This "Shoujiki Fudousan" was an entertaining watch altogether, with some good points and some minor problems though. All imho, as always.

First things first, what I've liked:

- The story was a clean one, with a nicely proper, ethical message (exactly what I would expect from an NHK production, and that was comforting in itself ^__-)
- The female cast was very good; I'm quite a fan of Fukuhara Haruka so I knew I was gonna get a great performance from her, but also Kurashina Kana and Daichi Mao were great, not to mention the lovely Izumi Rika!)
- The music and the "packaging" were totally OK too

On to the things I wasn't enthusiastic about:

- The male cast; I must confess not being a big fan of Yamashita Tomohisa, but I'll say this: he still was, like, the only male who gets a passing grade here, imho; the rest were all below par (though in all fairness, I couldn't say how much of that was the actors' own fault and how much actually depended on the script - I'm willing to give the actors the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the scriptwriter and/or on the original manga authors
- The hair stylists; this is a problem this drama shares with many other J-dramas adapted from a manga: crazy hairstyles that work on paper get too faithfully portrayed in the live-action, resulting simply too weird; take for example this drama's villain, he was supposed to be scary and all, but due to the hairstyle being a kinda mix between Elvis and a Leningrad Cowboy, the guy ended up looking just ridiculous, imho. (oh, and that hairstyle on Kurashina Kana was a crime against humanity, seriously...T_____T)

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This "Borderless" is a joint production (in the American comics I'd sometimes read when I was a kid - thus wasting time and money on horribly poorly written cr@p, but that's another story - it'd be called a "Team Up") between the three Sakamichi idol groups: Nogizaka46, Hinatazaka46 (formerly known as "Hiragana Keyakizaka46") and Sakurazaka46 (ex- Kanji Keyakizaka46).
The main cast is composed of seven members of the different groups, namely two each from Nogizaka and Hinatazaka, and three from Sakurazaka. Fans of any of those groups will surely find some added value in seeing how some of their favorite idols performed as actresses. For example, being a fan of Hinatazaka and Sakurazaka, I knew I was gonna get some good acting by Saito Kyoko and Kobayashi Yui, but I wasn't honestly expecting much from the other girls, and was therefore positively surprised by their performances - particularly by Hamagishi's - whom I hadn't pegged for one capable of acting as she did here. Kudos, Hiyotan! ^__-
Now, not being a Nogizaka fan I had no idea what to expect from Hayakawa Seira and Endo Sakura, but they did quite well too, especially the latter. All in all, the idol main cast was more than okay; alas, the same can't be said of all the supporting actors and actresses, from whom we got mixed performances instead.
The production value of this dorama is pretty high, even more so for Japanese standards.
The real problem - and the reason behind the low rating I'm giving it - lies in the script.
Although it has some (rare!) good moments, those are literally drowned in an abundance of mediocrity; the dialogues are often unnaturally verbose and the scenes frequently boring (weren't it for the musical score keeping up the tension, I would've fallen asleep more than once!) or even nonsensical - as is, for example, the way the different storylines are brought together: a moment I was looking forward to, but that instead let me down completely. Just as the "mystery" solution, which was plainly terrible imho. But the worst thing was, for me, the ending: when you write your villain as such a despicable person, the viewers deserve to see him/her *punished* at the end, NOT *rewarded* with a happy ending!!! >______<
5/10 because I don't want to be too hard, given how the girls performed.
But I'm personally blacklisting the writer as we speak.
p.s.
The best part (BY FAR) are imho the 10' or so of "Making Of" scenes, shown at the end of each episode! (LOL at least the writer couldn't ruin those! ^__-)

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Weaker than the previous seasons

Maybe it's due - at least in part - to the fact that I'm getting bored by the whole "food drama" concept, or maybe it depends on the fact that I honestly find Japanese cuisine to be a bit overrated (in that aspect, just as in mahjong, I'm all for China, LOL), but, whatever the reason, I must confess I found this "Wakako Zake 3" weaker than the previous seasons. Takeda Rina is always nice to watch, but let's face it, seeing her eating & drinking, drinking & eating, rinse & repeat...it's getting kinda boring in the long run.
It's still an ok drama to watch, especially while having dinner, so that if what she's having is better than what you're having, you can let your imagination roam free, LOL...but also the opposite can be a nice thing, LOL - when what you're having is better than what she's having! - and that's happened to me quite often during this third season (I hope you'll forgive my food chauvinism...I am Italian, after all, it's like the national pastime! ^___^;;;;;....)
(Talking of which, a heartfelt warning to my countrymates: for your own good - and mental sanity - maybe you'll wanna skip the first half of the 4th episode, as what they do to our beloved pasta in those few minutes is bound to give you nightmares! O___o I won't go into details, but I'll tell you this: MAYONNAISE! ...'nuff said! >______<)

