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arashi_onHope everybody enjoying being 30! Its Ohno's birthday and he said we are all awesome to be 30 like him :)
I found this article by Philip Brasor about Freeter. Since there's no unlocked Freeter community, hope we'll have a free discussion about the drama here. SPOILERS in the article and discussion, so you have been warned.
That may sound strange since Japanese people have always maintained that they are a uniformly middle class society. The poor, of course, exist, but traditionally they were hidden away; and it was considered bad form for the rich to flaunt their wealth. The bubble era and the subsequent lost decade brought class distinctions out into the open. Rich people are now profiled on variety shows while the growing ranks of people living on the margins have become the subjects of searching, portentous NHK documentaries. In between, the middle class is wondering what happened to its bright future.
This idea provides the real-life ballast for Fuji TV's drama series "Freeter, Ie wo Kau" ("A Part-time Worker Buys a House"; Tues., 9 p.m.), which is based on a novel by Hiro Arikawa. Focusing on Seiji Take (Kazunari Ninomiya), a recent college graduate who heedlessly quits his full-time office job after only three months, the story taps into widespread anxiety over the current employment situation but the dramatic component has less to do with economic hardship than with the fragile bonds that hold a family together.
Seiji's home life appears to be stereotypically middle class and comfortable. His father, Seiichi (Naoto Takenaka), is an accountant at a medium-size company. His mother, Sumiko (Atsuko Asano), is a full-time homemaker. They live in a nice two-story house in a toney suburb. Seiji also has an older sister who has married very well.
But the Takes are not happy. The mother suffers from a debilitating depression, which her husband blames on Seiji's willfulness and failure to secure respectable employment, despite the fact that Seiji is the only family member who sees to his mother's special needs. Seiichi downplays his wife's condition as simply a "weak spirit," but Seiji eventually comes to realize that she is the victim of years of ostracism and even outright persecution by their neighbors. It turns out the Takes don't own that nice home. It is actually owned by Seiichi's company, which rents it out to him for ¥50,000 a month. When the family moved into the neighborhood, Seiichi even bragged about this arrangement, inviting resentment from his richer neighbors, who immediately saw the Takes as living above their station.
Seiji doesn't find this out until his mother has reached an almost catatonic state of self-hatred. A dissolute boy by nature who wears a different rock-band T-shirt every day and has never "had a dream," Seiji realizes he's been living a lie. He's not quite as middle class as he thought. When a psychiatrist informs him that the only real cure for his mother is a "change of environment," Seiji tells his father they have to move, but Seiichi refuses and the young man makes a resolution: He will buy a house for his mother.
This domestic melodrama is only half the story. The other half involves Seiji's position as a "freeter" — a part-time worker who flits from job to job. While trying to secure a regular full-time job through an employment service, he works for a public works subcontractor. At first he looks down on the job, believing he will soon find work worthy of his talents (which he later realizes he doesn't possess), but the satisfaction of accomplishing something with his hands and the practical attitudes of his coworkers turn him around.
Either of these two plot lines would make for a serviceable didactic drama, but the intersection of the two through the agency of home ownership brings up some potentially interesting possibilities. We're almost halfway through the 13-part series, but it's obvious from the title that Seiji will remain a part-time worker and will try to buy a house. His father has already dismissed the notion by telling him that no one is going to approve a loan for a freeter, and though his rant was included to emphasize what a killjoy Seiichi is (thus setting him up for maximum redemption when he changes his mind later, no doubt), he has a point. What bank would sign off on a mortgage for someone who, by definition, isn't guaranteed future income?
No doubt, Arikawa found some way around this problem in her novel, but the dramatic appeal of the story relies too much on hackneyed class distinctions. The salt of the earth with whom Seiji toils on the road construction crew are uncomplicated, while the middle class characters have become so twisted by the effort to hold their ground that they come off as monsters. This idea would be more compelling if the reasons for their behavior had to do with straitened economic circumstances, but they have no money worries. They've simply lost their souls.
Seiji won't become a monster because his reason for buying a house is pure. He wants to do it to save his mother. He's not out to join a club. If his desires were more selfish, the story would probably address the specific financial obstacles in his way more directly; but as it stands "Freeter" adheres to the fiction trope that anyone with pluck and determination can fulfill his dreams, and it's clear that it is Seiji's lack of a "dream" that has held him back so far, not external economic circumstances. In the universe of Japanese TV dramas, nobility of purpose always wins, but if Seiji buys that house the series will turn from a socially relevant soap opera into science fiction.
