So you have heard this show is good, but you are wondering whether a 12 episode show about a famous chef will be interesting for you. However, this show is about so much more than just cooking and is definitely one of the best Japanese drama’s out there. I’ll explain why in this spoiler free review :) .

Story: The show is based on the true story of Akiyama, a young man who shows little potential to be successful in life, but will somehow become the emperor’s chef someday. The story is the main strong point of this drama. The story is not about ‘just cooking’, but focuses on Akiyama and his family and friends who have to overcome various obstacles. It is hard to explain why the story is interesting without spoiling, but let's just say the story is more about pursuing a dream/ family problems/love/etc and not about 'kitchen trouble'.
It is made clear from the beginning that Akiyama will be the emperor’s chef, so the question is not whether he will succeed, but how. Akiyama must make a lot of sacrifices to pursue his dream and that’s where the drama aspect comes in. The story is about how we need the help of other’s to be successful, but simultaneously can be slowed down by getting too attached to these same people. This forces Akiyama to make hard and dramatic decisions.
Akiyama is a bit selfish, doesn’t mind bending some rules and has a quick temper, which makes his character very interesting. There are various side-characters, who all have their own problems, ambitions and agenda. The screen time is well divided and they all get their moments to shine, which will make you care about their fates as well.
Moreover, the story is well divided over the twelve episodes. Some might think that the first episode is slow, but after that the story makes progress every episode. Around episode 3 / 4 I was already hooked. The ending is also well written and is likely to have a lasting impact. The show is sometimes funny, often dramatic and continuously inspiring.

What makes this show truly great, is that the good story is combined with flawless acting. Takeru Sato shines as his role and deserves all the recognition he got for this part. As time progresses Akiyama’s personality matures. Sato aptly portrays all the different Akiyama’s through changes in posture / voice / expression very naturally so you will hardly notice it. Moreover, he is able to play both the funny and the dramatic scenes very well.
Kuroki Haru does a great job as Toshiko with the use of some subtle but great acting. She has great chemistry with Takeru. Suzuki Ryohei was the biggest surprise for me. In this show he proves he can also play a different role than the usual brute type he plays. He played his emotional older brother role very well. Hopefully this will make him play more varied roles in the future. Most of the secondary characters are portrayed quite well by the actors, who are able to give their characters personality with only limited screen time (BANZAI!).Furthermore, I really liked the acting of the French girl and the old shop owner. Besides the French girl, there are various foreign actors in this show, but I was not very impressed by their acting. Two secondary characters even annoyed me with their poor acting skills. But it was probably hard to find good acting for the various smaller foreign roles. They were not in many episodes, so it didn’t bother me that much. The main cast (that also includes a foreign actor)did a great job.

The music was quite good. There were nice sound effects, and some good tunes. They complemented the show nicely.
Rewatch value: I do not usually rewatch shows, but I will probably rewatch this one someday if I crave for some good story telling.

I normally do not give 10’s (other than 1 Litre of Tears), but this show has a brilliant story, combined with great acting. Besides some very small complaints, this show was just perfect. This will remain the one of the best Japanese shows for a very long time. Give this show a chance, you will not regret it. BANZAI!

Read More

Ouroboros is a good drama with an excellent story and decent acting but unable to reach its full potential due to some problems with regard to storytelling. Hopefully this spoiler less review can help you decide whether this drama is worthy of your time.

Story
A policeman and a gangster work together to find the killer of their beloved teacher at the orphanage they grew up. Based on a popular manga (that I didn’t read), the story is both the best and the worst part of this drama.
The main characters are interesting with regard to whether their personalities are ‘good’, ‘bad’ or something in between. The story uses good symbolism, raises some interesting questions with regard to justice and ‘doing what is right’ and the ending was above average. However, there are some problems to be found with regard to the way the story is told:
-The beginning of the drama doesn’t really contribute to the overall story, whereas the latter episodes feel rushed. They could have allocated the story better over the 10 episodes.
- There are a lot of characters that are named but not really explored until they are revealed to have some secret. These shocking revelations did not have the impact they were supposed to have, simply because I didn’t care for these characters I only knew from face.
- Some secondary characters do not act logically but do what’s best for the plot, which often makes no sense at all and can be considered to be lazy writing. For instance, character X absolutely hates character Y and swears revenge, but when X gets the opportunity to take revenge he lets Y go without any good reason. Character W is trapped somewhere, but when W is able to communicate with character Z , W does not tell W’s location but haves some dramatic dialogue instead, which made no sense in that moment. There is an abundance of out-of-character writing that harms the great core story
- The abundance of flashbacks. Seeing the same scenes over and over gets a bit tiresome. Moreover, sometimes there are flashbacks to scenes that happened only minutes before. The flashbacks were overdone and made the show a bit melodramatic (although I guess some people like this).

Acting
The show has two excellent main leads who gave a good performance. Especially Oguri Shun was able to convincingly portray the dark side of the gangster whilst still being a character to root for. Ikuta Toma is also a great actor, but in this role he sometimes tends to overact in the more emotional scenes. Ueno Juri played her character well in most scenes, but was also struggling in some of the emotional scenes. With regard to the large supporting cast I only found Hirosue Ryoko (the sensei) and the child actor portraying Tacchan noteworthy.

Music
Although it is normal for Japanese drama’s to use the same dramatic song in every episode, it was used to many times in this drama (sometimes three times in one episode…) and wasn’t that great to begin with. The ending song of each episode (Arashi – Sakura) fitted the theme quite well.

Rewatch Value
Because this is mainly a detective show, the rewatch value is low. Of course you could watch it again to look for clues you might have missed the first time, but many ‘subtle’ clues were hard to miss.

To summarize, if you are interested in detectives/crime/bromance/drama than this is a very nice drama to watch, because it tells a very good story. However, the way the story is told is flawed and prevents this show from becoming great. It is still a good drama, but if you have high standards with regard to storytelling, you might want to consider to watch a different drama ?

Read More