Lesser known Jdramas of 2015

[pearlyriver]

I've come to a realization that a lot of dramas this year fell off my radar because they are barely discussed on SNSm, probably because of getting the unlucky timeslots. I'll list a few here and hope to receive people's opinions on whether they are decent or not.
- Marumaru Tsuma: I only discovered it through research Kou Shibasaki's profile. After watching 1 episode, I think this drama hit every aspect of the perfect wife/gender role theme and I'm curious about the next episodes. But then Shibasaki is in it and she usually picks good scripts.
- Ghost Writer: I'm curious about it because I'm interested in writer theme and Miki Nakatani is a fantastic actress who doesn't do a lot of TV dramas so this one must be good.
- Kokoro ga Pokitto ne: This faded into oblivion due to the low rating but I've read several comments that it is better than the rating indicates.
- To Give a Dream: This one caught my attention due to the star studded cast. Since it's a WOWOW production and Rinko Kinkuchi is in it, it can't be bad.
- Yami no Bansosha: The synopsis alone got me hooked, but it's really hard to get into this due to a lot of manga jargon.
What else do I miss? Feel free to chime in your opinions on less discussed drama of this year.

[uedajirou]

I am not sure what you mean. Marumaru tsuma is one of the highest rated drama in that season, so it is quite widely talked about.
(Though to be fair, the rating of recent dramas was very low with none renzoku dramas this year hitting 20% so far, excluding asadora of course).
Ghostwriter, while does not come with fantastic rating, it was widely discussed in sns like twitter, 2ch, etc etc
So they are no way "lesser known" jdramas of 2015
And no, they arent getting bad timeslot. In fact, they are aired at primetime slot
In fact, Ghostwiter and maru2 tsuma is one of the more well known japanese drama last season (along with Date, Im home and doctors, etc)
But again, the standard of this year drama (as always in winter and spring) is quite low

[pearlyriver]

I am not sure what you mean. Marumaru tsuma is one of the highest rated drama in that season, so it is quite widely talked about.
(Though to be fair, the rating of recent dramas was very low with none renzoku dramas this year hitting 20% so far, excluding asadora of course).
Ghostwriter, while does not come with fantastic rating, it was widely discussed in sns like twitter, 2ch, etc etc
So they are no way "lesser known" jdramas of 2015
And no, they arent getting bad timeslot. In fact, they are aired at primetime slot
In fact, Ghostwiter and maru2 tsuma is one of the more well known japanese drama last season (along with Date, Im home and doctors, etc)
But again, the standard of this year drama (as always in winter and spring) is quite low

I jsut started following Japanese dramas seriously this year so I got the facts wrong. I'm so overwhelmed by the numbers of dramas in one season that I don't know which dramas are worth watching aside from those highly rated ones. However, considering that Marumaru and Ghostwriter didn't win any awards and they didn't garner many votes on mydramalist, I assume that they are somehow overlooked. According to mydramalist, the top rated dramas in descending order are Tenno no Ryoriban, Ouroboros, Mondai no Aru Restaurant, Tantei no tantei, Yokoso, Mother Game, Flowers for Algernon, Zeni no Sensou, Date, Gakkou no Kaidan, Kageri Yuku Natsu, Love Relationship, I'm HOme, Fuben na Benriya. I've watched all of them so I created this thread so that others can fill me in other watching-worthy dramas buried in the rating systems on mydramalist and asianwiki.

[uedajirou]

I am not sure what you mean. Marumaru tsuma is one of the highest rated drama in that season, so it is quite widely talked about.
(Though to be fair, the rating of recent dramas was very low with none renzoku dramas this year hitting 20% so far, excluding asadora of course).
Ghostwriter, while does not come with fantastic rating, it was widely discussed in sns like twitter, 2ch, etc etc
So they are no way "lesser known" jdramas of 2015
And no, they arent getting bad timeslot. In fact, they are aired at primetime slot
In fact, Ghostwiter and maru2 tsuma is one of the more well known japanese drama last season (along with Date, Im home and doctors, etc)
But again, the standard of this year drama (as always in winter and spring) is quite low

I jsut started following Japanese dramas seriously this year so I got the facts wrong. I'm so overwhelmed by the numbers of dramas in one season that I don't know which dramas are worth watching aside from those highly rated ones. However, considering that Marumaru and Ghostwriter didn't win any awards and they didn't garner many votes on mydramalist, I assume that they are somehow overlooked. According to mydramalist, the top rated dramas in descending order are Tenno no Ryoriban, Ouroboros, Mondai no Aru Restaurant, Tantei no tantei, Yokoso, Mother Game, Flowers for Algernon, Zeni no Sensou, Date, Gakkou no Kaidan, Kageri Yuku Natsu, Love Relationship, I'm HOme, Fuben na Benriya. I've watched all of them so I created this thread so that others can fill me in other watching-worthy dramas buried in the rating systems on mydramalist and asianwiki.

Mydramalist is unreliable as a gauge as how good a drama is. The population is too small to represent whole jdrama fanbase. About awards on Japanese dramas, they too should not be treated as seriously as Academy awards in western. Most of these awards are presented by magazines and most of them are based on voters of the readers. Granted, there are some award which include journalist views and critics views, but there has lots of cases where idols drama (especially Johnnys idols, actors and dramas) win the drama despite the drama was not really hugely popular in Japan and despite they arent as good as other drama. For example,Shinigami kun acted by Ohno satoshi win some magazine award (television academy award) despite it not being popular at all (It creates fewer buzz than other drama), and the acting is far from good too. It has become a battle arena for idol fans to powervote their idols and for critics and journalist, they can easily be influenced by agency too. If you scroll the result of these awards, there will be lots of idol dramas and Je actors won despite the drama was not popular at all. Well, the actor is popular among their fans. Seeing response from sns and forums are better indication (japanese one thou). Viewership/rating is in fact a better indication than those 'award'

[izzyosa]

I really enjoyed Kokoro ga Pokitto ne so I'd recommend watching that. I know what you mean about there being so many dramas, it can be hard to know what to watch. I tend to try and watch the first episodes of everything with subs and things that look interesting without subs and go from there. The WOWOW dramas are usually very good but they are also quite hard to to follow without subs.

[hey9]

I haven't watched many dramas this year. I'd like to at least check out the raws of Prison Officer and Umi ni Furu, but have not been able to find them. I'd like to check out Shi no Zouki if that gets subbed.

[lontong.stroong]

All NHK doramas except Taiga and Asadora and all WOWOW dramas except Yume no Ataeru.