Luly

The drama and the book have the same title.

I am such a fan of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, I'm looking forward to watching this!!

No problem! Fingers crossed for it to be available sooner rather than later!

I don't know how the current situation differs in Japan atm with normal theater releases and their subsequent digital releases, but the movie is supposed to be screening atm in some locations, which means it will take a while for it to be available digitally and for a fansub to pick it up eventually, normally jmovies take a lot longer than jdramas to be available. Unless by some miraculous twist of fate a subscription service picks it up or something like that, I'd say we'll have to wait as usual with jmovies.

Oh, man I'm torn. This one wasn't in my radar but you did a REALLY good job of selling this drama. The whole vibe it has plus the aspect of Wagashi and cultural specific notions to learn is really enticing (there's an older drama centered on Wagashi making I never finished, the story wasn't engaging enough, I should go back to it eventually).
Also, Alisa Mizuki, I love her ♥
BUT the romance aspect...not only I'm not super into that but I don't want another "sweet lead + toxic male lead" pairing and I thought on first sight that this might be that, but your description makes it seem like there's more to it than that and there's more substance to the characters than what I've been used to in the latest years of disappointments. Maybe when it's finished, I'll give it a go.
You did an amazing job with the article and also props to you for the shoutout to the fansub taking on the project, with jdramas that's very important.

Jdrama fans add to our cons list: "the uncertainty of fansubs being available at all", "the uncertainty of fansubs seeing the entire project to completion", "the very likely possibility that fansubs won't pick up further seasons/specials of the show" and "the availability of raws or of any streaming possibilities", which also has the further issue of "the streaming sites vs fansub controversies and where you land in the intersection".

yes :D

Thank you! I'm glad it was helpful! I believe the manga (which was written by someone else, not the screenwriter for all the OL drama versions) was done as a companion for season 1 rather than the other way around, so I don't know how canon they take it or how willing they'd be to make it canon, but I haven't read it so I wouldn't know about its content in particular. I don't know if they're continuing with this franchise but if they do, I hope they pick up from here, or at least center it on Maki and Haruta.

It's ok, don't worry about it! Thank you for responding to my long comments! :)

I didn't try to imply that it's a jdrama-only problem, sorry if it came out that way. Since this is an article about jdramas, I thought it was an important item to consider when recommending them to other people who may be more used to easily accessible material, which I consider is the main intention of the article, so I focused on them specifically, especially in comparison to currently more popular options. It's not a jdrama-only issue but it's a pertinent one for them.

I absolutely understand both sides of the conflict. I get that fansubs want to defend their work in terms of the credit and streaming sites normally don't credit (and in some cases they even remove the credit), but I also feel like streaming sites are the most accessible and useful tool for people nowadays, rather than the old but still present in jdramas situation of getting softsubs in Place A, looking for raw files in Place B, C and D, downloading both and putting them together. I guess an option could be for fansubs to upload their stuff themselves to sites, so they can be sure the credit remains, or to generate sites that work alongside fansubs and receive the material from them directly, but there are a lot of conflicts of interest for something like that to happen in the way it does with other stuff, like anime. Sometimes fansubs don't want to be implicated with copyright issues they may have with raw files connected to them (which is why daddicts stopped hosting raws many years ago), sometimes streaming sites are more used to other forms of content and don't even know the whole background of sub-making and how it works for jdramas, sometimes they just think it's easier to upload without asking. If you check the comment section of a lot of unofficial streaming sites, when it comes to jdramas, most of them demand or request subs as if the site itself subbed the series, they don't know the subs come from elsewhere.

I wasn't trying to say that this is a reason to stop watching them, I still do. But it's a factor that has conditioned my experience as a viewer in the last years, when things should be more accessible, yet with jdramas it's become less so, for the most part. It was easier for me to watch a drama in full as it aired 6 or 7 years ago than it is now. Especially if you're like me and your favorite types of dramas aren't the romantic/josei type or the romantic/high school type, which are the most popular ones.

Anyway, thank you for allowing all this conversation to happen, I'm sorry that my comments are so long but it's very infrequent these days to find articles centered on jdramas specifically and a lot of old platforms to discuss these things are gone now. Thank you for providing a space for it!

