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Use the 5-minute Rule when Immersing — 14 Comments

  1. Good post! J dramas can be a great way to gain exposure to Japanese.

    I think, though, that you also have to be prepared that you may never really fall in love with a Japanese show. Coming from America, anyway, J shows are so much lower budget, and are often based on manga or anime (hence over the top). I’ve seen shows here that I like, but let me put it this way…if I weren’t studying Japanese, I’d spend my time doing or watching other things instead. That’s just me, though – everyone is different.

  2. Hm, I may look into this.

    One question though, do we buy these or do they play/air on a site somewhere? (To see if we like them.)

    Or if you do [b]have[/b] to buy them, is there a different way to watch them without purchasing, for people who don’t have too much money at the time? (or are cheap ha.)

  3. Do you know a site where I can watch dramas with either Japanese Subtitles or no subtitles at all. Most of the drama sites I see have the subtitles in English, they are very distracting because you find yourself paying more attention to the English instead of the Japanese.

  4. I agree mostly with this but, I have once watched a drama that took 15 minutes to start and it was one of my favorites.

  5. I don’t know about this. When I fist went to watch Hana Yori Dango I was just watching the first 5 minutes thinking “what the hell is this?! This is ridiculous” then I forced myself to watch a little further one day and I loved it.

    • You felt that way only in the first 5 minutes? Ha. It’s true though that some shows start off weird but get better. And the reverse (which feels way more common).

  6. Forgive my ignorance of Japanese entertainment, but is there another level of TV above the J-Drama? Or do they import the Mad Men/Breaking Bad type things from us? I have a hard time getting past the cheese factor :(.

      • I think they don’t throw around the same kind of budgets for TV like some of our better networks/studios do here in the US. I think that’s why many of the J-Dramas have that Lifetime/Hallmark original movie vibe as opposed to HBO :). That said, some of them are charming in their own way. I grudgingly loved Densha Otoko, as lame as i fell about that, and I’m digging Moteki a lot (thanks for the rec). If Rinko is in it, it’s going to have a cool factor.

        Any other tips for dramas that raise the bar and are good for ear training? I’m Moteki without subs, and I’m getting the main gist, but specifics are way over my head.

        • Too many too name (check out the j-drama guides) but my all time favorites are still IWGP, 結婚できない男, 派遣の品格 and more recently、リッチマンプアウーマン.

          I don’t think it’s necessarily the budget (though of course in some cases it is), but it really does come down to a culture difference. This really is one of those things that as you understand the culture better, you enjoy it significantly more.

          As long as you stay the current path, in a few years come back and you’ll notice the difference.

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