Welkame (2009)

To connect

"Welkame" is the 31st asadora that I've watched. I decided to watch it right after the other 2009 asadora "Tsubasa" to gauge why they're both so unpopular. With "Tsubasa," I came to the conclusion that it was more of a matter of taste, though some of the criticism is warranted. With "Welkame," I'm sad to say that all of the criticism is fair.

First, the premise of "Welkame" is not necessarily bad and could've been good with some MAJOR tweaks. But... I confess that I feel a bit catfished. The drama is called "Wel-KAME" (i.e. turtle) and there are turtles everywhere. However, the heroine nor her love interest becomes a marine biologist or turtle researcher or something. Being a writer, specifically a magazine writer, is not a bad choice for the heroine but it's not as interesting as a marine biologist could've been. Besides the turtles being a metaphor for going out into the world... why are there so many turtles everywhere if the heroine's given profession isn’t something ocean related? Instead the heroine becomes a writer with some vague notion to "connect" the world. I see where they were going here, but it wasn't as deep or profound as they thought.

Kurashina Kana as the heroine, Nami, is fine but she's really not given much to work with. Nami is characterized as clueless, naive, and happy. Yes, she has her lows but we're mostly treated to her sometimes annoying cluelessness. Her love interest, Katsunoshin, has one of the strangest personalities I've seen in any drama let alone an asadora but is always pointing out how strange she is [which is actually kinda funny]. I felt only a slight interest in their romance and once they married I felt myself start to completely check out of the drama. Not that I liked it much before.

The side characters are either annoying or are not given the chance to shine. I really liked Nami's friends Aya (Tanaka Konatsu) and Kaho (Iwasa Mayuko). All three being at different points in their adult lives is great, though it's not explored are fully as it could be. Nami's grandfather Taizo (Ashiya Kogan) has a cute storyline about his first love, but it's quickly dropped. Nami's mother Kayo (Hada Michiko) could've been showed as so much more than the long suffering wife. Yuka (Matsuo Reiko), a somewhat eccentric turtle researcher, is ruined by throwing her into a weird love triangle [unbeknownst to her as well].

Instead of any of the aforementioned characters, more and more time is devoted to two of the most annoying characters I've seen an asadora thus far. That being Nami's father Tetsuya (Ishiguro Ken) and her childhood friend Ippei (Takeda Kouhei). Tetsuya is one of those useless dads in asadoras that we're still supposed to like for some reason. He essentially abandons his wife and child to go surfing around the world until he can't anymore. The drama does try to explore the guilt he feels about this for a little bit, but quickly reverts to him being a useless, dream chaser. I will say that his character is not egregiously horrible. His personality just rubs me the wrong way. I cannot say the same for Ippei [the second Ippei I've completely hated in an asadora btw].

Ippei having an unrequited crush on Nami is not terrible, but his attitude is. He acts all arrogant like he's the only one who can make her happy, despite her rejecting him and never showing even a slight interest. There's a similar dynamic between Ichiko and Yoichiro in the asadora "Mare," which was slightly annoying. But, you feel bad for Yoichiro because he knows it's hopeless. Ippei, however, only makes me want to beat him with a stick. He never stops pursuing Nami until she literally has to reject him a second time. The writer really thought they had a winning character here, because they even try to match him with Kaho later. I'm sorry but no. A hardworking doctor like Kaho would never be interested in that loser with one brain cell.

Other annoying characters include Nami's brother Wataru (Morinaga Yuki). I was so sad when they aged him up to a teenager because he immediately starts crushing on Yuka who's at least fifteen or more years older than him. I probably could've tolerated this plot if it had not gone on so long. Then there's also Katsunoshin's cousin Maya (Yamashita Rio), who has got to be the devil in disguise. What the f*ck is wrong with this girl? She interferes in Nami's and Katsunoshin's relationship when they are first starting to date. Why? I don't know. I thought she was in love with him, but the drama never elaborates. Her extremely hurtful antics are actually chalked up to her "teasing" the two, which I just don't buy. As for the other characters, there are several sweet and nice characters, including Nami's coworkers. However, I just felt that they didn't leave much of an impression on me by the end.

Hmmm.... I went on a little rant I see. I'll conclude this review by saying that this drama had some potential but not enough to even leave me angry-frustrated like "Hitomi" or "Dandan." Instead this drama left me bored-frustrated, which is a new low. I'm giving this asadora a 6.5. As I'm still an easy-to-please person, I kind of refuse to give it a rating lower than that. I did watch all 150 episodes of it after all. One thing I will miss is the lovely theme song "Ano Ko no Yume" (あの子の夢) by Aiko. Though the opening notes have the potential to be grating, the song is really too good for this drama. I will also miss the cute turtle that appears during the opening. According to J-Wikipedia, his name is Kametta (かめっ太). Too cute.

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