June 16, 2014
Japanese TV updates
Two live-action Japanese television series I previously discussed (here and here) are now streaming on Crunchyroll.
In No Dropping Out, the fabulous Ryoko Yonekura is a screwed-up overaged high school student attending a screwed-up high school. And in I'm Mita, Your Housekeeper, the creepy Nanako Matsushima takes over a screwed-up middle-class family.
Despite the dark mood starting out, both are essentially ripped-from-the-headlines, problem-of-the-week series with over-the-top plotting that come to (overly) sentimental happy endings.
But they give you a fun, hugely melodramatic ride getting there. Though the sentimentality in No Dropping Out does end up inadvertently turning it instead into a parable about the difficulty of changing hidebound social institutions.
Because no matter how bad the status quo sucks, we're suckers for the devil we know. Like the extremely competent but sociopathic housekeeper you just can bear to let go.
In No Dropping Out, the fabulous Ryoko Yonekura is a screwed-up overaged high school student attending a screwed-up high school. And in I'm Mita, Your Housekeeper, the creepy Nanako Matsushima takes over a screwed-up middle-class family.
Despite the dark mood starting out, both are essentially ripped-from-the-headlines, problem-of-the-week series with over-the-top plotting that come to (overly) sentimental happy endings.
But they give you a fun, hugely melodramatic ride getting there. Though the sentimentality in No Dropping Out does end up inadvertently turning it instead into a parable about the difficulty of changing hidebound social institutions.
Because no matter how bad the status quo sucks, we're suckers for the devil we know. Like the extremely competent but sociopathic housekeeper you just can bear to let go.
Related posts
The Housekeeper
Ryoko Yonekura
Labels: crunchyroll, japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, streaming
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