This was supposed to be “Favourite Live Action version of an Anime/Manga”, but since I don’t really watch anime or read manga, I hunted around for other questions in these sorts of challenges and found a replacement from this site. Since it’s day 18, I just took the equivalent from that challenge.
I tend to be more selective with the J-dramas I watch, and as far as possible try not to drop them unless they’re really shitty. I had decent expectations for MOZU because I liked Nishijima Hidetoshi in Strawberry Night, and he made a great team with Kagawa Teruyuki in Double Face. Besides, MOZU had a pretty star-studded cast and the plot seemed decent. However, for a cop procedural, MOZU was surprisingly tedious and annoying. It’s certainly not the worst J-drama out there, but it’s pretty bad among the ones I have watched. The acting couldn’t save it because the writing just seemed so bad – I couldn’t relate to Nishijima’s character Kuraki, which means I couldn’t get behind his cause of uncovering the “conspiracy” that led to his wife’s death. The Dharma plot was stupid and had it been removed, things would have tightened up considerably. As it was, the story dragged on and was pretty much a snoozefest. Pacing was almost non-existent and the story spawned more questions than it could answer, which was bad for a cop procedural. Almost nobody in the drama was likeable and I don’t know how I made it to the end of it. Suffice it to say that I did not bother with Season 2.
junny@11.30pm
Yay, panda! 