"Shokuzai" first appears to have everything a Kurosawa fan would hope for, yet fails miserably to hold any lasting emotional or intellectual value due to extremely poor and formulaic writing.
As a study in film making, I would rate it at least 8/10 for something so low budget. The camera shots bring me back to the early Kurosawa days, slow and contemplative so much as to make any fan rejoice. Kurosawa's usage of sound and odd atmospheric background tracks are another stand out trademark of his that no fan will fail to appreciate in "Shokuzai". The first couple of episodes are such a treat in this sense that it's easy to miss what blunders the story suffers at first.
The core problem with "Shokuzai" is with it's writing, where character actions and convictions are vastly unconvincing, and the problems they suffer are so obviously curable it makes you nearly scream. "Shokuzai" treats childish and illogically perceived problems as absolute truths with no answer, then expects the viewer to feel sorry for it's characters who we are supposed helpless victims.
The characters fail to use any kind of logic, and the entire script bleeds of missed conversational opportunities. Worse is the repeated idea of one's "shokuzai" or "atonement" that every character is obsessed with, so much that one is locked up in a mental ward while another commits murder. Whether or not the book does a better job of showing us why this "shokuzai" is such an important part of these girl's lives is unknown to me, but these episodes take something that seems almost trivial, and tries to make it out as the main plot device.
Indeed, the problems that the characters face in "Shokuzai" would never be relevant on TV or in a novel outside of Japan. However, the idea that all Japanese enjoy this kind of story telling, or that the issues the characters suffer from are always real problems in Japan is simply untrue.
Creating characters who are overcome by grand ideas, repeating illogical one liners, and plagued by overly conceptual thinking is pretentious and boring. It is never well received, and never critically acclaimed even in Japan. As even Kurosawa's earlier films suggest, there is a home for logic and free thinking in Japan, transcendent of stereotyping and cultural boundaries, "Shokuzai" however, is not it. Here we have a series that is a massive step backwards in story telling, handled "well" by a director who is capable of much more.
As a study in film making, I would rate it at least 8/10 for something so low budget. The camera shots bring me back to the early Kurosawa days, slow and contemplative so much as to make any fan rejoice. Kurosawa's usage of sound and odd atmospheric background tracks are another stand out trademark of his that no fan will fail to appreciate in "Shokuzai". The first couple of episodes are such a treat in this sense that it's easy to miss what blunders the story suffers at first.
The core problem with "Shokuzai" is with it's writing, where character actions and convictions are vastly unconvincing, and the problems they suffer are so obviously curable it makes you nearly scream. "Shokuzai" treats childish and illogically perceived problems as absolute truths with no answer, then expects the viewer to feel sorry for it's characters who we are supposed helpless victims.
The characters fail to use any kind of logic, and the entire script bleeds of missed conversational opportunities. Worse is the repeated idea of one's "shokuzai" or "atonement" that every character is obsessed with, so much that one is locked up in a mental ward while another commits murder. Whether or not the book does a better job of showing us why this "shokuzai" is such an important part of these girl's lives is unknown to me, but these episodes take something that seems almost trivial, and tries to make it out as the main plot device.
Indeed, the problems that the characters face in "Shokuzai" would never be relevant on TV or in a novel outside of Japan. However, the idea that all Japanese enjoy this kind of story telling, or that the issues the characters suffer from are always real problems in Japan is simply untrue.
Creating characters who are overcome by grand ideas, repeating illogical one liners, and plagued by overly conceptual thinking is pretentious and boring. It is never well received, and never critically acclaimed even in Japan. As even Kurosawa's earlier films suggest, there is a home for logic and free thinking in Japan, transcendent of stereotyping and cultural boundaries, "Shokuzai" however, is not it. Here we have a series that is a massive step backwards in story telling, handled "well" by a director who is capable of much more.