BAD BOYS J first episode impressions

I believe I remember being pretty excited for this drama. It had some of the same team as Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou working on it and the cast list looked promising to me with Nakajima Kento having his first go as the lead in a drama. After watching the first episode I am glad I did not watch it as it was airing or I would probably be much more disappointed than I was.

Though it is still a drama that is miles better than Sprout and definitely not confusing like Shinryochu ~in the room~ so it is easier to enjoy but I was just expecting much more from it. As mentioned though I learned that I should not have had my hopes so high before actually watching it, but still I wanted more from it than what I got with the first episode.

I feel sorry for Nakaken who got saddled with a character like Kiriki Tsukasa. Tsukasa is either a pathetic weakling or tough bad ass with almost nothing in between. In fact he comes off as potentially having a multiple personality disorder with how different and sudden the change is. For a "secretly a badass" character to work you have to get a sense the character knows that he can kick all the asses of those around him but for whatever reason chooses not to. This really does not seem to be a part of Tsukasa's character so far and if it never is then it is going to be hard to reconcile how he can be both a wimp and badass.

It was not all bad though as I did like the main Gokurakucho trio, Kawanaka Yoji (Fukusawa Tatsuya), Iwami Eiji (Iwamoto Hikaru) and Nakamura Misao (Watanabe Shota). They are the main bulk of the interesting parts of this episode and I would much rather watch a drama about those three without having Tsukasa around.

Of course there is still a lot of the cast that only got the briefest of introductions in this episode to look forward to. I am very happy to have Hashimoto Ryosuke in this, as he was the highlight of Sprout for me and I do want to see what he will do with a different kind of role. And the rest I am at least curious about so I do want to still watch this drama.


Since I have an idea of what I am getting into here I know not to hold my breath for it to get much better. Some of it sounds like fun though but I can see myself just putting on the fujoshi vision and pretending that this is really a story about Tsukasa and Yoji being secretly in love. Because it already feels like the two have more chemistry between them than Tsukasa and his love interest in the drama, Yoshimoto Kumi (Hashimoto Nanami).