Man, this manga is like one of the most heartwarming things I've come across in this cursed year of 2020 so here's to hoping the movie makes it justice.

Same, I've been watching since around the same time as well, and HJSplit has always been a staple of jdramas and jmusic files lol I totally relate.
I think that, aside from the availability situation, one of the biggest differences that caused the big divide between j-content and k-content in terms of western popularity was how circa 2010 kpop started adopting a lot of western characteristics that made it easier to sell abroad. If you compare kpop bands or artists of the early 2000s with those from after 2010 you'll see how much the prior ones were more similar to jpop whereas the latter ones were more similar to western music, even including English subtitles, translations or lyrics. Even the debut of some bands were planned to be internationally relevant, especially in the US.
This was a window to the dramas and the availability made it all more possible, but j-content was always primarily for Japan in its conception, not only in terms of show airings but in how the products were conceived.
In stuff like anime it never mattered, because people who consume anime expect it to be that way, we learned to adapt to it rather than the other way around. People who got into jdramas and jmusic back in the day had the same mindset, we didn't expect it to be catered to our western views, we adapted to it.
So, to avoid making this as long as my other comment, what I mean is that I think it wasn't only the availability what made k-content have more presence in western audiences post 2010, but the fact that they adapted it to cater to them as well, facilitating the entryway via music and the such.
I don't think that's necessarily a disadvantage, I like how jdramas are how they are, but it is another ingredient that made audiences grow more rapidly adept to k-content all of a sudden.

I love the article, thank you for writing about jdramas, they deserve more love. I think it's fair that, if we talk about jdramas, we discuss the complicated and muddy yet very important issue of availability.

I've been watching jdramas for a very long time and I still watch primarily jdramas over others. Still, it's difficult for me to recommend them to people in general because of the availability issues that Japanese media, especially dramas, still have. The fact that most shows are only available through unofficial sites and that we depend mostly on fansubs has really set jdramas back in comparison to other countries that have either a lot of releases on streaming platforms or on youtube for free. I still prefer and watch jdramas more than any others, but it's a struggle to keep up when you need subtitles.

Added to that, the fansub situation has always been difficult, but lately it's been even more complicated. Back in the day we had free access to places that gathered subs, now most of those are either closed, not accessible to guests or aren't updated with the organization level they used to be. Also, fansubs don't tend to like unofficial streaming sites uploading their subs because of credit reasons (which is completely understandable and legitimate), but at the same time the raws are hosted elsewhere, not on fansubs' sites (because of copyright reasons that would make the fansubs more easily flagged by the holders), and not everyone has the possibility to download torrents with like 2 seeds at a time. So there's this fight between fansubs and streaming sites that tends to end in the fansub discontinuing a series half-way though. It's been YEARS since I've last watched a jdrama as it releases in Japan because I'm worried it may leave me hanging if the folks responsible for the subs decide to drop them (I can't tell you how many I've had this experience with). And I've lived through many many reasons why fansubs have dropped series (I even worked for a fansub at one point in my life lol).

This also has another characteristic, which is the fact that fansubs are comprised by fans, meaning people who do this out of the kindness of their hearts, so the dramas they pick to sub are linked to their tastes. There are more dramas with subs available of, for example, Yamazaki Kento than there are of other people who are less popular, to give you a random example. This isn't bad, it's an inherent characteristic of the fact that we depend on individuals for subs rather than companies that are paid for their work.

Another thing I've noticed that happens more with jdrama or j-content in general than with other types is that fansubs are, most often than not, individual for each project. Since there are more fansubs than shows, most times a series is picked by a fansub, any other fansub leaves it to them, unless there's some sort of massive demand or some personal reason why both want to do it. So when a fansub picks a project, you'll depend on them to finish it, unless they publicly drop it and some other fansub picks it back up. Sometimes it can be years since a series is completed because of this.

I think that the ways of the jdrama community differ from the rest because we grew up in forums and sites with a lot of organization, unspoken rules and guidelines and some of the things we do or how we understand them are completely lost to audiences that started watching kdramas on netflix in the last 3 years and have never had to search for the subs of a series they want to watch or heaven forbid the raw files that fit the timing of the subs they've got. So I feel like sometimes it's a lot to ask of people who aren't used to all this to set aside something that's easier to obtain for something that has all this background.

