Japanese dramas, which are also called "dorama" have much older history than K-dramas. Japan has always had a strong and influential pop-culture based on mangas (Japanese comics) and anime (animations, mostly based on these mangas), and thus, doramas are kind of part of same culture. However, starting in early 2000s, Korean TV-dramas (many of which are also based on same Japanese manga!) became more and more popular outside Korea, thanks to strong international marketing of everything Korean and "hallyu" phenomenon.
J-drama vs K-drama So what's the difference?
The main difference of these two products is that K-drama is genre by itself, while J-drama is a drama that is made in Japan!
When one says K-drama, it is basically always clear what it is - romance, love triangle, "soapy" storyline, fluffy boys who piggyback their girlfriends, and rich bastard boys on other hand, melodrama, etc.
But J-dramas can be much more diverse, they have a lot of genres, and actually they have less romance compared to K-dramas. About 60% of J-dramas are detective dramas. Besides detectives, the most common genres are school dramas, mystery/horror, melodramas, romantic comedies and one more genre that I like to call "Super-Woman" dramas (though that can be a man too). These latter genre is pretty interesting, because it is very common, and often happens in intersection with other genres. Storylines of such dramas evolve around unique, strong, brave or maybe high-sense-of fairness character (and usually woman), who is transferred to some new environment with lot of issues, stigma, old traditions. And then, episode by episode, this character stubbornly go through this wall, and changes things with pretty much drama. "Transfer student" genre, as you guess, is a crossover of school-drama and "Power Woman" genres. Some examples of this drama are "Haken no Hinkaku" (temporary genius robot-style multi-profile worker appears in company, who will work only from 9 to 6 and no second more), "Danda-rin" (highly motivated, super-fair, stubborn labor standard inspector transferred to Labor Protection Department where folks don't like to work much, and eventually changes everything), 35-year-old-school-girl (in class full of bullying, suicides, disrespect, a new student is transferred.... but it is a 35-year-old woman!), Hanasaki Mai Speaks up (former bank cashier, now worker in bank's consulting department will visit to banks' branch in every episode and uncover abuses and illegal procedures), Ogon no Buta (the heroine, a woman from Audit Investigation Division, is a daring character who mercilessly punishes civil cervants who cheat and waste the taxes paid by hard-working people).
So how to start?
So if you are interested to "taste" a little bit J-drama, but you're still a K-drama fan, to not scare, overdose or disappoint you, here are some J-dramas, that in some way close to Korean tv-dramas by their storyline, so you could start your J-drama journey with these ones. Try the first episodes of these, and who knows, maybe your next obsession is J-dramas! Note, that many K-dramas are also remade from original Japanese dramas, like Boys Over Flower is Hana Yori Dango, Playfull Kiss is Itazura na Kiss, To The Beautiful You is Hana Kimi, etc. We don't include these dramas.
Nodame Cantabile (Romance, 2006)
This is a story of guy and girl who meet by accident. He is top Music College top student, talented in piano and violin and has secret ambitions to become a conductor. An arrogant multi-lingual perfectionist who once lived abroad in the music capitals of the world as a young boy, he feels mired in Japan because of a childhood phobia of airplanes and oceans.
She is piano student, who is messy and un-organized, prefer to play "by-ear" and wants to be a kindergarten teacher and very much likes to eat. This drama is about developing relationaship and classic music accompanies it.
The first 15-minute preview is here:
Watch Nodame Cantabile here
Last Cinderella (Romance, Love Triangle, 2013)
A 39 year-old woman who works in beauty-salon feels a mature friend-chemistry to manager, who is at her age. But soon she meets young pretty boy and seems like feelings are being developed. This is a romantic comedy with love triangle!
Watch the Last Cinderella review from popular vlogger HallyuBack here:
And some scenes from the drama:
Watch Last Cinderella online here
Heartbroken Chocolatier (Romance, Comedy, Love hexagon, glamour, erotica, 2014)
When being rejected by his girlfriend (who loves chocolate more than anything), the drama hero flies to Paris, become a professional master chocolatier and back in Tokyo, opens his choco-store, which is now famous. All his actions in drama inspired by this girl. That girls marries, but now starts to visit his store daily, teasing his feelings. Besides this, one of his colleagues is in love with him, another glamorous model girl becomes a friend-with-benefit with him, a gay-worker of competitor shop also has secret feelings to our hero.... Well.. you better just watch this drama. In addition to complex drama, it is fully stuffed with lot of comical, ironical scenes, which will make laugh hard once in almost every episode.
Watch Heartbroken Chocolatier here
Rich Man, Poor Woman (title says it all, 2012)
A CEO of an IT firm, Forbes billionaire, Toru Hyuga attained his fortune through chance and pure luck. He is extremely anti-social and overly self-confident. Chihiro is a hardworking college student girl at Tokyo University who has prepared for her future as much as she possibly could through studies and obtaining licenses. Despite her efforts, she has yet to land a job. And what you think? She decides to get job in that IT-firm... by using a little bit psychological trick. And then... Then the K-drama begins. With Japanese quality. Upon meeting Toru, she begins to unravel a genuine pureness inside him and solitude resulting from such pureness, which eventually draws her closer to him. The two repeatedly conflict each other, but little by little learn about one another to grow and develop together.
