andoR

Unfortunately Japanese screenwriters (and authors/mangaka in general) haven't caught on that most young people (especially women) in their country don't obsess about virginity or marriage anymore. People should just stay out of other people's business if you ask me ;)

I guess there should be a comedy tag in the genre section. Almost didn't watch it because it was missing. Liked the drama overall, but this overly exaggerated stereotypical anime-like villain dude really didn't do it for me and kind of sucked the enjoyment out of the last few episodes when he started to get more screen time. Would've been a good 8 - 8.5, but gave it a 7.5 because of him.

You shouldn't compare the two. The Kimi ni Todoke story, at least in the Manga and Anime, is actually pretty good and has a lot of character development from all characters. Not like Itazura na Kiss, where the constantly verbal abusive prick ML and airheaded happy-go-lucky masochistic FL stay almost completely the same all throughout the story.

So it's only available via hardsubbed stream?

It's not like two friends always instantly ditch each other just because of a guy/girl one of the friends has romantic feelings for. It's something I'll never understand, why all TV shows/movies are like that. I think sometimes friendship is just stronger than romantic feelings. And that's also what this show made me feel. At that point in their lives I don't think they would've chosen anybody over their friendship.

I think it's the same for Hakozume, at least from what I heard and read. Haven't watched the anime for both, though.

Seems like ECOTV picked it up. They just released Ep1

Nice premise and I liked the characters, but it's filled to the brim with cliches that feel way to artificial and are there just to create problems and fill air-time, mis- and non-communication and a lot of technical talk about airplanes, airports and everything about aviation, which isn't exactly my cup of tea. I gave it a 7 because there are enough moments and conflicts that feel natural enough to make the drama all in all modestly enjoyable.

My opinion is, one's own desire to get married and have kids is different from societal pressures to do just that. If you want to, that's totally ok. If you don't want to, you shouldn't have to. If you look at statistics and surveys, the majority of Japanese women in their 20s don't think they need to be married to be happy and over 30% think they'll be happier if they never get married because they don't want to lose their independence and individuality as a person. That's why I think Screenwriters and authors should stop selling "marriage is the ultimate goal and only way to find happiness for a woman in life" stories, they're extremely outdated.

To your question: because of reasons I don't really want to disclose here my mother is okay with it :)

Depends on what you want out of one. My favs are Natsuzora if you want all-around good story, great scenery/sets and characters, Amachan if you'd rather have more comedy and great characters and Hanbun, Aoi if you want something more emotional packed under a lighthearted blanket.

Because they are a statutory broadcasting station (I think that's the right term) and are completely funded by viewers' "tax". They don't run ads at all and don't want to "create a misunderstanding that NHK is recommending certain products". Here's an article about it https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/11/17/national/nhk-netflix-ads/ (hope I can post links here).

Probably not, because NHK doesn't "sell" their works to streaming services that make money through advertising. They pulled all their stuff from Netflix, too, when Netflix announced they were going to run ads.

Spoiler me please, does this turn into a romance? I watched the first few episodes but I'm kind of reluctant to continue if it does, even though I love these slow slice of life dramas with a lot of dialogue. Love them as friends and I still hope to one day find a drama that shows men and women can indeed be friends without turning into lovers.

Feels like they tried to make a 30 - 45 minute movie into 15 minutes and just put in more or less random scenes in chronological order without connecting them to each other. We get zero explanations why something happens, it just does. And on a side note, the sound quality is pretty bad. One scene when the girls are talking it's super quiet and the volume needs to be turned all the way up, the next scene some dude screams so loud, your ears fall off.

Marriage ≠ population growth. Japan has a lot more (and bigger) issues when it comes to their declining birth rate than just people not wanting to marry. My point was that I was trying to make a joke because there are way too many dramas that glorify marriage in a way that says "if you're not married by age XX, you're disqualified to be a part of society" and that this is an extremely outdated viewpoint.

Unfortunately there'll probably never be subs for this one if no one requests it directly to a subber. It's not listed anywhere (d-addicts Fansub Map for example) and the raws aren't really available if you don't specifically look for it. So if you're waiting for subs, you probably don't need to hold your breath.

This sounds a bit like a publicity PSA from the Japanese government on how great marriage is because a lot of young people, especially women, don't see any need for nor benefits in it anymore. I'm curious to see when the people who write this stuff will catch on.

If you like a quirky energetic Heroine (and cake) you'll definitely at least enjoy the first and the third part of the story. I just really (really) don't like when a guy (or romance in general) gets in the way of a woman's character growth or "prevents her from reaching her goals/dreams", as if it wants to say "her first priority should be to support her husband". It's something that, for me, totally undermines what an Asadora is all about, but if you don't really have a problem with that, than you'd definitely enjoy Mare.

What are you looking for in an Asadora? I honestly could write you an essay, but I'll limit it to three recs because the comment is going to be too long anyways ;)
If you want something funny with a pinch of seriousness and a quirky Heroine, try Amachan, my favorite. It probably has the most interesting characters all-around and a real uplifting "always get up regardless of how many times you get knocked down" story.
If you want an overall really good story with a down-to-earth heroine that knows how to stand up for herself and earns respect through hard work, try Natsuzora. In my opinion the best all-around Asadora.
And my third rec would be Hanbun Aoi. It's pretty light-hearted on the surface but also shows the characters, especially the Heroine, struggle (real hard) with life at times. If you like people working hard to overcome obstacles theme, you'll really like this one.
I have a few others I think are really good, but these three are probably my favorites.

Probably, yes, but if enough people watched the drama/anime, then I'd say enough people want to watch what happens next and how it ends and I think that's what the studios are going for. I don't know how much money 4 or 5 25 min episodes of a drama generate through sponsors, TV stations, viewership, etc, but I'm pretty sure it's less than a 90 min movie if half the viewers of the drama go and buy cinema tickets. But that's only me assuming things. I think what also plays in their favor is that Japan is still much more analogue than the west is... they still rather buy CDs than download/stream music and rather go watch a movie at the cinema than subscribe to a streaming service, etc.

It's been like that with anime for a pretty long time now and it gets criticized a lot, but unfortunately the tactic is working. Drama production studios probably picked up on it because of examples like Demon Slayer. The sequel to the anime series became the highest grossing Japanese movie of all time and since then almost every sequel, regardless of anime or live action, is made into a theatrical movie. They're basically saying "if you want the continuation/ending of the story you have to pay for it, because we want to make as much money as possible" and are getting away with it.