Dandori [ダンドリ] Rating: 10/10 (Watched) From barely interesting beginning to really powerful finale. Enjoyed it very much. Ponder material for those who don't believe that people can change. ;)
Gakko ja Oshierarenai! [学校じゃ教えられない!] Rating: 7/10 (Watched) I wasn't impressed after the first episode. It took me over a year to come back to this show. And surprisingly I enjoyed it quite a lot. It contains a lot of common sense lessons about love. Something we should be reminded often, because it's so easy to lose common sense due to heavy emotions.
Contains great advices for teenagers. Something that everyone probably knows already but served with compelling examples why and how it works.
Of course if you were looking for a teary romance, you will be disappointed.
Hanayome to Papa [花嫁とパパ] Rating: 10/10 (Watched) Thorough analysis of adversities young people must face before they could happily marry. Romantic and funny comedy with awesome cast and interesting main and side stories.
Hanazakari no Kimitachi e [花ざかりの君たちへ] Rating: 9/10 (Watched) They excuse for silliness at the beginning and they not kidding. Well they do and they do kid a lot later. Good comedy and good acting.
Hataraki Man [働きマン] Rating: 10/10 (Watched) Hard working motivational show. Lots of drama and comedy. Opening from this drama is my new weekdays alarm clock melody. It's a really good stuff.
Trick [トリック] Rating: 10/10 (Watched) Hilarious!!! So funny, so intriguing. Nakama Yukie and Abe Hiroshi are so funny together. Adding music of Chihiro Onitsuka and I have found my favorite drama ever!
Hokaben [ホカベン] The worst depiction of a Japanese lawyer? [Rating: 10/10] Domoto Akari "would be fired immediately and not hired by any firm for any reason" because this series is a good depiction of moral corruption of lawyers in general.
In short a good lawyer is a cheating, backstabbing lier who uses any means necessary, including deception and fraud, to achieve its goals. Maybe in real life lawyers not often go to those extremes but many of them really lack a moral compass.
Look around. Big companies with huge legal departments and corruptive influences in the parliaments are almost untouchable. Look at example of copyright and patent wars where citizens and small companies have no chances at all. It is really not hard to imagine lawyers like those from Emuza working in the background.
I think this series analyzes the morals of people behind the law pretty accurately. Not only that, it shows the mechanism which keeps the status quo. Laws are longer and longer, legal costs are going through the roof and normal people are lost in the maze of current legislation.
Pity it went without an echo in Japan and there are no similar production in USA and Europe. I saw a few TED talks about this issue though.
Anyway, I recommend this drama even if it distorts the view of everyday life of a Japanese lawyer.