I usually allow myself about an hour of TV per night on weekdays as a way of decompressing after 11.5 hours at school. That generally lets me eat, hang out with the Lovely Mina and then spend that hour not really thinking about anything before I study again for a couple of hours before bed. Not the most exciting life, I know, but there you have it.

Today Mina showed me a ranking of the Top 20 Pre-2000 Japanese TV Dramas that people over there would like to see once again. The list, for those interested, is here http://www.rankingjapan.com/ranking.php?page=753

Now, I was interested to see that 3 of the Top 10 were dramas I'd include in my Top 10 (Tokyo Love Story, Beach Boys, and Hitotsu Yane no Shita (All Under One Roof), but I was pretty surprised to see that Long Vacation, Beautiful Life (actually from 2000, so right on the border), and a couple of others didn't make the ranking. Anyway, you knew this was coming, but here's my ranking with links where I can find them:

1. Tokyo Love Story (1990): The original "Post-Trendy" Drama and one that really still holds up over time. I was absolutely shocked to see that it is number one in that poll linked to above. Still, I guess that if you're going to watch only one J-Drama, this has to be it. Oda Yuji pretty much looks the same as he did 27 years ago, which is remarkable; he's like a latter day Dick Clark. You had to root for Suzuki Honami's character, despite the nose, even if you knew she was never going to get the guy. She was the first post-modern Japanese woman and every strong female character in J-Drama leans on her example. Don't take it from me, check out this book http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Asian-Modernities-Transnational-Consumption/dp/9622096328/ref=sr_1_1/104-4730234-0586329?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175826958&sr=1-1

2. Long Vacation (1996 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-a6EOJWoMw): The quintessential Takuya Kimura drama and what an incredible cast when you think about it. Takuya, Yamaguchi Tomoko at her absolute peak, Takenouchi Yutaka, Inamori Izumi, Matsu Takako before she was Matsu Takako, and even an episode with Hirosue Ryoko as a 15 year-old no-name. Really one of the ultimate mid-90s Japanese dramas.

3. Hitotsu Yane no Shita (1993): Again, one of the great "Post-Trendy" dramas and another outstanding cast with Eguchi Yosuke, Sakai Noriko (see my Hall of Fame J-Actresses below), Fukuyama Masaharu, Uchida Yuki, etc. The sequel was good as well, but I'd rather watch the original, personally.

4. Kamisama mousukoshi dake (神様もう少しだけ - 1998 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xd466ek-HA): This drama woke young people in Tokyo up to the HIV/AIDS problem. There was even a spike in the number of people getting tested weekly while the drama was going on. Too bad they ruined it by having the HIV+ heroine sleep with her boyfriend, get pregnant, and give birth all without either the dad or the kid being HIV+. I was so steamed I actually wrote to Fuji TV about how irresponsible that was of them...

5. Doku (1996): I can only imagine what my dear brother will say about this one, but while it was actually a silly drama about a Vietnamese immigrant to Japan, I really enjoyed it. Likely, this had something to do with the relatively simple Japanese that the characters used in communicating with our hero (Katori Shingo) and the fact that I could understand it, but, hey, there it is.

Anyway, those are the five that I would want to watch again if I could. Maybe I'll expand the list to 10 one of these days to bring in "Boku no Ikiru Michi" and a couple of others. Next time, though, I think we'll cover the American shows I always like to watch in reruns.