To me, it's absolutely worth it and I'll still continue to watch jdramas, but I can understand why newer fans might find it hard to understand all this stuff, coming from another background that lacks all these things.

Anway, I'm sorry this is such a long comment, it's something I've been thinking of for a long time and I feel it's an important part of the jdrama experience at this point. Thanks again for your much needed article!

Oh boy, this subject is like opening Pandora's box for me, it lies at the intersection of many things in the media industry of the last years and I don't know if my comment will be well received, but here I go anyway. I have a Wei WuXian icon, by the way, so all I say comes from a place of respect and love to this story, I just like to be critical of what I consume and aware of what's going on when I invest in a piece of media.

The Untamed is a fantastic series, Mo Dao Zu Shi is a great source material but yes, both stand on the intersection of two huge markets and some of the decisions made around them and some of the success, like it or not, has to do with how popular these markets are, albeit also problematic. That doesn't erase the series and source material being great, but it does add a layer of analysis to its success and subsequent issues the actors have had with fandom that stem from two complicated media environments that are super popular. I agree with you on some things you say here, but I think this is a simplistic view of a much more complex media landscape.

I've always called this an "idol" thing, not a "boyband" thing. I know kpop is super popular in a post-2010 world and probably why it's used as an example here, but the Japanese idol industry that began in the 60s has a lot to do with the development of the rules in idol production and consumption of our days. Way before the days of BTS and whatnot, bands like 5-member TVXQ and SS501 or idols like Rain or Boa had to make it in the Japanese market before breaking through. This whole thing of idols in agencies, debuting at a certain point, being backdancers for older artists, having a specific color or phrase or personality trait to identify them from the bunch and whatnot, it all developed back then, with agencies like Johnny's, and continued and diversified with time. It's important then to understand the development of the idol market in the last bit of the XX century, for male idols AND female idols, and nowadays also idols that fluctuate in the gender spectrum.

So, on the one hand, you have the idol market, which has been so successful and marketable that it's been reproduced in other media like animation, for example. You have anime that behaves like idol material, whether it's about music or entertainment (like StarMyu, UtaPri, Shonen Hollywood, Love Live, etc.) or other genres (like Prince of Tennis, Free, Yuri On Ice, Kuroko no Basket, etc.) and infusing an anime with idol traits: lots of male or female characters with an identifying color/design who also release singles and albums and merchandise and whatnot. This helps animated series, whatever their country of origin, to make a revenue on merchandise and not depend on its success upon release. There's even a huge intersection of the two industries in Vocaliod, but that's another suitcase to unpack.

One of the things the idol industry figured out early on was that content that flirted with homosexuality and gender presentation "for fanservice" was profitable. Male idols flirting with each other on stage, female idols kissing each other in their music videos, idols cross-dressing, all of it made money. Of course that this co-exists with an industry that closes its doors to actual lgbtq+ artists at the same time: cross-dressing bands for fanservice like Hoopers were thriving while trans performers like Sectret Guyz had to disband, for example.

This is very on-par with the existence of genres like what used to be yaoi/shonen ai and yuri/shojo ai that later derived into umbrella terms like BL for mlm content. There used to be a distinct separation between actively intentional representation of gay men and BL content, because BL was made by and for heterosexual cis women as a form of entertainment rather than to represent gay men and their experience. One of the characteristics was, as you say in your article, the statement of the men in question saying outright that they were not gay, even if they were engaging in a romantic and sexual relationship with another man, which ties in with the idol idea of availability and objectification. Nowadays, there has been more advancement in BL as it is and some of it is a lot more inclusive and developed, as well as there exists more content depicting different identities more fairly and not for pure fanservice for the cishets, to put it simply, but the struggle still exists.

Mo Dao Zu Shi and The Untamed exist in the overlay of these two things and here lies our conundrum.