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Poor script + too much focus on unappealing characters

I was drawn in by the first episode, which was by far the best, and by my love for choral stories, focused around a large group of characters. And indeed, the parts I really liked were the ones regarding the different families leaving on this Mayang Street, their daily lives and struggles, etc.

Too bad, after a few episodes, the focus started shifting, slowly but surely, to the relationship between Tan Songyun's and Xu Wei Zhou's characters, and that deeply annoyed me for a coupla reasons: first and foremost, their characters are, imho, really unappealing (particularly the guy, whom the writer tried waaaay too hard to make us like with huge doses of lazy writing - how many times do they show us some Mayang Street person getting in trouble, only to have him/her so conveniently saved at the last moment by Xu Wei Zhou's "Deus ex machina" character? - a character whom I really despised BTW - such a selfish person, sacrificing others and their feelings only because he wanted to be an undercover cop - and then again, had it been so as to stop some terrorists or other types of reeeeally dangerous criminals, I might still have had some sympathy for him...but no, all that just to stop a bunch of *smugglers*...how can that be even remotely worthy of provoking his own granny's death and bringing grief to everybody else around him?!? Sorry, but I don't get it...). Secondly, I have the feeling that those actors are the weakest ones in the cast (please note I haven't watched anything else with them, so it may very well be that thy're not so bad and my impression just depends on the poor script and on the director's orders, who knows...but judging solely on what they showed here, I'll have to borrow a deliciously caustic definition the brilliant Youtuber "AvenueX" used for other actors and say that "one's a vegetal, the other one's a mineral". The former has the expressivity of a plant (always with that annoyingly faint smile or a faintly sad expression - in both cases veeeeeery faint, almost imperceptible...it gave me the feeling someone's scared of getting wrinkles otherwise, URGH), the latter as expressive as a rock (dude, poker might be a better career option than cinematography, seriously). They're both good looking, I'll give 'em that. But good *acting* is something else, in my book. Like, something else *entirely*.

Another huge fault of this dorama is, as I briefly mentioned earlier on, the poor script: inconsistent, incoherent, cheesy, lazy. Always taking the easy way out, always giving me the strong impression the writer couldn't care less for *conveying* messages but rather chose to *force feed* them down the viewers' throats. It was really hard, for someone like me who can't stand poor writing, to keep on watching it till the end, seriously. I think I should have trusted the gut feeling I had while watching those überbland opening credits and steered away from this.

Anyway, the only redeeming points (and the reasons why, a) I kept on watching after all, and, b) I don't give it a lower grade) are, firstly, that the rest of the cast did a pretty decent job (particularly considering the poor material they had to work with!) - and here I want to give honorable mentions to Niu Jun Feng and Li Mu Ran: such nice characters, and so nicely played, that they had me smiling inside every time they were on camera; secondly, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this review, the choral parts of the script weren't bad after all, so those kept me hooked enough that I wanted to see what would happen to the other characters; thirdly, after the (again, imho) total yawnfest of the middle part of the dorama, I kinda enjoyed the last few episodes (the ones after the time skip - those that most other MDLers seem not to have enjoyed, BTW) that brought some closure and - as far as I'm concerned - what I'd define a "happy" ending (given how much I disliked Xu Wei Zhou's character, the fact that he was finally removed from the picture felt like a happy ening to me, what can I say...^_^;...had that character been totally expunged from the series - and had they chosen another actress for the FL's role - I might've liked this much, much more.

