I was first introduced to J-dramas purely by accident. I'm sure I was channel surfing one day back in the early 90's. It was probably somewhere between 8AM to 10AM when I happened upon a show on one of the PBS stations, channel 31. They were talking in Japanese but there were subtitles so I know I stopped to see what it was. I wonder what made me so curious that morning because until that day, if you had told me that sometime in the future I was going to get this ridiculous fascination with J-dramas and eventually become obsessed to the point where I have to get my ass to Japan one day...I'd have thought you were crazy. I want to learn to speak it...I want to learn their customs...I just want to soak up everything my mind will allow me to.
I went back the next day to watch and it wasn't on...I'm sure I went every day until I realized that it's only on once a week and though I had caught the show in the middle, after a few weeks, it was over and a new one started. I remember the first three I ever watched...
1 - The very first one was "Shiratori de Gozaimasu" (I am Shiratori Reiko!) .
I vaguely remember the plot. Rich girl falls for an "ordinary" guy. I don't recall what the problem was between them but I remember they got together in the end. Isn't that what it's all about?
2 - "Good Mourning"
This one I watched from the beginning. A woman marries a man with a son and a few days after the wedding, he dies and she's left to take care of him. His family operates a funeral parlor and she goes to live with them. That's all I remember...but I do remember thinking it was a good one.
3 - "Bakumatsu Kokosei"
No idea what this means. I think someone told me it was High School Students something...I have to find out. In the beginning, it was in modern times and something happened when a group of students were on a field trip. Somehow they were transported back to the days of the Samurai. Can't recall how they got back or what happened while they were back in time. It's the first time I saw Takeda Shinji...*sigh* he was the first actor I had a crush on.
4 -"Give us Love!"
I remember a few guy that lived together next door to an apartment complex that was for the stewardesses that worked for an airline. One of the guys in the apartment fell in love with her. Of course there were the usual problems that kept them from getting together but eventually they did. Takeda Shinji was in this one as well...nice surprise.
5 - NO IDEA
I'm still trying to figure out which one this was. I remember a young couple with a child decide they will divorce. That's all I've got. It's not much but somewhere out there on the internet there is someone who saw that one and loved it. I'll have to be persistent.
After I saw these, channel 31 was sold and there were no more J-dramas for me. Channel 25 was another local PBS station but at that time, we had no cable so we were watching TV like they did in the olden days back in the 80's. I found out that there was this Japanese Samurai show on every once in a while and I was always looking for it. It was a great show and I never knew the name of it. That was pretty much all the shows I had watched for a while. My interest in Japanese things grew during the time I didn't have a channel to watch my shows.
In 2005, I found a channel that actually had J-dramas on it. I got hooked on one called "Crying Out Love, in the Centre of the World". I missed like the first 4 episodes of it; by the time I got into it, I had made out that it was 2004, the man was 34 and was reminiscing about the loss of his girlfriend 17 years ago. I think he was thinking about it because it was his HS reunion or something. Anyway, before it was over I moved to FL where they have absolutely no J-dramas...I was dying to know how this one ended so I looked up on line for where I could get the series...turns out I got the complete 10 episode (or was it 11?) show on DVD for $10 on ebay. I'm ashamed to say, I've only watched the first episode...I guess i'll have to go and watch those when i'm done with one of the ones i'm currently watching...
Until my next post, I leave you with Arashi singing "We Can Make it True".
