Would you like to know some of the best Japanese TV dramas people in Japan truly love? Here are the top five dramas you can watch on Netflix or YouTube.
You can know more about Japan via Japanese people’s perspectives by watching these dramas, writes Film News Blitz’s Moe Ikeda.
The Full-Time Wife Escapist (逃げるは恥だが役に立つ – We married as a job!) available on Netflix
This is a TV drama series of socio-political romantic comedy broadcast in 2016.
The story follows the life of Mikuri Moriyama, an unemployed woman without a boyfriend, and Hiramasa Tsuzaki, a single salaryman with no romantic experience in his life.
They enter into a contract marriage where the husband is the employer and the wife is the employee. As they live under the same roof, the two gradually fall genuinely in love.
There are many lines that touch viewers’ hearts. For example…
“We want someone… We want someone to choose us. We want someone to tell us that they want us around. Is that too much to ask? Everyone wants to be needed by someone. But it never seems to work out. So little by little, you learn to hide your emotions. When you feel like crying, you just laugh it off. Maybe that’s how we get life” (Episode 1).
Due to its popularity, the special episode was broadcast in January 2021. And the two who played this couple got married in May in the same year! This is the most romantic part.
It wasn’t just the drama that became a social phenomenon; the theme song and its choreography did as well.
The theme song is ‘Koi’ (which means ‘love’, but is actually not equal to love) written and composed by Gen Hoshino, who played the role of Hiramasha Tsuzaki. The choreography is loved as Koi Dance. Many people danced and uploaded the video on social media.
The average rating of this series was 14.5% and the peak audience rating was 20.8%. It won over 30 awards in Japan.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Your next binge list: The top upcoming book-to-screen adaptations
Solitary Gourmet (孤独のグルメ) available on YouTube
‘Solitary Gourmet’ is a long-run TV drama series broadcast from 2011 to date. There are 11 TV series, 15 special episodes and a movie.
This story is about the life of Goro Inogashira, an importer of miscellaneous goods, simply enjoying a meal at an eatery he visits during a break between work.
It captures the appeal of the entire process, from choosing what to eat to the eating, and the blissful time spent savouring the food in solitude.
The series is based on a manga of the same title. The manga has been translated into over 10 languages and enjoyed around the world.
This show turned the experience of dining alone into entertainment, capturing viewers’ hearts with a happiness that anyone could relate to.
The reason why Japanese people love this series is that they are obsessed with delicious food and passion for exploring food. According to research in 2019, it can be said that Japanese people are most obsessed with delicious food.
This survey asked 7,600 men and women aged 18-54 from nine countries and regions worldwide to rank their “most pleasurable activities” from a list of 14 items. Only Japanese men and women ranked “eating delicious food” as the most pleasurable activity.
This drama series won awards in Japan and overseas, and there are many fans all over the world.
You can watch some episodes from the first series with English subtitles on the official YouTube channel.
Extremely Inappropriate! (不適切にもほどがある!) available on Netflix
‘Extremely Inappropriate!’ was a comedy TV series broadcast in 2024.
Ogawa Ichiro, a PE teacher, time travels from the Showa (1986) to the Reiwa era (2024), where his Showa-era ideas come across as completely inappropriate.
This series compares 1980s culture, such as some kinds of harassment, abuse, and smoking, with 2020s culture and satirises both cultures.
Things that are unacceptable in today’s world were accepted during the Showa era. The contrast of both cultures woven in the storyline is beautiful.
Even though the trend is away from television now, this programme gained popularity from a wide range of generations by introducing both cultures in 1986 and 2024.
This warning caption appears twice in the first episode.
”This programme contains language and smoking scenes that may be considered inappropriate by modern standards; however, in light of the drama’s aim to depict the culture and customs of the era, we have chosen to broadcast the dialogue exactly as it was spoken in 1986”.
By saying this warning and comparing the past and present, this drama seems to encourage people to update viewers’ perspectives, on top of its inclusion of inappropriate expressions.
This series’ average rating was 7.6%. It also won 18 awards in Japan.
JIN (仁) available on Netflix
This is a human drama involving time travel.
A modern-day neurosurgeon, Jin Minakata, who travels back in time to the late Edo period (around 1853-1868) in Japan amid a lack of medical equipment. He saves lives by producing penicillin and becomes deeply involved with historical figures.
You can enjoy the blend of genres: time travel, medical drama, human interest story, and historical epic.
And this drama depicts the cityscape in detail, the lives of the people, and the social conditions of the late Edo period, the final years of the shogunate. It allows viewers to sense the culture of the Edo as it is difficult to grasp from textbooks.
One notable scene is that the main character, Jin, struggles against a cholera epidemic. As we learnt from the pandemic of Covid, this tells viewers how difficult it is to deal with infectious diseases and how epidemics affect people’s lives.
The first season was broadcast in 2009, and the final season was in 2011.
This series’ average rating was 26.1%, and its peak audience rating was 31.7%. It won more than 30 awards in Japan and overseas.
READ MORE: Top three Japanese films loved by locals available on Netflix and Amazon Prime
Unnatural (アンナチュラル) available on Netflix
This story is about the UDI, Unnatural Death Investigation Laboratory. Mikoto Misumi is a pathologist at UDI. She takes on perplexing cases with her team of specialists.
UDI seeks out the voices of the dead people from their bodies and speaks on behalf of them.
One of the attractive points is the main characters’ backgrounds and fates are revealed as each case unravels social issues. And these things lead to one major incident at the end.
The scriptwriter, Akiko Nogi, of this drama also wrote the drama, ‘The Full-Time Wife Escapist’. She has produced many popular TV drama series and movies.
‘Lemon’, this drama’s theme song, is also one of the elements that lead to its popularity. ‘Lemon’ was composed and written by Kenshi Yonezu.
It expresses a ray of hope visible to those who lost someone as they try to move forward. And it matches with the storyline.
This TV drama series was broadcast in 2018. The average rating was 11.14%, and its peak audience rating was 13.3%. And, it won 25 awards in Japan.
Ready to start watching?
The five dramas introduced here are samples of what Japanese television has to offer and what Japanese people truly love to watch in their daily life.
You might discover not only your next favourites but also a new side of Japanese culture which articulates the Japanese perspective.
(The date of average rating is from the research conducted by the company, Video Research.)
READ NEXT: TV analysis: The rise of sports romance
