I've always thought that Nakama Yukie is better as a comedy actress. I've always enjoyed her role in Trick with Abe Hiroshi. I think her ability to play such a flawed character is great. Contrast that with her boring role in the super pedestrian Tokyo Wankei. Arifureta Kiseki seems to be another serious boy meets girl jdorama ala Tokyo Wankei so I wasn't expecting much. I really don't see how they can do a serious romance dorama today that comes close to Long Vacation/Love Generation quality with the non-acting ability of young actors today.
Imagine my surprise when I realised that the main actor was Kase Ryo from 'Soredemo boku wa yattenai'! Yes! Someone who can actually act! OMG, how did this happen?! Someone actually decided to cast based on acting skills rather than random Johnny bishonen? This is brilliant! Nakama Yukie won't have to carry the show by herself! Yatta!
Hhhm, she's not as kabe onna as I thought...Then, Jinnai Takanori turned up on my screen with his super bulging eyeballs and array of overacting skills. WTF is this person in so many freaking doramas. Do they not realise his tendency to overact kills every serious dorama he's been in. I love it when he's in comedies like Heaven Cannot Wait or Backdancers. Its cool when he's suppose to be comedy relief supporting actor. With a serious show like Arifureta Kiseki, it could be really bad.
I try to banish my resentment for Jinnai Takanori from my mind in order to enjoy the show more. It was that or fast forward all his scenes. It is really nice to see a more realistic jdorama. Too many anime style jdoramas can be a bad thing. And this is realistic serious dorama. Not like Tomorrow where its serious but people act and speak slightly more anime like. You can say its more movie like than you're average jdoramas. The characters can exist in our world.
Arifureta Kiseki is about Kana (Nakama Yuki) and Shota (Kase Ryo) who meet when they try both prevented Makoto (Jinnai Takanori) from commiting suicide at a train platform. From there, its plays like your typical serious romance show. Awkward exchanges. Family background etc etc. I was sort of getting bored near the end and thinking there better be something at the end that'll make me excited about episode 2. And there was. Nice big reveal which just makes everything so much more interesting. This show is gonna rule and Jinnai Takanori's overacting is not going to spoil it for me! (I hope) Suffice to say, there's gonna be lots of emotional and dark stuff in this serious and (fingers crossed) no simplification or anime style dumbing down.
One thing that struck me as I was watching this show is that the camera is way too still. Yeah, I know movies have 3 months to shoot for 2 hours of runtime so they can take their time with shots but the realistic mood is slightly off put by the too obvious studio set shots. I guess you can call this more of an observation than criticism. The other thing I noticed when taking screencaps was the lack of close ups. This goes together with static camera observation. Even when focused on a character, the camera is distant. Maybe a deliberate choice to highlight the emotional distance between the characters and their emotions? To amplify their emotional detachment or signify the depths that they had buried their problems to? Will the camera shots get closer as more gets revealed and they confront their past?
I for one, am looking forward to seeing how Arifureta Kiseki unfolds and highly recommend it. At least give ep 1 a try and I guarantee you'll be hooked at the end.
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