----------------
So what do you guys think about the drama so far?
I found this article by Philip Brasor about Freeter. Since there's no unlocked Freeter community, hope we'll have a free discussion about the drama here. SPOILERS in the article and discussion, so you have been warned.
'Freeter' drama reflects Japan's income gap
The American media keeps wondering whether or not the United States will have to endure a "lost decade" of sluggish growth and stagnant employment like the one Japan suffered through after the real-estate bubble burst in the early 1990s. It seems unlikely. The American economy is dynamic while Japan's has always been passive and reactive. Nevertheless, the so-called American dream is likely a thing of the past. The gap between the rich and everyone else is growing by the minute, and in that sense Japan is an appropriate example.That may sound strange since Japanese people have always maintained that they are a uniformly middle class society. The poor, of course, exist, but traditionally they were hidden away; and it was considered bad form for the rich to flaunt their wealth. The bubble era and the subsequent lost decade brought class distinctions out into the open. Rich people are now profiled on variety shows while the growing ranks of people living on the margins have become the subjects of searching, portentous NHK documentaries. In between, the middle class is wondering what happened to its bright future.
This idea provides the real-life ballast for Fuji TV's drama series "Freeter, Ie wo Kau" ("A Part-time Worker Buys a House"; Tues., 9 p.m.), which is based on a novel by Hiro Arikawa. Focusing on Seiji Take (Kazunari Ninomiya), a recent college graduate who heedlessly quits his full-time office job after only three months, the story taps into widespread anxiety over the current employment situation but the dramatic component has less to do with economic hardship than with the fragile bonds that hold a family together.
Seiji's home life appears to be stereotypically middle class and comfortable. His father, Seiichi (Naoto Takenaka), is an accountant at a medium-size company. His mother, Sumiko (Atsuko Asano), is a full-time homemaker. They live in a nice two-story house in a toney suburb. Seiji also has an older sister who has married very well.
But the Takes are not happy. The mother suffers from a debilitating depression, which her husband blames on Seiji's willfulness and failure to secure respectable employment, despite the fact that Seiji is the only family member who sees to his mother's special needs. Seiichi downplays his wife's condition as simply a "weak spirit," but Seiji eventually comes to realize that she is the victim of years of ostracism and even outright persecution by their neighbors. It turns out the Takes don't own that nice home. It is actually owned by Seiichi's company, which rents it out to him for ¥50,000 a month. When the family moved into the neighborhood, Seiichi even bragged about this arrangement, inviting resentment from his richer neighbors, who immediately saw the Takes as living above their station.
Seiji doesn't find this out until his mother has reached an almost catatonic state of self-hatred. A dissolute boy by nature who wears a different rock-band T-shirt every day and has never "had a dream," Seiji realizes he's been living a lie. He's not quite as middle class as he thought. When a psychiatrist informs him that the only real cure for his mother is a "change of environment," Seiji tells his father they have to move, but Seiichi refuses and the young man makes a resolution: He will buy a house for his mother.
This domestic melodrama is only half the story. The other half involves Seiji's position as a "freeter" — a part-time worker who flits from job to job. While trying to secure a regular full-time job through an employment service, he works for a public works subcontractor. At first he looks down on the job, believing he will soon find work worthy of his talents (which he later realizes he doesn't possess), but the satisfaction of accomplishing something with his hands and the practical attitudes of his coworkers turn him around.
Either of these two plot lines would make for a serviceable didactic drama, but the intersection of the two through the agency of home ownership brings up some potentially interesting possibilities. We're almost halfway through the 13-part series, but it's obvious from the title that Seiji will remain a part-time worker and will try to buy a house. His father has already dismissed the notion by telling him that no one is going to approve a loan for a freeter, and though his rant was included to emphasize what a killjoy Seiichi is (thus setting him up for maximum redemption when he changes his mind later, no doubt), he has a point. What bank would sign off on a mortgage for someone who, by definition, isn't guaranteed future income?
No doubt, Arikawa found some way around this problem in her novel, but the dramatic appeal of the story relies too much on hackneyed class distinctions. The salt of the earth with whom Seiji toils on the road construction crew are uncomplicated, while the middle class characters have become so twisted by the effort to hold their ground that they come off as monsters. This idea would be more compelling if the reasons for their behavior had to do with straitened economic circumstances, but they have no money worries. They've simply lost their souls.
