A Sense Of Dissonance At the Chimu-Dondon Production Side

The “#Chimudondon Review Party” is gaining momentum.

The NHK TV series “Chimu-Dondon” has been receiving a lot of criticism despite the excitement, with tweets tagged with “#Chimu-Dondon Review Meeting ” being actively posted on SNS on a daily basis.

With the world in the midst of a wearying world due to the economic downturn and Corona disaster, dramas tend to favor a “world without bad guys,” and related articles generally favor more positive ones such as frying and criticism, while this work has been met with “What’s going on?” However, we often hear reporters and editors saying, “I don’t know what to do?”

“The ‘Chimu-Dondon’ is a cheerful morning drama, and it is not as particularly bad as people say though morning dramas used to be like this. But in recent years, viewers have become more discerning, and more unfortunately, it comes after the elaborately produced ‘Come Come Everybody’ so it was compared.” says an entertainment magazine editor.

A reporter for a sports newspaper also chuckled.

“There are a lot of articles on the Internet that pick up on the SNS reflection, but it is meaningless if all the media do it in the same way. Besides, it’s something we watch every morning, so I’m sure many of us want to enjoy it as much as possible. I try to find the best parts as much as possible and deliver positive articles with a supportive stance, but even so, there are so many different developments that it is indeed difficult to know where and how to praise them.”

Still, does the unpopularity of the “anti-revision” stories that are talked about daily not reach the performers and creators? In response to this question, an NHK official said:

“Of course not. We are aware of the content of the responses such as in SNS. Sometimes, we have a separate department that informs the production staff about the viewer response. However, since the filming of morning dramas is already well into the future, it is difficult for us to directly reflect viewer feedback in the content of our productions.”

“Corrections” and “supplements” added in the special edition

As a “breakthrough” for the poor performance, “Chimu-Dondon Special Edition” was aired over two nights on June 21 and 22, featuring “Part 1: The Girl with the Shikuwasa” and “Part 2: Farewell Okinawa Soba.” In this work, which has received many glowing reviews, this was a look back at the cute childhood days of the first and second weeks of the show, which many viewers fondly remember. This was probably intended to remind many viewers of their “Chimu-Dondon” days and to attract those who had not yet seen the show.

However, a narration was added to the film that was not depicted in the main story. After the sudden death of Kenzo, the father of the Higa family, played by Nao Omori, the family held a meeting after his funeral, and the narration by Yuina Kuroshima, who plays the heroine Nobuko, added that the sugarcane fields had been sold to pay off the debt.

In addition, this broadcast, in which Nobuko invented “ikasumi pasta” using ikasumi juice as a hint, received criticism from many viewers, but in the Saturday compilation broadcast on June 18, ikasumi was not served at Fontana because it looks a little too much. John Kabira’s narration supplemented the story. Based on the part where the viewers disagree, the narration of the general compilation “corrected” or “supplemented” the story.

This has led to some positive comments on SNS, such as “the compilation is easier to watch” and “it’s something you can understand if you watch the main story, but they went to the trouble of adding it in the compilation because some people said it was hard to understand,” while there is more criticism, such as “the parts that don’t add up are tampered in the compilation?” Some of the criticisms include, “If you only look at the compilation, you will see that it is a compilation. Some have even said, “So we only need to see the compilation.” 

A reporter for a TV magazine said, “The actors are all a little bit different from the rest of the cast.”

“The actors are all doing their best to make the show as exciting as possible, but I think that the rough script and direction do not match up well with the actors’ enthusiasm.”

“For example, when Ryusei Ryo, who plays Kenshu, appeared on ‘Asaichi’ the other day, he said that he would keep ad-libbing until the cut was made, and in ‘Kuroshima Radio’ on the official website, Mr. Kuroshima talked about Ryusei Ryo’s ad-libbing. He told Ishikawa (Hiroki Yamada) that he was a ‘good brother’ and ‘I won’t forgive you if you make my cute little sister cry!’ When I consider that these inconsistencies may also be due to the fact that the script and direction are rough and there is a lot of ad-libbing, I see what I am getting at…”

A sense of disquiet is spreading on the production side as well.

Incidentally, there seems to be a sense of disquiet among the producers as well.

“When I interviewed a person involved in the production, I was surprised at the tense atmosphere from start to finish, with comments such as, ‘That’s not for me to say,’ ‘That’s what (name can’t say) is thinking,’ and ‘That’s what is written on the website,’ etc.” (Editor, entertainment magazine mentioned above)

 

So far, it has been difficult to gain sympathy for the main character, and the number of harsh comments about the work has been increasing. However, we hope that with a little less than half a year to go, this evaluation will be reversed, and the film will eventually end up being a work that makes you feel good every morning, and you will be emotionally invested in one of the main characters.