A Drama A Day Keeps the Boredom Doctor Away?

For lack of a more clever phrase. I know it sounds corny and unoriginal, but that's not the point of this entry. I'm embarking on a new drama, a japanese drama today. It's called Mioka, and it's about this girl who has a brain illness that shortens her life, and the episodes show her last love story she's about to experience with a boy named Taichi. At the premise, the drama kind of makes you think 2 things: it's a doomed love for sure, and it's going to be a long, tedious ride. But not really. From the very first episode, Mioka really drew me in through it's beautiful voiceovers and weaves in seamlessly how our lead heroine (in this case, is she a heroine) gives no care for anyone else, and she does things however she likes; including swinging poles wildly at another girl's boyfriend (who practically went out and played with the girl's feelings), and randomly jumping into public water fountains just because she's happy. She's definitely not insane, it's just kind of her way of showing the world that she can live her last days to the fullest through her actions.

This drama also touches a lot on the life of the male love interest (played by Kento, sharkboyy) - he lives on top of a restaurant, he looks half-caucasian, he has a cute group of friends, and his sister looks like Shida Mirai. I'm kidding, but you get the idea. After seeing the first episode, I'm going to say, my impression was really good. The storytelling was rather straightforward, the tone was actually really light, to my surprise, compared to the dark mood of the synopsis. Also, another thing that makes me excited is that this is Yoshitaka Yuriko's first main role in a drama! I've seen her in Love Shuffle, Tokyo DOGS, and some other dramas, but she's always been a side character, even though her character shines a lot.

Having Yuriko's character 'doomed' from the start eliminates that driven angst that the melo-kdramas can't get away from. I personally think this is a better idea for a story because people will like how brutally honest the story is, and also just gets the story so that it'll be able to focus on the other purposes of the drama, such as the love story, and the girl's determination, stuff like that.