Million Yen Women

It is very refreshing to watch something else than the standard kind of series we are used with. It is a different kind of storytelling in a different culture. Very addictive and unpredictable story about a man, writer of crime fiction, housing five women and getting paid 1 M Yen a month for it while he is trying to understand and uncover what is going on. It is a really great series of twelve short episodes of circa 25 min each. It combines so many qualities: its intelligent, polite, complex, soft, scary, violent etc in a unique combination you don't get watching the standard Hollywood output.

This series increased my appetite for more quality Japanese drama, thanks Netflix for bringing it up on my recommendation list

Don't miss this artful and intriguing drama !

"Million Yen Women" is a Japanese TV series on Netflix that is based off a manga. The protagonist is Yojiro Noda, lead singer of RADWIMPS, the band that did the very popular soundtrack of animated film "Your Name."

The structure of "Million Yen Women" is the basic set-up of a "harem" manga. "Harem" is a a popular sub-genre in manga where a clueless man lives together with many young, attractive women, many of whom develop crushes or fall in love with him. Although the harem set-up is fine for comics, it rather loses its tenuous credibility in live-action film such as in "Million Yen Women." However this TV series has a twist, an element of mystery, that is almost as fantastical but rather more welcome. Kudos to Yojiro Noda, anyway, for making his protagonist likable anyhow.

Harem is not particularly my cup of tea, but I did enjoy some of the character development in the series and some surprising moments of depth and pathos sprinkled throughout.

Although "Million Yen Women" contains elements of romance and murder, it also is about Yojiro Noda's character, who is an upcoming novelist, and his rivalry with a popular established author. This rivalry is pretty basic, but I did enjoy some of the discussion about novels and expression and "creating a new emotion" and etc. There's an odd peace about Yojiro Noda that makes character as a novelist believable, and makes him unique against the backdrop of criminal intrigue he stands against.

Unfortunately however, the rivalry between the two authors isn't as resolved as I would like, and there are various other plots of the drama that seem rushed or underdeveloped or sort of like afterthoughts. (I haven't read the manga so I make no comparison.) Nevertheless, "Million Yen Women" does have a degree of substance that elevates it beyond a typical boy's fantasy, and it is mostly fun and enjoyable to watch so I recommend it.

This drama also has Japanese audio description and Japanese captions for those wanting to learn the language.

Five women move into an unsuccessful writers home, no one including the writer knows who is behind the set up. The rules are they must pay one million yen a month and ask no questions and the novelist must not enter their rooms. An interesting plot based on a manga where we learn over twelve episodes who is behind the idea and how it eventually leads to tragedy. Well acted with a strong female cast and even though the story is far fetched it holds your attention through every episode as the individual characters back stories are revealed.

I'm happy that this show popped up in my recommended section in Netflix. The story line was intriguing & so captivating that I finish all episodes in 2 nights. It's story telling is much different than Hollywood, yet if you enjoy drama in general, you will enjoy this. Scene by scene changes in an unpredictable way. You feel like you want to know more about its character stories and you are teased with clips of flashbacks, side stories etc. LOVE IT.

This too showed up in my Netflix recommendation, and I thought I'd give it a shot since the format is nicely kept at 25mins each episode. About 5hours straight-on bingeing if that's your thing. Good God, I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised by how riveting this series was. I've seen my fair share of Japanese series, but personally, this is truly a refreshing take, perhaps it's due to the genre change. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I remembered kept saying to myself, "What the hell is going on?" positively in an inquisitive direction several times during the 12 episode series. Initially, it's palpable how bland the main male character was, but the performances of all the main female characters (which I love individually) really brought out very interesting dynamics with him in the household, which brings that much weight to his character. If you want something short and refreshing (even if in a foreign language), give this one a shot like I did!