Seiji won't become a monster because his reason for buying a house is pure. He wants to do it to save his mother. He's not out to join a club. If his desires were more selfish, the story would probably address the specific financial obstacles in his way more directly; but as it stands "Freeter" adheres to the fiction trope that anyone with pluck and determination can fulfill his dreams, and it's clear that it is Seiji's lack of a "dream" that has held him back so far, not external economic circumstances. In the universe of Japanese TV dramas, nobility of purpose always wins, but if Seiji buys that house the series will turn from a socially relevant soap opera into science fiction.
----------------
So what do you guys think about the drama so far?
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-28 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-29 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 04:42 am (UTC)It has been a long time since the TV stations tackled an issue so close to what's happening in present day society / economy.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 04:46 am (UTC)If I were to look at this drama from a critical perspective I think the focus should really be on the issue of mental illness. The fact that they see it as acceptable to portray depression the way they have should be a good indicator of the general misconceptions that exist in Japan regarding mental illness and the fact that Seiji is so over-whelmed due to the responsibility he now bears to care for his mother suggests at least an acknowledgement of the difficulties faced by families in these situations. This is very much a social drama, that looks to the social implications of income, the economy and social class.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 05:22 am (UTC)Hey, I'm not belittling any of the things he said nor laughing at the observations he noted regarding the socio-economic status of the people over there. neither am i discounting of the comments stated above.
It's simply because I find most of what he said partially true with regards to owning a house. Seiji (the way he is now) owning a house would turn that drama into a science fiction' is 100% correct.<<< this got me.. LOL
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 07:25 am (UTC)LOL XD
Actually, this tells me that the author is pretty attuned to Japanese TV and what TV in general is supposed to do.
I think he's just choosing to focus on one aspect of the drama that not many other people would normally consider (in this case, economics), and I think he does a pretty good job with it.
The only beef I have with this article is the reason behind the neighbors' animosity. Personally, I got the feeling that they all hated the Take's because their low rent meant that they wouldn't have to scrimp and save to pay it like everyone else. I mean, if I saved up and bought something for $100, then realized that someone else bought it for $50, I'd be mad because that person now has $50 extra to spend on something else. I wouldn't be mad because they're buying "above their class". That argument just rings false to me.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 07:46 am (UTC)THIS
As for the writer himself, he always writes about Japanese entertainment
like he got a stick stuck up hi..with an "interesting" view. I guess it's just his writing style. He has his points but it made me want to disagree with him. I want Seiji to buy that house at the end of the story no matter how.no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 08:14 pm (UTC)like he got a stick stuck up hi..Haha, I dunno but I never got this feeling from the writer.
Maybe it's because I study literature, and all literary criticism reads like this. Writers stipulate an argument and then they try to find textual support. It doesn't mean they're suggesting that the text (or drama, in this case) would be "better" if it was changed to fit their argument.
In this case, my sense is that the author is arguing that the drama doesn't try to make economic hardship "realistic"...which, from the examples he gives, is true. He's also saying that "if the ending comes out like this, it would support this particular argument". This doesn't mean he's saying, "I want the ending to come out like this because that would make it an awesome drama!"
lol I guess that's why I don't see him as antagonistic or anal or whatever.
(Also, I think it's pretty easy to weaken his argument by giving counter-examples from the drama XD)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-28 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 08:04 am (UTC)I would definitely recommend this drama to everyone!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 09:22 am (UTC)lol exactly
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 08:36 am (UTC)arnd the 2nd or 3rd ep i started to think this drama is not just talking abt freeter and the mental illness. but also about family problems and the society. everything is linked to reality.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 09:49 am (UTC)despite it being a social drama but if it gets too depressing and straight-out, it will probably turn viewers off if any of them or anyone they know are conscious of making the same mistakes. people dislike having the harsh reality thrown straight in their face and moreover the japanese are considered more conservative and sensitive, it's good if the drama just address the margin of each purpose and at the same time bring awareness and give people the courage to persevere or change, in which i think it's doing a pretty good job of that so far.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 10:21 am (UTC)thank you for the spoiler anyway!:D
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 12:35 pm (UTC)thanks for sharing this article!!:D
no subject
Date: 2010-12-23 04:36 am (UTC)I thought just like @flashylicious's. I love watching japanese drama, but recently found most of it're a bit too soapy, fantasy or weren't based on reality, soooo... nahh..bit boring.
Freeter's interesting in it's plot. Good to know japan's culture and social reality through the drama. But yeah, I know it'll ended too good for being a drama, not real life though xD
no subject
Date: 2010-12-25 06:32 pm (UTC)