Search
Close this search box.

Stop scrolling. Put on The Makanai . Turn the volume up for the sound of the oil splashing in the tempura pot. That is the sound of the best television you aren’t watching yet.

Welcome to the review: Japan’s golden age of television is now, and you’re not watching it yet. Unlike the 16-episode marathon of a K-drama or the 22-episode slog of an American network show, the standard J-Drama runs for a lean 9 to 11 episodes . Each episode is a tight 45 minutes. This brevity forces a discipline that American television has forgotten: no filler.

Grade: A Imagine Homeland directed by Akira Kurosawa. VIVANT starts as a corporate fraud drama, morphs into a desert survival thriller by episode 2, and by episode 4, you are watching a Central Asian civil war. It is insane, expensive, and the most ambitious Japanese television production ever made. The acting is operatic; the plot holes are forgiven because the energy is unmatched.