bossmama

The manga was pretty good, it balanced creepy horror and heart-warming romance better than most 'horror romance' out there as usually if the romance is good the horror is crap or vice versa but for this manga both fronts work well as intended. It was pretty unique that way so I hope the adaptation do the manga justice. The characters esp the two leads have extreme personalities which is why it managed to pull off being both romance and horror so the success of the drama will really depend on how well the acting and the directing is I think. That being said, after seeing director's previous works "Boku wa Mari no Naka" and "Sixteen Shoukougun" and if he decided to go with the same style with this show, can't say I'm optimistic...

Great news! Thanks for the info.

This show sure feels... passionate. Almost every character's actions and motivations are driven by strong desire to protect what is precious to them, from noble sacrifice to unforgivable crime and those in-between, and with characters being naturally at odds with each other due to conflicting interest there's almost no room for actual 'bad guy' except for some ghosts from the past. The mystery turn out to be a rather simple one, which is not an issue as being twisty or brain-draining-ly complex is not really what the show is about, but at the same time it also feels one or two episodes too long than necessary for the kind of story it wanted to tell, so perhaps it would've worked even better as a 8 eps WOWOW show with tighter writing and directing.

Average script elevated by slick directing and held up by solid cast. It strikes me as naively optimistic, littered with pretty words about justice and ideals that just ring hollow when said by one dimensional characters in an oversimplified world. Nice to hear, good for the characters, but I just don't buy them. Enjoyable, it does look cool and the music editing just screams epic, each episode is dense and dynamic with fair amount of twist and turn (esp from ep 6 onward as Avalanche team and Oyama continuously tried to one-up each other), but in the hands of Kaneshiro Kazuki or Kosawa Ryota this could've been a genuinely compelling and believable political thriller.

The first two eps are rather basic, but the writing really shows it true strength in the subsequent episodes. Usually in dramas about convicts/ex-cons, the nature of the characters' crimes are always either played down (e.g Mushoboke, Shiroi Haru), established from the start as a case of false-conviction (e.g Nigeru Onna), or 'justified' by making their victims the bigger arse who 'deserve' what's done to them (e.g Plage), but I think that's just taking the easy way to earn the audience's sympathy (while inadvertently side-stepping the real issue regarding why there's such a stigma against ex-cons in the first place). So the second subject (ep 3 and 4) is pretty much everything I didn't expect the show to be, but in a good way. Thanks to GEO9875 for subbing the show!

Thank you! This is the best 2018 j-drama for me, that I wouldn't have gotten to experience if not for your subs!

On par with some of the best episodes of Law and Order. I don't mind the lack of Furukawa Yuuki, I mean Tachi Hiroshi is obviously the star of the show!

Raws vid: https://jraws.com/drama/1002800360/
Soft subs (srt files): https://subscene.com/subtitles/still-life-goes-on-soredemo-ikite-yuku/english/2127402

For anyone looking for high quality video (720p), check link below under spoiler tag

Best kind of bonkers!

In general Douban appreciates jdramas more than MDL, even as a jdrama viewer I look up at Douban to know what's currently airing jdrama right now that's good. Problem is if the drama doesn't have popular actor/actress in China/catch some sort of hype the number of user who rated them is really low like less than a thousand which is not so different from MDL, so the rating can feel rather unrepresentative.

Thank you for the article! I've been wanting to write some sort of guide article for Sakamoto Yuji but didn't feel like I've seen enough of his works to write one (also feel like my recs list would probably be too 'out there' since Mosaic Japan would rank among my favorites lol). You missed out Chase (2010) though, this and Saiyuuki's subs are available at d-addict.

Also, recently I just found this NHK's docu featuring him on the process of writing a stage play https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15t41127eY?, can't say I understand 100% of it since it's raw but it's interesting tidbit to know that he wakes up at 5 am to make bento for his daughter xD

Vaundy's MV featuring clips from the drama https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7iprRcxJM4.

Thank you! Such a cute and imaginative show.

I pretty much forgot everything about the movies by now except that they were so unimpressive I lost any interest to check the k-ver. It was draggy enough even with only two 2 hrs movies can't imagine how draggy it would be with full length drama. Will probably check on this one tho since it's WOWOW and I enjoyed writer's previous works.

Based on Yumi Tamura's manga, haven't read this particular one but her other works such as Basara and 7Seeds are some of the best manga I've ever read.

Feels a bit too 'safe' and tonally inconsistent. The enjiya group first introduced as a bunch of wacky amoral crooks but as the show goes on they turn out to be made out of marshmallows after all, never follow through with any of their threats or their love for money but instead lots of their actions are driven by feelgood romanticism of friendships and familial bonds and restricted/guided by 'safe' normative views. Can't say I didn't enjoy it but have to say I expected something more daring after the first episode, especially since it's WOWOW and all.

The synopsis sounds rather plain but they managed to get Mitsushima Hikari as one of the leads hopefully it's worth it.

Maybe you can start from Influence since it's on Viki and relatively new. The Confidence Man was supposed to be on Viu though I don't know if it's still there. Sorry that my post overwhelmed you hehe, edited it for better reading :)

J-dramas with female antiheroes to name a few:

Classical antiheroes: Kuroi 10-nen no Onna

Disney antiheroes: Enjiya

Pragmatic antiheroes: Influence

Unscrupulous heroes: Hitori Shizuka, Garasu no Ashi

Nominal heroes: Byakuyako, Zekkyou, Kenja no Ai

Not quite sure where they belong: The Confidence Man JP (unscrupulous?), Mukou no Hate (nominal?)

Mukou no Hate's Ritsuko is just... mentally broken. I'm not even sure we're supposed to root for her, there's no heroes or villains in the story, everyone is just different degrees of miserable trash lol, but I do pity her tragic life that leads her to where she ends up being.

The Confidence Man JP's Dako is a con-woman with unclear past who's completely driven by selfish motivation aka money, though her targets are bigger crooks than her so we will automatically root for her, but in several occasions when she has to choose between helping the innocents or making money/saving loses, she will always choose the latter. Even if she appears to help people, it will turn out that she also gains more money by doing so, etc. Alas it's a comedy after all, so even when she chooses the 'immoral' path, things will always end well for everyone, and sometime the 'innocent' in this show is not all that innocent anyway xD.