The source material of The Untamed, Mo Dao Zu Shi, is a BL novel. In comparison to other BL content out there, even in comparison to other content by the same author, it's an advancement towards more positive content, but it is not devoid of some of the tropes the genre includes, especially in the "extra" chapters. It's a lot better than many other things out there, it has a super well crafted story and world-building and the relationship between Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi is a lot less bland than many BL things out there, and homosexuality is explored in how people treat certain characters and why some of them are put in certain positions in the story. But it does have stuff that is trope-y, including a lack of development of female characters, a vague development of the identity expression of the narrating lead as well as of the status of their marriage in the society they live in and other things like some weird kinky stuff regarding an incense burner and an underage situation I'm gonna leave there.

On the other hand, there's the drama. The Untamed, because of censorship, had to erase a lot of the explicitness of the novel and, by doing so, inadvertently made the main couple queerplatonic, which is actually pretty interesting. It doesn't really change at all the core of the relationship or their dynamic, it just erases the explicitness of the romance and the sexual content. It does, however, improve immensely the female representation, and even if they invent a few things (like Jiang Cheng's supposed attraction to Wen Qing or Yanli's residence in Gusu), they really do a good job giving these ladies personalities and traits that don't tend to exist in good ol' blatant mlm fanservice content.

The media translation to live action of the novel's BL focus on "attractive" male characters comes in the form of idols. The novel does bring up that this or other character is attractive, because it's BL and as such it tends to be...problematic in what it considers "attractive", but the live-action translation to that is idols and it makes absolute sense from a producing standpoint.

Now, here's the thing, these people acted their hearts out in this drama. These are not just pretty people in costumes, they did an amazing job portraying characters as dimensional as they could, and some of them had a tough job because the novel has some pretty complex characters to build (Jiang Cheng is an emotional roller coaster alone). But they all did an amazing job and the series wouldn't be as successful without that.

The drama is good. The drama is objectively good. It's well directed, well-written, well performed, well executed in many levels. This doesn't mean, however, that the fanbase is all objective about it, that the producers are all objective about it, and there I think lies your appreciation.

I think I would be naive to dismiss that these two elements, the "idol thing" and the "bl thing", play a part in the explosion of popularity in the story, however good it may be on its own. They don't take out the good things of the story, but they are elements in which its release is inscribed in and may have played a part in producing, marketing and many other decisions. I separate my love and respect to the story from the actual media landscape it's inserted in. And I think many of the things that have transpired in the months after the release, some of them very negative to the actors, stem from the most extreme end of the spectrum of both of these landscapes.

So, yes, it's a great drama but also yes, it's inscribed in a much bigger landscape than just a story and we'd be naive to forget that. Thank you for putting the subject out there and allowing for conversation, whether people agree or not with each other, and sorry for the long comment.

What a great subject for an article! The selection is also pretty great, I'm adding some of these to my list! I'm super glad you included dramas from different places too.

I deal with mental illness as well and it's something that took me a long time to figure out and even longer to talk about. It's still difficult to discuss and not everyone arounds me knows. I'm so glad to see articles like this that put it out there and spark conversation, because sometimes people don't even know what happens to them or where to turn to, and reading about people who go through similar things makes you feel understood and less alone and gives you courage to keep looking , as well as some small sense to the overwhelming sensation that is not knowing what to do with yourself. When you're in the middle of that blur and you doubt even yourself at all times, finding one person online who's saying "it happens to me too" can really do SO much, it worked for me and I know it'll work for others, so thank you so much for writing this ♥

Some dramas I enjoyed in the later years that also deal with the subject in different ways are 37.5°C no Namida, Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu, Mondai no Aru Restaurant, Koe Koi and the last season of Code Blue (there's a scene where a character does erp therapy and I felt a lot of dots connecting in me personally).

Thank you again for writng this! I'm so happy that you did!

I've been writing reviews since I started using the site and it's got me good interactions with users and I made some friends through them, especially since I don't socialize much because I'm super awkward. I don't think my reviews are popular enough to qualify me for an interview lol still it's so nice to see an article on reviewers and how different their backgrounds with dramas are. Kate watching HanaKimi is a mood, I think HanaKimi was like my 4th drama? The good ol' days ♥

I have thought about this and I partially agree, one of the things that I like about experiencing several versions of this story is that, depending on the media outlet, country of origin and audience that it's aimed at, some elements change and transform it somewhat.

