Orange Days

Oh how i wished i had the time to be able to do these anymore. Since i’m on break at the moment, i have no excuse and so i recently at the request of a friend watched Orange Days. Now those of you who know me or have seen my reviews on reviewasia.net know, i am a very kind reviewer, just about eveyrthing i’ve reviewed there has high scores with the exception of a few. That might be a bit biased though, since the only dramas I’ve written reviews for were ones i liked, and also the fact that the ones i watched, i watched because i felt i’d like them, if i were in a position where i was asked to review a drama I’d never looked at before might be different but, that’s aside from the point, on to the actual point of this post.

Orange Days was a highly awarded drama from 2004. I’ll be honest, i spent a good 10 minutes staring at the drama from that year, i recognized maybe 2-3 of them, and then the ones i recognized i didn’t think too highly of. Looking at the drama awards for that season, Orange days also handily swept all the awards that mattered: i.e.
-41st Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Actor: Tsumabuki Satoshi
-41st Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Scriptwriter: Kitagawa Eriko
-41st Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Director: Shono Jiro
-41st Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Cast
-41st Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Theme Song
-41st Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Opening

winning cast, script, director, musicality, this clearly has all the elements that make a drama noteworthy.  The only question then that was left was how good was it, for all I know, this could have just been a down year and that was the “least  crappy” of the lot.  I’ll save you that trouble, this clearly outclassed every other drama, and for a reason, if at the most simple it is AMAZING.  That word alone unfortunately is not even close enough to describe it, hence this review will be a quite lengthy one, and by the time of its publishing will have likely gone through at least 20 edits, more than every other post on this blog combined.

One thing that many dramas fail to achieve, or that many a watcher seems to enjoy complaining about, is content.  One huge complaint is that  there is not enough content for all the episodes and thus some end up being just filler, or at least, it seems that not enough happens that it feels like there is empty space dispersed through the drama.  Personally, i feel like some watchers don’t know what they want, because i’ve seen many an amazing drama that was heavy with content, viewers complained there was too much going on, and so there is clearly a balance that must be struck, not too much, but enoug hthat the story continues along at a comfortable place.  This drama, from the beginning to the end, there are no dull moments, situations where you think nothing is happening.  It is the kind of drama where everything that happens, happens for a reason, there is a clear purpose and flow, there is clearly some destination the story is headed, and you are masterfully guided through the drama from the beginning to the conclusion.

One of the many things i feel that really define a drama is the opening episode.  Opening episodes are vital, as are good introductions to any written composition you will ever read.  It must be intriguing enough that you are hooked, but not too much that you feel you know everything and thus don’t need to continue to the finish.  This episode i would rank among the top 3 of all opening episodes i’ve ever watched.  Now mind you, opening episodes do not define the caliber of a drama, as oftentimes, there are amazing first episodes, but the rest of the drama seems to start to decline from that, as if so much was spent in the opening that you begin to run out of amazing for the rest of the drama, going back to the problem i outlined in the previous paragraph.  However, while they might not define the quality of a show, they go a very VERY long way towards whether or not you will finish a drama, and there has never been a drama that is considered so amazing you never watched till the finale.

Another quality that is indispensable is sound.  Ever watch a silent movie? No? Yes?  If yes, did you enjoy it?  Chances are not, because most people are similar in that, silence is boring.  Music is what makes a show so amazing, otherwise it’s a soap opera or just feels like a documentary of real life.  But with music, it becomes so much more, it adds to the characters, it aids in helping the audience feel the emotion that it is intended for them to feel,  it helps them get so much more into the drama.  It is possible to have a bad drama with good music, but not a single one of my favorite dramas, or even a single one of the favorites of anyone i’ve ever known, had crap music.  This drama had  music by  Mr. Children and Orange Range.  Don’t know who those are?  Better find out, cuz they’re amazing, and so was the music of this drama.  It fitted so perfectly it turned the scenes into so much more than they would have been otherwise.

However, regardless of these qualities, you will not have a drama without a cast.  Without a cast, you have a novel, writing, not a television show.  And a cast can take a story from good to unimaginably impressive.  Example?  Don’t even try to argue that 1 Litre of Tears would have been any more amazing if another person besides Sawajiri Erika had been the main actress.  I defy you, to tell me she did not take that drama and make it what it became, that without her it would have reached the heights it did.  Yes it had an OST that blows the soundtracks of just about every drama ever out of the water, Yes the story was amazing and was presented incredibly well.  But again i defy you to tell me that Sawajiri Erika did not define that drama.  That is the effect amazing casting can have on a drama, and i have seen cases where it completely saved what would have been an otherwise lackluster drama.  This plot and idea really was not lackluster, nor did it require an amazing set of people to save it, but the presence of some of the more amazing well known actors i have seen in other dramas, did nothing but help lift this drama to stardom.

This is getting long, so i’ll leave it at this for now.  The final criterion i will talk about is one that i find is the most important one i look for when i watch dramas, and is the one i spend the most time thinking about.  It is one of those intangibles that you will not be able to determine unless you go through an entire drama.  It is a quality that is answered by a few questions.  The first is “Well?”.  Well what do you think?  Has it caused you to think at least a little bit, as fictional as it may be, did it feel like that could have happened in real life?  Would you watch it again?  One thing that i have found is highly consistent among the dramas i’ve ended up liking alot, is the fact that i still watch them even now months maybe even years after i first watched them.  Is it so good that you would watch it again and still feel the amazement you felt the first time?  Good enough that you’d still remember it long after you finished the last episode?  Proposal Daisakusen, One Litre, Sekai no Chuushin De, and now even this, i know for a fact i will remember everything that happened, and would without hesitation watch again whenever i feel and not feel burdened repeating.  That is the quality i have found in this drama.

 

With all that said, if you were to ask me how i’d rate it among the dramas i’ve watched, i’ll tell you without question i’ll put it in my top 3, if you wanted mroe specific i’d put it at #2.  That says something, every drama in my top 10 has been there for years and never changed position, it is hard for me to decide something  was better than in my top 10 much less #2, because #1 is proposal, which is my favorite drama ever, and the new #3 is 1 litre of tears, a staple in every drama fan’s repitoire of what they’ve watched and for many their unquestioned #1.  I put a lot of thought into why and where i placed this drama because i felt that this drama was that good that it deserved such recognition.  And that is where i will leave this review until next i get back to it and add/edit more.

 

-Aznanimedude