Dorama

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Dorama ( Japanese テ レ ビ ド ラ マ , terebi dorama from English television drama ) are television series of Japanese production that determine a large part of the Japanese evening program.

Dorama usually consist of 9 to 14 episodes of 45 minutes each, with pilot episodes being up to 70-90 minutes long.

Dorama has been around since the reintroduction of regular television in Japan after World War II in 1953. Television has been in Japan since 1939. They became particularly popular in the late 1980s to early 1990s and are now more popular in Japan than z. B. US soap operas in the USA.

features

The quality of the drama varies greatly from low budget to lavish productions.

The plot covers almost all genres, but the majority is more romantic . With Dorama, the main focus is on the actors' dialogues . They mostly have a completed story arc, but there are also endless series.

Most of the drama are rather realistic , but can contain exaggerations, as they also occur in American or German series. For example, the action sometimes takes place in apartments or houses that the average Japanese population could not afford because of their size and luxurious furnishings.

Broadcast mode

Program scheme

The best-known dorama television channels are the public NHK , Fuji TV , TBS , NTV , Tokai TV and TV Asahi .

Japanese television is relatively strictly divided into four seasonal sections. Each season there is a new, fully completed dorama that is mostly not repeated.

Most of the drama are broadcast between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., in what is known as golden time . This is the time when the television broadcasters compete fiercely. The main target group for these programs are young, unmarried women between the ages of 22 and 35, who are the most active consumers in Japan.

Serial formats

In addition to the standard Dorama format, there are other forms:

  • 2-hour drama in the evening
  • 30-minute drama in the afternoon, broadcast for 3–6 months
  • NHK's 15-minute morning drama, broadcast Monday through Saturday for one year; called Renzoku terebi shôsetsu (連 続 テ レ ビ 小説, "sequel TV novel") or Asadora for short (朝 ド ラ, "morning dorama")
  • 45-minute dorama by NHK with historical content, called Taiga-Dorama ( 大河 ド ラ マ ), which is broadcast once a week on Sundays for a whole year.

Historical drama and films are commonly referred to as Jidai-geki ( 時代 劇 ).

If a series is particularly successful, special episodes are shown in the breaks between two seasons, a kind of spin-off , which are usually a double episode.

Occasionally there are also movies for Dorama, such as Odoru-daisosasen ( Police Investigation Headquarters) and Great Teacher Onizuka (both from Fuji-TV).

actor

Limiting most drama to one season allows many famous drama stars to keep playing new roles . It's not uncommon for a single actor to appear in over 20 different series during his career.

When selecting the actors, the level of awareness is often more important than the acting quality. It is of little interest for what reason they are known; they are often also active in many other areas.

Dorama actors often come from the Japanese music scene. This trend has been increasing since the late 1980s and is partly responsible for the popularity of the dorama today. One example is Kimura Takuya , a member of the J-Pop - band SMAP , the beginning of the 1990s had first appearances in Doramas and in the aftermath multiple "Sexiest Man" in Japan (and other Asian was selected countries).

Commerce

Dorama are planned in such a way that synergy effects guarantee maximum economic profit:

Sponsors

At the end of the title sequence, partners / sponsors are usually presented who financially supported the realization of the respective dorama .

In return for this, the interests of the sponsors are taken into account in the dorama itself. For example, only the sponsor's products are used by the cast members on the show, but competitive products are not. Sometimes it can happen that the donors even demand a change of the story according to their own specifications for their support.

music

Each series has a specially composed title song , which is played back again and again as background music, especially during highlights. The theme songs are sung in Japanese by Japanese singers, often by one of the performers, with some exceptions, so popular English-language music is often used. In the case of well-known series in particular, they often reach number one on the Japanese music charts and quickly become hits in the karaoke sector.

One example of this is Jun Matsumoto , who only accepted the lead role in Hana Yori Dango so that his band Arashi could sing the accompanying theme song.

advertising

There are about four commercial breaks in a drama episode, each of which lasts almost exactly two minutes (commercials in Japan are sold in multiples of 15 seconds). In the commercials , the actors of the series often appear to z. B. to advertise sake or recommend a credit card company.

DVDs

In the course of the 1990s, the marketing of DVDs , which come on the market shortly after the respective series has been broadcast, has become increasingly important.

Dorama outside of Japan

In the United States , Dorama is broadcast in the original with English subtitles and in areas where many Japanese emigrants live, for example in Hawaii .

Similar series formats are also shot in other East Asian countries, e.g. B. in the Republic of China (Taiwan) , South Korea (see K-Drama ) and China . The television series there differ from Dorama in terms of length and number of episodes. Chinese television series often have several dozen episodes, which makes the plot very lengthy.

Foreign series

Due to the commercial interest of the television stations, at prime time the terrestrial TV stations run almost exclusively series and programs produced in Japan. In the past ten years, only three foreign series were shown at this time: from the USA the X-Files and Chicago Hope , which were quickly canceled, and in 2003 the successful South Korean television series Winter Sonata ( Chinese  冬 演 歌 , Kyŏulyŏn'ga ; Japanese 冬の ソ ナ タ , fuyu no sonata ; kor. 겨울 연가 , Gyeoul yeonga ).

If you want to watch non-Japanese TV series in Japan, you have to stick to the relatively infrequent cable or satellite channels.

See also

literature

  • Hilaria Gössmann: The image of marriage and the family in the television dramas of the 90s. - Tōkyō: German Institute for Japanese Studies of the Philipp Franz von Siebold Foundation (working paper 1995/1), 1995, 40 pp.
  • Jonathan Clements, Motoko Tamamuro: The Dorama Encyclopedia  : a guide to Japanese TV drama since 1953. - Tokyo: Stone Bridge Press, 2003, 448 pp., ISBN 1-880656-81-7
  • Kazuhiko Gotō, Hideo Hirahara, Kanko Ōyama and Masunori Sata: A History of Japanese Television Drama  : modern Japan and the Japanese. - Berkeley, Calif. : The Japan Association of Broadcasting Art, 1991, 241 pp., ISBN 4-87571-855-1
  • Elisabeth Scherer: Alternative life models off the shelf? Construction and reception of gender identity in Japanese television series (terebi dorama) , in: Michiko Mae, Elisabeth Scherer, Katharina Hülsmann (eds.): Japanese popular culture and gender. A study book . Springer, 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10062-9 .

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