It's true that the censorship situation prompted the drama to make the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji into a queerplatonic one, which I think is incredibly interesting, fascinating and, like you say, worth attention by itself (also, as aroace myself, I really appreciate qp stories). But the donghua hasn't yet been too explicitly out there either and I'm on chapter 51 of the novel and even though it outright talks about homosexuality and how it's socially perceived in their world, and it includes scenes between WWX and LWJ that the drama modified, it's also not as overt from the get-go as you would think it is. I'm sure it will continue to get more explicit as I move forward, but it's not like the story is at all times focused on romance either, to be absolutely fair to the source material. I do get your point though, it is a qp relationship in this version as opposed to a romantic one, and it is very cool to see how it does not in any way impact the profound relationship they have or how it's important to the story.

What I don't really see though is how it's as sexist as you say it is, I actually thought it improved a lot of the writing of the female characters in various instances. Mianmian was pretty great in this version, for example, the moment she ups and leaves her Sect was kind of great to me idk. It kind of threw me off when I read the criticism because I tend to be pretty exigent with female rep in dramas and this one didn't particularly stand out to me as a bad one on that front, but maybe it's because I came into it after a previous version of the story, or that my expectations weren't in the same place as yours, I don't know.

The continuation of the 2018 drama is the 2019 movie "Love or Dead", it follows where the drama left off. This series is a sort of AU and the 2016 special is, as far as I know, a kind of pilot-ish version with another character in Maki's place. I honestly skipped this one because for all I read about it, it only kept from the drama the things I didn't enjoy lol. The movie is really good though, and Maki is in it.

From the recs Dani mentioned before me, I only have seen/read Given (I saw the anime) and Doukyuusei (I read the manga up to where it is currently available and saw the movie). I would recommend the Given anime, I hear the manga is also good but I can't vouch for its content since I haven't read it. With Doukyuusei I'd advise caution for the first couple of manga series because there's a whole subplot with a teacher and a 15 year old student that's pretty awfully handled imo, but I was able to skip that without compromising understanding the main relationship's arc, which I think is worth the read (the animated movie doesn't have that subplot, the teacher appears minimally thankfully).

I haven't yet read the full manga but I watched both the drama and the special of Kinou Nani Tabeta? (the manga is by Fumi Yoshinaga) and it's absolutely worth paying attention to, the drama is fantastic and I feel like the manga will also be worth my read whenever I can get to it fully.

No°6 is also very good, there are novels, anime and manga of it, I saw the anime and liked it a lot, it's on the sci fi/dystopia realm, if that's something you'd enjoy.

I wouldn't be fair if I didn't recommend any version of Mo Dao Zu Shi (given my icon) there is a novel, a manhua adaptation, a donghua adaptation (ongoing), audio dramas and a live action drama. The explicitness of the m/m relationship depends on the version, the novel is the most explicit, then the rest vary because of Chinese censorship (the drama being the least open about the romance, but it's pretty amazingly performed nonetheless and they find their way around it).

When it comes to queerplatonic m/m relationships, I enjoyed Banana Fish, both manga and anime, but they're bittersweet and have heavy subjects, so tread with care if you haven't read it/watched it/heard of it.

There are a couple of more traditional bl oneshots kind of like this one that are ok-ish, or better than the majority, but none of the ones I can think of atm is as clear-cut recommendable 100% as these, I think.

This manga is to me a complicated one to categorize, so the movie can go either way and I'm curious to see that. It treads the fine line between bland fanservice bl stuff and actual good rep, maybe unintentionally so at first, but the author kind of found her way throughout the two volumes to explore mature relationships and feelings and deconstruct some nasty tropes into something more meaningful. It's not the wokest manga I've ever read but it's not offensive bl fanservice by any means, and it does without a lot of the offensive tropes the genre it's inscribed in tends to have. So I'm curious to see where the movie goes with it and what they do, especially considering the views on some subjects have evolved quite a lot since the manga came out. I hope they improve on that which can be improved and don't mess with the things that are pretty great about the story.