As is, nevertheless, the passing grade is beyond reach of this drama, imho. 5/10

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As good as the 1st season ^___-

I'm normally a bit wary of Specials and sequels, as in my experience I've noticed, time and again, how these unfortunately tend to be not as good as the original stories. Every rule has its exceptions, though, and I couldn't help being very favorably impressed by this "Yuru Camp SP", where I found all the things that made me love the original drama in the first place: a lovely cast of good-looking and talented actresses (just as for the drama, my special mentions go to Fukuhara Haruka, Tanabe Momoko and Ohara Yuno), the beautiful scenery, the relaxing atmosphere. Can't wait to watch the 2nd season now! ^__-

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Nice lil' dorama that shines due to a pretty well-written script, some endearing characters and some great acting by Morikawa Aoi (no surprise here, she's been nothing less than brilliant in everything I've seen her in so far), Takahashi Issei and Hizuki Hana (too bad her filmography is so limited!). An über-simple premise and a minimalistic approach work just fine. The only reasons why I don't give it a ful 10/10 are: 1) there are two minor characters (the richo brat and the tranny) who are totally useless here and imho feel like totally alien presences in this story; 2) the landlady's character isn't fully developed and that's a pity imho.

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Despite my partly Russian soul, I'll confess not being a big fan of ballet (my Italian side wins there, what with my love for Verdi and more generally for opera, as cliché as that will sound, LOL!). I was therefore quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this "Company"!
The story starts a bit slowly, in all fairness, but then from midway on it keeps getting better and more interesting.
The cast did a pretty good job, although some were better than others (with honorable mentions for Kuroki Hitomi, Kurashina Kana and my beloved Fujitani Riko - too bad her role is so small!!! T_____T).
The music was very good and the rest of the "packaging" also of high quality.
With a slightly different ending (* SPOILER BELOW) I would've given this an even better grade, It's still a very solid 8 in my book! ^____-

(*) SPOILER: I really didn't like the ML's wife and I was so shipping him with Oda's character, with whom I think there was a really great chemistry!!!

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Being quite a big fan of Classical Music, it was of course with pretty high expectations that I started watching this "Sayonara Maestro - Chichi to Watashi no Appassionato".
I'm glad to be able to say that I really liked it, although the ending was a bit of a let down, honestly. More on that in a jiff.
The script was pretty good, the cast simply great (honorable mentions for Nishijima, Ashida and Nishida), and the music of course lovely (though the pieces selection got worse towards the ending, as far as my taste goes). The setting is beautiful and the production value top-notch.
So why didn't I give this a perfect 10? SPOILERS AHEAD, stop reading now if you wanna avoid those.
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The series had been, up to the very end, a beautiful and very inspired story of how a broken family could repair itself through mutual understanding and selflessness. Therefore, the ending felt such a terrible let down!!! After the beautiful letter sent by the ML's mentor from his dying bed (in which the old man basically told his pupil to cherish his loved ones and put them before everything else!), the "ML goes back to Europe to pursue his career" ending felt *completely* out of place!!! >________<
If I had written this, my ending would've been as follows:
They gather for their last concert in the contest. The major is moved to tears by his daughter's performance, and later (through some fast flashbacks) explains why he had so fiercely opposed the orchestra: his wife's death had been caused by her passion for music (it could've been anything, seriously...like for example, that she got run over by a car while crossing the street in a hurry so as not to be late to a concert...). But now he understand he's been wrong the whole time, and to make himself forgiven he decides to start supporting the orchestra, which can therefore go on without disbanding. As for the ML, he chooses to stay with his family (the wife going back with them too) precisely because of his mentor's letter. And as for the ML's agent, he can go back to Austria and who knows, maybe become Conchita Wurst's agent instead. So everybody lived happily ever after! ^____-

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Every now and then, let down by the current trend of J-dramas, more and more "americanized" or "koreanized" imho, it feels good to jump on a time machine and watch some "oldie-but goldie" from the Golden Era of Japanese Drama.
It's been the case with this "Utsukushii Hito", which until the very end I thought I was gonna rate as a perfect 10 and include in my "Top of the Crop" custom list...but then came an ending I really didn't like.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, so jump the next paragraph entirely if you wanna avoid those! ^___-

