My Favorite Female Centric Dramas/Films

Dramas 

1. Followers: Netflix Worldwide

My summary: About Tokyolite women with different careers in entertainment industry. A bit mature (discuss about sex and stuff). I personally take it as it's about women getting second chances. 

2. In This Corner of The World: https://watchasian.sh/drama-detail/kono-sekai-no-katasumi-ni

My summary: About a girl, her family and neighbors after she got married to a far away town during World War 2. Mostly women life as the men are in war. The focus are mostly the girl, her mother, sister, mother/sister-in-law, neighbor girls/their mothers. Also have central romance with her husband. Feminine/soft power? It is very good at depicting that.

3. Hankei 5 Metoru: I'm the subber and somehow dramacool didn't upload my subs. They have episode 1 subs. https://watchasian.sh/drama-detail/hankei-5-metoru-2021. If you like it, contact me.

My summary: Tabloid magazine's B-section lifestyle category editorial team doing really good job at presenting/writing about women's difficulties in society. A lot of topics from marriage, dating, job opportunities, sexual harassment. 

4. Tokyo Terareba Girls: On Netflix asia

My summary: Three friends unsure about their lives and want to find life partners. Rom-com. But centered on three girls.

Movies

1. Every Day A Good Day: https://watchasian.sh/drama-detail/every-day-a-good-day

My summary: The lead girl at 24 is unsure about life till her mother suggested to take tea-ceremony lessons. So she went with her cousin and met her teacher. The movie depicts until she's 40. Very calm movie but great. Watch it in the calm morning. One thing, it's very specific about Japanese culture and life philosophy. I suggest you watch after a few of their entertainment content.

2. Kamikaze Girls: https://watchasian.sh/drama-detail/kamikaze-girls

My summary: A high school student's coming-of-age. She loves lolita fashion dresses. Those lace dresses and cute princess stuffs. She met a gangster biker same-age girl. And they support each other's matters/dreams(?).

3. Hula Girls (2006): You need to download, I guess.

My summary: A mining-town in Japan is nearly out of business. Since men are all mining and out-of-business, the town council invited a Hula dance teacher and trained the daughters of the town as a dancing troop/ tourist attraction to revive the town. True story. This is Best Picture winner. There is an iconic dance scene of J-cinema.

4. Ficticious OL Diary: https://watchasian.sh/drama-detail/fictitious-ol-diary

My summary: Office ladies doing work, eating lunch, gossip, hang out, finding restaurants. Lighthearted but I love it.

5. Hell's Garden: https://watchasian.sh/drama-detail/hells-garden-2021

My summary: Gangster office ladies. Fighting each other. Kinda dumb but not toxic for most part(?lol). If you want to take risk. :D

6. Her Love Boils Bathwater: https://watchasian.sh/drama-detail/her-love-boils-bathwater-2016

My summary: A mother finding out her cancer and does her best for her daughter's (singular but becomes plural) life in her short remaining time. It's 2016 Oscar Foreign Feature submission. Both actresses won tons of awards.

7. Swing Girls (2004): You need to download.

My summary: A club of female students (like It's a Summer Film!) forms Jazz band, which is norm for boys but not for girls. There's also a gender-bender boy version Waterboys (Synchrozined Swimming).

(P.S: All these are more than 1 female leads (a group mostly). I have loads of other great female lead films too.)

MELLOW FLAME - Tori Matsuzaka

Q: In the book, you wrote about relationship between Maro and Hono (flame). Taking Hono as heat, or desire to create/express, is this a story about the creator and his motivation. Do you yourself experience fluctuations in your desire to express?

Tori: Yes. I think I'm a pretty uneven type of a person, and I think I'm sometimes high like "Okay, let's do it!" , and sometimes, I'm all low. I still wonder why I can't control it.

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Q: You've been able to manage them up to now.

Tori: Some people are good at turning the switch on and off, but I have a hard time doing it (lol). I have tried various approaches in the past to see how I can switch it on and off when I enter a project. For example, for Rurou no Tsuki, I tried sleeping on the filming set.

Q: I heard you stayed at a hotel in Shibuya to prepare for your role in the movie "Call Boy" and ran simulations for your role in "Intolerance".

Tori: Yes. I do different ways, but I do it for each work.

Q: I also felt from this book that you're always looking for opportunities to ignite your own desire for expression. But you always talk about the importance of "becoming the work". If that's so, it must be contradicting for you to express your "self" as an expressive person.

Tori: Yes, when I participate in a production, I leave my "self" behind. But it's probably just "myself" up to the point where I attempt the work. The choice of the project is the same. Once I participate, I do my best to blend in with the work, as you said, but I have already thought about how I will approach the work, and that kind of "self" decision has already been done before I entered the production.

I've no idea where I want to end. When I think about how I can continue this job, I realize it's all about discovery. I have a theory that if I can discover something new at each project, I'll be able to go places I never imagined. I'm currently exploring this possibility.

Here's his interview in 2012.

• • •

MELLOW FLAME - Tori Matsuzaka X Shinsaku Nagata

Q: How did you do the production of the book?

Tori: Everything I talked about, from the trivial to the absurd, was materialized by Shinsaku.

Shinsaku: It was the first time in my life, very interesting. It was a completely new challenge for me. I draw the piece and he did the text. I was even more surprised when I get the feedback from him. We exchanged back-and-forth.

Q: Collaboration vs Solitude

Tori: My work is one that cannot be done without support from various people from production crew. I'm just a person riding on top of a certain amount of arrangements that have already been made. But when I play the role, I'm alone. Sometimes I feel lonely and tough, but there's also a part of me that somehow wants to be alone. Maybe I like to work alone. I like digging deeper into things at my own pace, or painting the same color deeper and deeper.

asahi.com/and/article/20…

俳優・松坂桃李×絵本作家・長田真作　同世代の表現者が作り上げた絵本「まろやかな炎」 | 朝日新聞デジタルマガジン＆[and]

俳優・松坂桃李と絵本作家・長田真作。それぞれの業界を牽引する若き二人が対話を重ね、コラボレーションして絵本『まろやかな炎』を作り上げた。主人公のエリマキトカゲ・マロと出会ったひとつの炎。赤一色で描かれるストーリーは、叙情的であらゆる感情が込められているようにも見える。インタビューで二人が繰り返したのは、表現者としての「...

https://www.asahi.com/and/article/20220310/415267461/3