Shinryochu ~In the Room~ final impressions

And I am done with another drama finally. Since I have been extra busy with work the past couple of weeks I had not had the time I expected to have to get through this one as quickly as I wanted but at least now I am done and can move on.

Near the end the drama actually started to get good, probably because things became less vague and there were understandable answers to why certain characters acted the way they did. I still think they over did it with some of them so the resolutions did not come off as very natural.

Of course when I say resolution I mean getting to the place where things ended. Many of the cases would have a session and not really give any indication it was the final one. The patients saying that they did not want to come back did not work as that was said earlier in the series and they would still come back and plenty of them came off as still feeling like there was more to be explored in their matters.

I have to say that I was impressed with Tanaka Juri in this. It was hard to tell what his acting skill level was in Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou or Sprout but he really does seem to have talent going by his performance in this series. I hope he gets more roles in the future, especially bigger ones that will help show what skills he has.

My favorite episodes ended up being the last two as they only focused on two plot lines, Ryo's personal life and what was going on with Tanaka Shun (Takada Sho). And I think if the series did not jump around as much as it did and instead did this kind of focus for the other plots it would have come off better. I can understand why they did not go that way but I think the story telling suffered as a result.

I honestly did not like the plot with Tenma Ryo (Inagaki Goro) and his wife Kanae (Sakai Miki) until the end when the big revelation about it happened. And it was because Kanae just seemed all over the place until that missing piece of the puzzle was laid out and then that behavior made sense. Though I think it would have been much better for it to be hinted at a bit more in ways a viewer would get early on in the series would have made it stronger. Looking back they did seem to be trying for that later on but it came off as too little too late.

So over all I still find it a weird drama. It just was all over the place in the beginning and only seemed to start making sense at the end once it dropped most of the plot lines it had running. Maybe I would like it better with a second viewing as I would have an idea of what was going on but I do not feel compelled to do so at all.


At this point I doubt I am going to catch up in time to watch Kamen Teacher before it finishes airing so instead there will be a blast from the past as I finally finish up Scrap Teacher, years after I hit the midway point for it. It is one of those dramas that never got finished being subtitled so I will have to finish it off without those to help, but it was a rather simple drama from what I can recall so I am not too worried. But before that it will be the Ataru SP, which I hope to watch and review within the week.