Now, despite having been an avid J-drama fan for quite a long time (next year it's gonna be twenty years since my first J-drama!), I must confess not liking the way villains are treated by most Japanese scriptwriters. Look, I'm not saying that villains shouldn't be bad - that would be asking the impossible, LOL - but what I'm saying is just that if you have a villain poisoning everybody else's life throughout the whole series, killing, battering, abusing, deceiving, etc.....then I don't want said villain to get away with a metaphorical slap on the hand. I don't want them to be pitied by bleeding hearts, psychanalyzed, understood. And I certainly don't want them to get a completely undeserved happy ending (as was the case here!!!) while the good guys get a bittersweet (more the former than the latter, actually) ending. I want such villains to get punished, to get a gruesome death if possible, or at least a life-long harsh punishment (like, I could have been OK with this villain getting thrown in a cell together with "Bubba, the 7-ft tall, 300-lbs serial gay raper", who would've made his sorry @ss repent day in and day out! I suppose I'm more Chinese than Japanese in that aspect (I'm thinking for example of the classical Chinese detective stories - like those about the überfamous Judge Dee - whose last chapter is alway dedicated to describe in quite gruesome terms the killers' punishments! ^___-). OK, END OF THE SPOILERS. ^___-

Apart from the aforementioned ending, the script is very good. The acting superb. The OST marvelous. This could've been a perfect 10, seriously....but it's still a very solid 8 in my book! ^___-

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A premise: I haven't watched the anime version of this "Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san" aka "Teasing Master Takagi-san" (I did read a few chapters of the original manga, but didn't find it that interesting, though), so my point of view is perhaps different than that of the anime's fans.
Still, I can say I pretty much enjoyed this drama, thanks to its relaxing, almost-iyashikei overall atmosphere, to its clean script and to the extremely beautiful setting!
As for the leads, they're both very, very young and there's still a lot of room for improvement of course (I did find the FL the better half of the pair, personally).
Looking forward to watching the sequel!!! 8/10

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I had really enjoyed the two seasons plus SP of "Yuru Camp", and I honestly expected this to be, like, the more mature version of that one. But it was quite the let down, as far as I'm concerned.
First things first, what I liked: namely, the settings (that goes without saying!), the OST, the cast (both leads did a good job).
Alas, the script was the weak point of this drama, in my humble opinion.
With this kind of episodic structure, it was to be expected that some episodes were going to be better than others, but it honestly was worse than expected. I think the biggest problem lies with the FL character having been written that way (as a mostly grumpy and not-so-kind person, wary of others - particularly when they're males. I found that quite offensive, sorry).

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If you, like me, love comedy, and even more so *Japanese* comedy (owarai), for its peculiar flavor and its many facets (manzai, konto, oogiri, etc. etc.), then you too might find this "Beshari Gurashi" aka "The Kings of Laughter" particularly interesting.
A word to the wise, though: don't expect this series to be only comedy, there's quite a bit of drama mixed in there (definitely more than I expected, in all fairness - more on that in a jiff), as we could sum this up a glance behind the scene of the geinin/owarai world.
The cast did a pretty good job indeed, the "packaging" / production value and the music are also of quite high quality levels, and the script is very well written, portraying the harsh reality of the comedians' (geinin) lives, and the sweat and tears hidden behind those laughs. I would've honestly given this an even higher grade, weren't it for the fact that I personally found one of the dramatic moments, well...waaay too dramatic - it was honestly like a punch in the stomach!!! >_______<
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SPOILER AHEAD
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(I'm referring to the ending of the fifth episode)

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I had actually started watching this "Amachan" many years ago, drawn in by my interest for Tohoku and by my love for the sound of their dialect. I also liked the juxtaposition between the city (which I don't care for much, in all fairness), and the village community. When, halfway through the series, the main character decided to go back to the city to pursue a career as an "idol", I lost interest and dropped it.
After a few years, having myself become a bit of a fan of a coupla idol groups (namely, Keyakizaka and its offsprings Hinatazaka and Sakuraza), I went back and decided to give this "Amachan" another chance, as now I knew I could enjoy more than before its second half.
All in all, there are a few nice scenes here and there in this asadora, but also a lot of "meh" moments, therefore I'd totally say this work doesn't belong, alas, to the better ones originated from Kudo Kankoru's pen, It's my humble opinion that the writer was a bit out of his depth here - but then again, to write an asadora is an herculean task (tantamount to writing 26, yep, TWENTY-SIX movies with the same characters to be aired in a 26 weeks time-span - indeed, not a feat every writer can accomplish!) so I can't actually blame him too much!
The cast also gave mixed performances, with Koizumi Kyoko being the best of the lot imho.
The music was pretty good but also terribly repetitive (basically, one song repeated over and over, plus a coupla sidetracks).
A decent production value completes the package. It would be more of a 6.5, but since I don't use decimals, I'll round that up to 7. An OK watch, but no masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned.

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