J-dramas Worth Watching

I barely have time to watch anime myself.  I wouldn't have any preference for j-dramas as well.  Except this past summer, my mother suggested Galileo 2 and I got hooked.  That series was so good.  I watch it dubbed in Cantonese by the way and I like it that way.  After that, I started watching a bunch of j-dramas in Cantonese.  I've also watched several others in original Japanese.  It really depends which version I encounter first.  I've compiled a list of dramas that I think are worth watching because they were well written and engaging to the audience.  These are in no particular order.  Give these series a try.

HanaKimi

This drama is practically legendary.  If you haven't watched it, you may have at least heard about it.  It is adapted from a manga of the same name and the cast is very promising.  Many of the actors that appeared are popular and talented like Oguri Shun and Ikuta Toma.  The story is funny and has a lot of twists and turns.  The characters have their own unique flavors and add to the diversity of the student group.  Mizuki dresses up as a boy and sneaks into the student body of Osaka Gakuen.  Back in America, Sano was injured when trying to save Mizuki.  As a result, he couldn't high jump, but it was more like he couldn't overcome his lack of motivation to jump again.  Mizuki feels very guilty and vows to get Sano to high jump.  Throughout the drama, there is a lot of humor because Mizuki has to hide the fact that she is a girl in an all boys school.

Maou

The original story was written for a Korean drama called the Devil.  Maou is basically a remake of the same story.  I didn't watch the k-drama so I can't compare the two.  The j-drama is really good and is very suspenseful.  As a viewer, you uncover more and more each episode and each character is hiding some sort of secret.  Ohno Satoshi and Ikuta Toma each played their roles very well.  Ohno was a bit stiff at times, but I think he acts the best out of all members of Arashi.  Ohno plays a lawyer named Naruse Ryu who appears to be righteous because he often represents the poor and victimized in cases.  However, he is plotting a revenge.  Ikuta plays Serizawa Naoto, a detective that is carrying a dark past and tries very hard to overcome as he solves the mysterious cases left by an unknown person going by the name of Amano Makoto.  I highly recommend this drama for mystery, suspense, and tragedy.

Kuitan

My mother encountered this drama on her search and shared it with the family.  Kuitan translates to Gourmet Detective and the story uses food as a lead to crack cases.  At Holmes Agency run by Kyoko and Ryosuke, it is not busy at all until the Kuitan, Takano Seiya, appears.  Takano is very gluttonous, but his sensitivity to food and taste helps cracks troubling cases that even the local police cannot figure out.  It was because of Kuitan that I learned more about Japanese culture regarding food.  Now my family says "Itadakimasu" every time we eat despite the fact we're Chinese and not Japanese.  It was funny, but more importantly it reflected this utmost respect for food.

Juuken no Kami-sama

Juuken no Kami-sama translates to God of Tests and is referring to the entrance exams taken by middle school children to enter good high schools.  This was a very heart warming drama about family and friends.  It gives motivation to its viewers because our protagonist is Hiroshi, a sixth grader who loves baseball but hates studying.  Hiroshi's dad is a single dad that really loves his son and wishes his son to succeed so he employs a private tutor known as the God of Tests.  She is highly intelligent, but extremely cold and unsocial.  Throughout the story, we get to see that the God of Tests has a mental burden to carry and her students, Hiroshi and his friends, become a sort of pride of hers.

Shinya Shokudo

"The Late Night Eatery".  It opens at midnight and closes at 6 in the morning.  The people that come in are people of the night like yakuza, a stripper, some random old guy, and the three middle aged women.  The story is fairly slow paced and sometimes I skip over scenes.  It is usually filed under the genre of food, but it's more like they take a food made in the eatery and associate it with a story.  The foods are extremely easy to make and at the end of each episode, they show you the recipe.  I like the series because it delves into the background of the customers that frequent Shinya Shokudo.

Kagi no Kakatta Heya

Ohno Satoshi stars in this drama as a geek obsessed with locks.  Basically two lawyers, Serizawa Gou and Aoto Junko, work with insurance cases and occasionally they have to employ the help of Enomoto Kei, the lock expert.  And in each of the cases, they are dealing with a dead victim.  The cases become increasingly interesting and Enomoto is not what he seems.  The thing that irked me the most in this drama was the filming.  I didn't like the way how some scenes were shot.  There was too much repetition of shots to take up time per episode and it made the silence awkward.

Pricele$$

The promotional picture for this series was very misleading for me and some parts of the story was a bit too far fetched.  For the most part, Kindaichi Fumio (Kimura Takuya) was a successful salaryman until one day he goes penniless for a very unjust reason.  He gets fired, his house gets bombed, and he's only got 100 yen in his wallet.  He and two other members of the same company, Miracle, get  fired/leave after getting involved with Kindaichi.  Together they move forward by creating their own company bit by bit.  It is a light comedy with some sentimental moments.  I think it's good to watch because it gives you hope and perseverance.

Hungry!

This was a very fun drama to watch.  I was practically drooling each episode because the food shots were so good.  Eisuke was unable to make it big as a rock star so he went back to his roots, cooking.  His mother, Hanako, was literally worked to death and her restaurant, Le Petit Chou, was forced to close down.  To add to all of this, Tokio of the opposing French restaurant Gasteria takes over Le Petit Chou.  Eisuke was not going to let some random guy (not really random) take his mother's legacy so he opened his own Le Petit Chou in an old and dingy warehouse near Gasteria.  His vision is a French restaurant that can be casual and customers do not have to act all stiff.  In each episode, Eisuke encounters many problems that nearly force Le Petit Chou to close.

Samurai High School

Mochizuki Kotaro is one of the biggest cowards you'll encounter.  One day his body gets possessed by an ancient samurai also by the name of Mochizuki Kotaro from the Sengoku period.  Everytime his samurai self surfaces, all hell breaks loose and causes a lot of trouble.  Though slowly it changes Kotaro as he begins to learn to stand up for himself and for others.  It was a very invigorating series to watch and at that time I watched it, I was under a lot of stress from school.  It has its funny moments and it has its romantic moments.

Galileo 

This series is definitely my top favorite series.  There are two season to Galileo and I finished season two.  I'm currently on season one so I'm actually watching this backwards.  If Yukawa-sensei is actually my professor, I don't think I can pay attention in his class.  He's too cool and good looking.  Yukawa is a genius and he is a well known physics professor.  The local metropolitan police always come to pester him when they can't solve a tricky case.  Yukawa always refuses unless there is something inexplicable happening.  Then he uses his knowledge of physics to find out what's really behind the murders.  Great mystery series to watch and there's some good deduction going on.

Bambino!

Bambino! is based off a manga of the same name.  I haven't finished watching this one yet so I might give a full review in the future.  Shogo Ban is a talented chef working in an Italian restaurant.  His mentor tells him to work at the Roppongi branch of Trattoria Baccanale with the intention of training him.  Ban however is overwhelmed because he is bullied at work and a fast paced kitchen is just not the same as a small restaurant in Fukuoka.  I think this is a good series highlighting the struggles of the newbie.  It reminds how once you get out of college, work is not like school.  The soundtrack to this series is great and I want to get my hands on it.