12/06/2021: 5 recent live-action J-drama that were adapted from manga!

1) My Moochy Boyfriend (2018)

A 28 y/o good-for-nothing man is kicked out of his parents’ home and moves in with his younger girlfriend who works as a nurse. He’s not really a bad guy – he just hates working – and really loves his girlfriend a lot! The series focuses on the nurse trying to help him change his ways.

I saw it on Waku Waku Japan and it’s been re-airing almost perpetually for some reason, so it must be fairly popular. I enjoyed Haruna Kawaguchi’s performance very much! Also, I feel like I would be OK with supporting my boyfriend even if he was a useless guy as long as he showered me with affection and didn’t do bad things. (He’d have to be really handsome, though!)

2) Way of the Househusband (2021)

An ex-yakuza learns new things every day about homemaking, often with hilarious results. It’s very funny when he runs into people from his criminal days and they interact in some way related to whatever housekeeping thing they were doing e.g., baking bread, groceries, a local fair, etc.

Hiroshi Tamaki is a great actor (not that there’s much acting to do in a series like this) and he’s enjoyable in the role. Also, Haruna Kawaguchi plays the wife. (She’s in everything!)

3) Saving Rock (2019)

A salaryman’s girlfriend leaves him because he’s obsessed about rock and spendthrift. He tries to get her back by saving money and changing his ways but some other guy starts approaching her. Pleasant and humorous!

4) Kantaro: The Travelling Sweet Tooth Salaryman (2017)

A salaryman leads a double-life as a blogger who writes about desserts. To do this, he gets his work done very quickly (but always perfectly) so he can rush off to eat his desserts. (Sometimes, he has to eat during office hours because of queues or because the shop is very near where he’s working that day, adding to the tension.) A subplot involves his colleague who’s a fan of the blogger but suspects that it might be her colleague and tries to expose him.

5) Wasteful Days of High School Girls (2020)

My favorite J-drama of recent memory. It’s basically a clone of Daily Lives of High School Boys but with girls, but done very well. Basically, there are three main girls – a dumb girl, a very smart girl, and a neurotic artistic girl – and their friends – including an occult-maniac, a chunni and an athletic tomboy – doing stupid things.

I enjoy the manga very much and the anime adaptation was very well executed. The live-action has a similarly high production quality. The casting for our main girls was spot on: Yui Okada, Yuri Tsunematsu and Yurika Nakamura are exceptionally charming and likable! (The rest of the cast is pretty good as well.) I’m a big fan of Yuri Tsunematsu in particular and she looks so good with the pigtails. Also, Yui Okada really should keep the messy hair forever.

6) Erased (2017)

Time travelling story to avert disaster in the MC’s childhood and future. Personally, I didn’t like the ending of the manga and anime so I didn’t like this too much. I thought that the acting wasn’t as good as the anime but a lot of people seem to like this one.