Zypker124
After the near-perfect reviews occupying this drama's ratings, I thought I'd offer a more contrarian, Devil's Advocate position on the drama. I wouldn't say it's bad, but it didn't live up to expectations for me.
"Kazoku Game" seemed like the perfect storm for my drama drought. After reading the rave reviews, I expected a drama that tackled school issues and also would critique societal structure and life in the rigid and indirect Japanese society, while still being grounded and free of cliches.
My advice: Don't expect that to happen. My experience was wildly different. To me, Kazoku Game is a black comedy / satirical drama, but not a life or societal critique drama.
I want to focus on what I believe people are reading this for, my perceived flaws of the drama:
1) GROUNDEDNESS. If you believe the drama the entire way through, you'll love it, as most people here did. My suspension of disbelief stopped at the 2nd episode; I just didn't buy the cause-and-effet sequences the show was trying to sell. Just because the descent is slow and characters have motives doesn't mean they'll jump off the deep end so quickly.
2) CHARACTERS. If you're a fan of the often-overexaggerated Japanese characters pervasive in the film industry, again, this is no problem. But I think the drama tries to sell these characters as grounded symbols of people from our society, and I disagree. The three neighborhood moms, all of the middle school students, the brothers, and the main character all felt like caricatures, mostly due to their convenient move-the-story-forward decision-making.
3) SCHOOL ISSUES. This is my most contrarian take, but I've rarely encountered a drama that tackles school issues "well". This drama is no exception; it's the repetitive cliche of "student gets bullied/shunned by literally everyone, and he turns it around way quicker than it should have been". Look, bullying is a problem, but the way dramas portray bullying always feel too "Hollywood" to me, like they can't show the more subtler emotional bullies that I believe pervase Japan more.
4) STORY / DIRECTION. Look, I usually don't know how dramas will go. I called the outcome by Episode 3-4, which for a mystery drama isn't good. Every plot point felt predictable and just a waiting battle of when the episode would reach that point. Despite the show portraying the antagonist as a mastermind, he's really just an omnipotent god who nobody can escape. I feel like the antagonist literally has the show script embedded in his mind as he makes his decisions with seeming transcendence. Even that couldn't rid the many other plot holes.
Once I treated the drama more as a black comedy / satirical drama, I liked it more, hence why it's a 6.5/10, but I just don't see the masterpiece other people see, even when under that lens. Most people who've viewed this drama will probably disagree with my takes, and that's totally fine; I just thought I should offer a more critical perspective to this drama for prospectives considering it.
"Kazoku Game" seemed like the perfect storm for my drama drought. After reading the rave reviews, I expected a drama that tackled school issues and also would critique societal structure and life in the rigid and indirect Japanese society, while still being grounded and free of cliches.
My advice: Don't expect that to happen. My experience was wildly different. To me, Kazoku Game is a black comedy / satirical drama, but not a life or societal critique drama.
I want to focus on what I believe people are reading this for, my perceived flaws of the drama:
1) GROUNDEDNESS. If you believe the drama the entire way through, you'll love it, as most people here did. My suspension of disbelief stopped at the 2nd episode; I just didn't buy the cause-and-effet sequences the show was trying to sell. Just because the descent is slow and characters have motives doesn't mean they'll jump off the deep end so quickly.
2) CHARACTERS. If you're a fan of the often-overexaggerated Japanese characters pervasive in the film industry, again, this is no problem. But I think the drama tries to sell these characters as grounded symbols of people from our society, and I disagree. The three neighborhood moms, all of the middle school students, the brothers, and the main character all felt like caricatures, mostly due to their convenient move-the-story-forward decision-making.
3) SCHOOL ISSUES. This is my most contrarian take, but I've rarely encountered a drama that tackles school issues "well". This drama is no exception; it's the repetitive cliche of "student gets bullied/shunned by literally everyone, and he turns it around way quicker than it should have been". Look, bullying is a problem, but the way dramas portray bullying always feel too "Hollywood" to me, like they can't show the more subtler emotional bullies that I believe pervase Japan more.
4) STORY / DIRECTION. Look, I usually don't know how dramas will go. I called the outcome by Episode 3-4, which for a mystery drama isn't good. Every plot point felt predictable and just a waiting battle of when the episode would reach that point. Despite the show portraying the antagonist as a mastermind, he's really just an omnipotent god who nobody can escape. I feel like the antagonist literally has the show script embedded in his mind as he makes his decisions with seeming transcendence. Even that couldn't rid the many other plot holes.
Once I treated the drama more as a black comedy / satirical drama, I liked it more, hence why it's a 6.5/10, but I just don't see the masterpiece other people see, even when under that lens. Most people who've viewed this drama will probably disagree with my takes, and that's totally fine; I just thought I should offer a more critical perspective to this drama for prospectives considering it.
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