shita (Under One Roof; 1993 and 1997), which I watched while in university, courtesy of my friends' *ahem* friendly sources. The two-season series' popular cast included the then-reigning Japanese celebrity nadeshiko, Sakai Noriko. At the time, the commercial concept of J-drama or the J-wave hadn't quite been invented yet. Or, at the very least, I wasn't aware that I was watching "J-drama", the same way some people weren't aware that they were watching anime while enjoying Pokemon when they were kids.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I tried watching them a while back, but after 2 or 3 I realised they all felt the same.

I blame SMAP. The "boy band" has dominated the Japanese entertainment scene for so long (the five guys, including the ever-arrogant Kimura Takuya, remain active even today) that commercial TV in Japan has stagnated somewhat. Similar problems exist in Hong Kong and Taiwan: TV studios bank heavily on celebrities to flog otherwise-bland shows, and no longer bother to push anything groundbreaking or original. It doesn't help that most of these celebrities are sub-par actors at best.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

The romance/drama was all overly artificial, usually built on incredibly unlikely premises, while also taking itself perhaps a bit too seriously. The work related ones (like detective etc.) had too much "dramatic passion" whereby the lead makes these dramatic impassioned speeches to the people they come in contact with, and they're inspired. It was good the first time, and maybe even the second or third time, but the pattern gets old. Saw it a lot in shows like GTO and it's copycats. It's possible that there are good drama I'm not exposed to.

In my opinion, Japanese period/historical dramas tend to be very, very much a cut above the rest, and often make for very engrossing TV. I remember being addicted to the NHK Taiga drama Takeda Shingen (1988) while in secondary school.

And then there is the arguably most-fondly remembered biographical drama of them all: the 297-episode epic Oshin (1983). Heh, I still recall having a childhood crush on actress Tanaka Yuko, the then-reigning celebrity nadeshiko who played the adult Oshin.

Surprise, surprise: I just discovered that Tanaka-san was the voice actress for Lady Eboshi of Princess Mononoke. Talk about coming full circle indeed.