I was watching Music Station the other day, and found out that one of the artistes was singing the theme song for a drama with Ninomiya Kazunari (二宮和也). For those not familiar with Japanese pop, he is one of the members from Arashi (嵐). Well if that still doesn’t help, you should have at least heard of the war movie Letters from Iwo Jima right? Ninomiya starred in that film as one of the main protagonists Saigo, a reluctant soldier called up to serve in the Japanese army at a time Japan was losing the War. It was one of the more memorable films I watched in my life, not least because of Ninomiya’s convincing acting, but also due to the perspective of the entire film straying away from the stereotypical Japanese soldier as fervent 
loyal subjects to the Emperor, exposing the humanity of the individuals who did not always adhered to the cultural values of the day but had real struggles of family, life. I highly recommend anyone interested to watch the film, although the 3 hour (from what I remembered) length maybe a drag to some.
History aside, I began to watch this drama called フリーター、家を買う (Part-time worker, buys a house)and boy oh boy, was it so relevant to Singapore society and in some sense myself too. Basically, the drama is about Take Seiji, a 25 year old dude who, according to himself, went to a so-so high school, graduated from a so-so university, got employed in a so-so electrical company, having a so-so father, mother and sister, and living a so-so life.
The series unfolds as he works as a freeter (フリーター; pronounced as furiitaa) in a construction company and faces the challenge of having a mentally ill mother who collapsed emotionally and became clinically depressed under the weight of guilt. In order to bring about the dawn of that day ‘when a smile will return to her mother’s face’, Seiji decided the best thing to do for her was to buy a new house, moving out of the neighbourhood which was the source of her mum’s depression due to bullying by other housewives.
What emerges from this drama is a series of subtle or overt statements of social critique on some of the norms in the highly-conformist Japanese (and Singapore, no?) society, especially the discrimination against those who are blue-collar workers and tho
se who suffer mental problems. Prejudices were gradually replaced by respect and acceptance as the audience is drawn to the courage and inner strength of those discriminated against. What attracted me to this series was the genuine human touch added to almost each of the main characters, we see and do identify with them on their vulnerabilities, anguish and hurts. The series is still showing, currently at the 8th episode with 2 more to go.
What has impressed me thus far is the rigour with which the writers behind the series has displayed in critiquing the elitist and judgemental nuances simmering within mainstream Japanese society. While the Japanese society is hierarchical, no doubt due to the Confucian tradition ingrained after centuries of Samurai rule (I learnt this from my Japanese exposure module), the media is freed up from the control of the state and is free in its exploration (now this aspect I think, is brought about after the American occupation).
Think about this – will Mediacorp produce a drama focusing on the solidarity of construction workers and elevating their status in society? Well, I agree I’m stretching it a bit too far, considering how our government regards them as workers only to meet the short term needs of the economy, ready to be repatriated in times of downturn. I have to also bear in mind that the workers in the series were Japanese, and I did not see any foreigners as well, and I have read before that foreigners also endure a marginal existence there.
But I suppose the focus of the drama is more narrow, dealing with how native Japanese regard each other, and in that regard, it has done a pretty good job (something which Singapore can do more). To me, it seems that the only times you see overt social critique in Singapore media is through Jack Neo’s films like Money not Enough or I Not Stupid? I maybe wrong, considering the fact that I have distanced myself from local made dramas, but I do suspect that the content of the dramas we see on national TV have been censored to avoid any references of social criticism, which will somehow be associated with the state. Such perhaps is the result of how tightly bound up our mainstream media is with the governing institutions.
I will touch on more of my thoughts of this drama in the following posts, but before I end off this post, let me present the trailer for this drama just for anyone interested to get a flavour of this series:
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