#Fune wo Amu: Watashi Jisho Tsukurimasu

[so-na-gi]

Does anyone know if a sub group is going to pick up Fune wo Amu? :<

[sneek-m]

Favorite dramas, 2024

This year's shows were a bit underwhelming compared to the last few years, but I found a few I enjoyed. Here are some words on them.

Tsukuritai Onna To Tabetai Onna 2

Everything you'd hope in a second season: more characters, more opportunities to learn about our couple as individuals, more relationship development. The last bit inspires more LGBTQ discussions as Manami Higa's Nomoto is now in a formal relationship with Emi Nishino's Kasuga, her first with a woman. And while my favorite TV dramas this year below concerned the nuclear family, its make-up and how it can stray far from tradition as we like (can't get more into it than my number seven), TsukuTabe 2 reminds queer couples in Japan have yet to be in the same page when it comes to starting a family, or even get an apartment together.

Fune Wo Amu: Watashi, Jisho Tsukurimasu

I collect, research and write about music as a hobby. It'd hard for me not to be all in on a story about big nerds being so engrossed in their passion for their chosen interest, even if said interest is the dictionary. It's about loving the thing as much as it is about making one, and the long gestating process behind it all. The commercial conflicts has to be wrestled with, though it always puts the love of the craft first over the political drama. For those who've seen the 2013 film or the 2016 anime, the post-COVID plot line should be a nice addendum, reminding the work and the pursuit is never truly over.

Haru Ni Nattara

The mortality of my own parents came to my attention a bit last year through Hidetoshi Nishijima's Shiro and his parents in the second season of Kinou Nani Tabeta? Haru Ni Nattara really makes me confront it, in particular with Nao's Hitomi also being an ara-saa like myself, opposed to the 50-something Shiro. When the time comes, you only hope it'll be a comedy as rowdy and full of life like this one, with the stubborn attitudes of both Hitomi and her father Noritake Kinashi's Masahiko clashing in the ways a close family members do. It's safe to say I'm growing out of twentysomething musings on TV about finding the one or being something and warming up to discussions like this one.

Tora Ni Tsubasa

Thank god for Sairi Ito, who brought comedy and needed levity to the show especially as it got deep in the weeds in the court system. Only she can turn the most ridiculous hengao into the year's most heart-tugging scene in TV. Not that the story and its central cases wasn't compelling, just heavy at it is complex: I often forget these scenes featuring conversations about war horrors, misogyny and homophobia, juvenile crimes, domestic abuse, et. al air during breakfast time. Kenshi Yonezu first imagined a gentle ballad as its theme, following his impression of an asadora; Tora Ni Tsubasa was anything but.

Ayaka-chan Wa Hiroko Senpai Ni Koishiteru

Nothing too deep to say here other than this was a fun yuuri comedy to watch. If you know Shiho Kato from the Hinatazaka variety show like I do, even more so.

Saionji-san Wa Kaji Wo Shinai

Never did this show express to me that it knew where it wanted to take its story nor did it seemed to know exactly what Wakana Matsumoto's Saionji meant when she pitched to Hokuto Matsumura's Kusumi this idea of a "fake family." But both were happy to make it up as they went along, constantly playing the silliest mental gymnastics, so long as they didn't have to go separate ways, and the show's energy, too, mimicked this eagerness to just go with the flow and see where the two will take it next. That's what it all boils down to anyway, this needlessness for labels and keeping definition of this unit of two people being together fluid.

VR Ojisan No Hatsukoi

The moment I gave my full respect to the show might be when Toru Nomaguchi's Naoki explained to Yajuro Bando's Honami that it wasn't any parts of their circumstance -- of a internet-born relationship met through digital avatars, with someone who's more than 10 years older, of the same sex -- that kept him at a distance from the latter once they met in real life, but because he needed time to simply sort out what exactly his feelings were for him. The first act hardly put any attention to the novelty of the overall premise, down to the outlandish costuming: and to be fair, don't we all customize our online avatars with flashy skins and costumes? Which gives way to the measured handling of their relationship as it steps off from the VR world, and eventually a heartfelt story of family, grief and preservation of life after death, the last bit I am very susceptible to.

Percent

Similar to selection number 2 in its premise being an immediate sell for a Person Who Makes Things as a Hobby, with this one being a TV drama about producing a TV drama. More un-romantic in its depictions of the behind-the-scenes process, and the show hardly hands Maika Ito's Miku an easy way out from dealing with production politics. But it only makes for an honesty I respect to say it takes work as much as passion to reap the rewards. More compelling than the other drama with another protagonist trying to be a TV-drama screenwriter whose inspired work is just slices of her life transferred wholesale and by some stroke of luck keep landing hits. It ain't that easy, but that's why it feels so good when you finally stick the landing.

Hikaru Kimie

My first taiga drama, and it was a commitment I enjoyed undertaking. There's nothing like the character development that unfolds in a year-long serial: my favorite was seeing Ai Mikami's Akiko grow from the painfully shy and forlorn girl into a powerful, vocal royal member of Fujiwara. Or the real sense of time you feel once a decades-long secret is finally out, especially when it comes from someone like Haru Kuroki's Tomoko, at the final episode. And who knew I'll come to love Yuriko Yoshitaka's Mahiro, or Murasaki Shikibu, and Tasuku Emoto's Michinaga Fujiwara together this much, maybe my favorite couple of this year.

...and some more:

Densetsu No Head Sho

Baby Walkure Everyday!

Umi No Hajimari

Karakai Jouzu No Takagi-san

My Diary