Watch Rich man Poor Woman here
Piece (drama, 2012)
This drama would glue you to the screen until the last episode. Laid-back and adventurous drama, that starts with funeral/class-reunion, which leads to exploration of some chemistry between the main character and a guy from her class, and then several of these classmates try to find out some secrets form their past, and also about the past of just-died classmate, who's funeral they were attending. This has both romance, tears and adventurous storyline, stuffed with flashback and great soft-rock-ballad soundtrack.
Watch Piece here.
Asuko March (school, 2011)
Now let's put aside pure romantic/love-triangle dramas, because Japan is not all about that after all. No one in the world can create stories related to school-life and young people like it does Japan. In "Asuko March", the girl, Yoshino Nao, fails the entrance exam of target school, and then enters to all-male polytechnic school! Yes, this have a drama, a chemistry, it's romantic, it's episode-by-episode challenges, it's a team-building. One girl, and 148 boys! What can be more intriguing. Just tune-in now and take a look!
Here are some muted scenes from dorama:
Watch Asuko March here.
Nobuta wo Produce (school, 2005)
This a pretty old, and in some way unusual drama. But here is school drama meats "producing" drama! There are two very popular and cool boys in class. And they don't even like each other. But when new girl transfer student appears in class, she faces difficulties, being unpopular and even being bullied. And here at this point, those two boys decide to team-up together, and "produce" Nobuta (the girl's nickname) and make her popular, to overcome issues?! Doesn't this sound interesting?
The clip of the beginning:
Watch Nobuta wo Produce here.
35-years-old schoolgirl (school, 2013)
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Ok, let's imagine a school class with a lot of bullying, criminal students, suicides and all this nightmare, and suddenly... a transfer student comes to class. But we got another problem. She's a 35-years-old woman! Do I need to say more?! You just have to take a look at this.
A trailer for this drama:
Watch 35-years-old schoolgirl here.
Mita, the HouseMaid (drama, 2011)
This drama had one of the highest ratings in history. And, in my opinion, one of the best TV-dramas I've ever seen in my life! A family of dad and three children, after losing their mother, trying to cope with life and hire a housemaid. But well, very strange housemaid. She has no emotions, no own opinion, no feelings, but she is precise like a robot, and perfectly handle every hardest job you can imagine. But that's not all. Soon they discover, that Mita would do almost everything in the world that theoretically possible - they just need to order her. Even to kill someone. Everything! But don't worry, this is not just action drama. Episode by episode, Mita would deeply impact the family, and maybe could even help them to overcome the crisis after loosing their mother.
A scene from the drama:
Watch Kaseifu no Mita here.
My little nightmare (adventure, dream interpretation 2012)
If you like adventure, you like seeing dream, and learn about their interpretations, then this drama is for you. A young beautiful teacher Ayami actually hates and doesn't care about her job, so she just acts nicely and smiles in the school, but what is really in her mind that she would eventually come home, take pain-relievers, sleep and see beautiful dreams. And using the music and headphones, she even learnt to control her own dreams. But as we know, when someone tries to avoid a problem, the problem comes. A new, weird and strange schoolgirl is transferred to her class, who has ability to see prophet dreams, but faces problems to interpret them. And she also seen this teacher in her dreams, and knows that she is the person who can decode these dreams. By the way, this girl's grandpa is a dream scientist (and looks just like Einstein), who invented dream recording machine. Now Ayami is involved in this, and they need to watch this girl's nightmares every episode, interpret them and try to save the world. A bit romance, a bit nightmare and a lot of adventure.
The HallyuBack review of the drama:
A clip form the drama.
Watch Akumu Chan here.
How to watch?
There are some legal ways to watch Asian dramas online wordwide, like Viki.com, Dramafever.com and Crunchyroll.com. But most of them have only few J-dramas, as they focus mainly on Korean drama, because that is what trendy in mass audience currently. Also, Korean dramas have easier procedure to obtain their license. However, if people like you will request services like Viki to add certain dramas, they will surely do it, because the demand brings the production. Meanwhile, there are some illegal ways to watch Japanese dramas, like gooddrama.net . Here you can find almost anything with quality subtitles.
How to stay updated?
If you get in and now want to know what's next and how to be up to dated what to watch, then you can always navigate to the J-culture portal http://tokyohive.com . Here you would find the drama ratings section, which shows the dramas that air currently and their rating. Using this list, you can find the dramas that are interesting for you, and then watch them online. (Or maybe, request on Viki too).
So this was some short guide to Japanese dramas. You wouldn't necessarily love those, but remember these dramas are just 1% percent what Japan produces. On Drama Rating section of tokyohive.com you would constantly find dozen of new dramas. Now you can leave comments and discuss what you think. What else J-dramas you would like to introduce?
