The Japanese took the idea of soap-opera and combined it with mini-series to produce a hybrid form of entertainment. These one season runs are quite popular in Japan, Korea, and China. What makes them good?
Having only watched about 5 series myself I am probably not qualified to be a master of the dorama (Japanese Drama) style, and perhaps even naive enough to not be considered and aficionado. What I do know are the things that move me about them. Currently my top three favorite doramas are Long Vacation, Virgin Road, and Summer Snow. Each is a love story and each has it’s on level of entertainment. What makes the dorama for me is believability and execution. If you can bring together an outrageous circumstance in a manner that is truly entertaining then you have accomplished your goal, but I still won’t believe it. For examples of this see GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka) which is rife with dues-ex-machina. In contrast my favorite dorama Long Vacation is a story which is plausible, and executed in a way that is real and beautiful. I’ll begin writing individual reviews of dorama later I just wanted to point out that to me, realism and execution make for a good watch. I guess that’s why I stopped watching TV so long ago. I also have to mention that a good musical score can really enhance a show.
One last thing and I’m done. I have to give props to Virgin Road for it’s interesting shots. They took a chance on some of their cinematography and it really showed. There were times I felt like I was watching a movie more than a dorama. Long Vacation did this to a lesser degree but still made an effort to shoot well.
I realize I’ve said nothing ground-breaking. I know I’ve just repeated what most people may feel makes a decent show. I wanted to get this down once so I could