Matsumoto Jun’s drama 「９９．９」: The response

[The first part of this article will be a rough translation of the article on Johnny’s Watcher.]

Voices of discontent raises up as Arashi‘s Matsumoto Jun takes on the role of a lawyer. Comments like, “Arashi again”, “I would want to see someone who can actually act”, “MatsuJun suits romance better” to “Rather than a Johnny’s, I want to see an actor instead…” have arisen.

An entertainment magazine writer said “MatsuJun’s drama will be a TBS Sunday drama, it is the same time slot as popular dramas such as “Hanzawa Naoki”, “Shitamachi Rocket” or “Tennou no Ryoriban”. And because of that, people on the internet are saying things like “I don’t want to watch a Johnny’s on Sunday evening. I want to watch someone with actual talents for acting, play in a fun drama.”

But right now, SMAP’s Shingo Katori’s “Kazoku no Katachi” is being broadcasted in the same slot. Also, Kanjnai8’s Nishikido Ryo had his “Gomen ne Seishun” during the same time. So why is there so much backlash this time?

The same writer believes that the story and the cast might be the cause of it. “The “99.9” signifies the percentage of culpability for the case in the drama, and [MatsuJun] will be playing an unconventional lawyer who challenges the 0.1% left. Plus the antagonist will be played by Kagawa, who also appeared  in “Hanzawa Naoki”, there’s no doubt that the two dramas will be compared, and compared to Sakai Masato, MatsuJun seems to be a bit lacking.”

Cyzo Woman

There are always criticism whenever a Johnny’s talent gets cast anywhere. But we can agree with Cyzo Woman, that this time the criticisms were stronger than the other times. Although this time, the drama is an original screenplay, it’s not an adaptation. Plus, in MatsuJun’s case, theres the Johnny’s “gorioshi” and that the fact that MatsuJun is a member of the cast will be good for the TV Stations too, although I believe that there has been no complains outside of the internet….

As for the rest of the cast, we have Kagawa Teruyuki, Aoki Munetaka, and Maggie, and the internet seems to think that everyone would be overshadowed by Kagawa. It is true that he has a lot of presence, but we wouldn’t have to worry as much since he is part of the main cast.

More than that, we should be worrying about the ratings. If we look at the past dramas MatsuJun has been starring in:

2001 Kindaichi Shonen no Jikenbo 13.7%

2007 Bambino~! 14.2%

2009 Smile 10.2%

2010 Natsu no Koi ha Niji Iro ni Kagayaku 12.3%

2012 Lucky Seven 15.6%

2014 Shitsuren Chocolatier 12.3

They are lower than we expected, aren’t they…

“Not as a main character, “Hana yori Dango” in which MatsuJun starred in (2005, TBS) received a 19.8% rating, the second season in 2007 bringing 21.6%, and even had a movie to continue the series. Other than that, it’s hard to say that his other dramas were a big hit. “Lucky Seven” had the highest rating in all of them, but we cannot ignore the other actors, Eita, Oizumi You and Matsushima Nanako as the supporting role. Since “99.9” will be a new genre that MatsuJun will be taking on, I would like to see him prove himself as an actor, and leave a good impression” (entertainment magazine writer)

Cyzo Woman

Other than that, MatsuJun has starred in TV Special Dramas with Eikura Nana twice before. In 2010, “Wagaya no Rekishi” brought in 20.3% in terms of rating, while “Hajimari No Uta” in 2013 only got as high as 9.2%. Looking at those numbers just convinces me that 15% for ratings might just be a reasonable number for the “criminal lawyer” type…

Now if we look at the ratings for the Sunday evening slot for TBS, it will look something like this:

9.3% Kazoku no Katachi (Katori Shingo) *until ep 6

18.5% Shitamachi no Rocket (Abe Hiroshi)

9.1% Napoleon no Mura (Karasawa Toshiaki)

14.9 Tennou no Ryouriban (Sato Takeru)

10.3 Ryuusei Wagon (Nishijima Hidetoshi)

7.7% Gomen ne Seishun (Nishikido Ryo)

9.4% Oyaji no Senaka (Tamura Masakazu)

14.5% S-Saigo no Keikan (Osamu Mukai)

12.8% Ando Lloyd (Kimura Takuya)

28.7% Hanzawa Naoki (Sakai Masato)

12.7% Soratobu Kouhoushitsu (Aragaki Yui)

15.5% Tonbi (Uchino Seiyo)

Looks like the Johnny’s are suffering…

Anyways, there’s only so much hype before the drama starts because of the cast of all the popular Johnny’s members such as Kimura Takuya, Yamapi, Kame-chan, other than that, I don’t think we can put them in the same level as the first class actors like Sakai Masato and Fukuyama Masaharu. Even with all the criticism, everyone seems to be interested in MatsuJun, so I want him to do his best and aim for 15% rather than 20%. And for that to happen, we need a fun screenplay, so we’re counting on you, TBS-san!

via Johnny’s Watcher

I don’t even want to care about the haters, I just want the drama! I really want to see Jun challenge new things. And Jun is not boring to watch. I showed ‘Shitsuren Chocolatier’ to two of my best friends, and they thoroughly enjoyed cursing at Souta for being such a love sick idiot. Hes not the best at acting, and you can sometimes see that he is aware that he is acting, but he does his best and I enjoyed it. Makes me want to cheer for him, and be like “Do you best~!” in a very high pitched and girly voice.

And I think that the plot is also interesting enough even if it does seems similar to “Hanzawa Naoki” in the part where the main character has to go against a very powerful party. Screenwriting is really hard, most of the stories nowadays are mostly based on the same template, so there’s no way everyone can come up with a completely original work every time. I’m currently being trained for a few months for screenwriting so I know a bit. There’s always some sort of similarities in any work, we were raised by the same generation of adults if you didn’t notice.

If anything, most netizens are just picking on him cause he’s a Johnny’s and cause they know that he can get more girls in one night than they can in their life. Okay, that was kind of mean, I apologize.

Other than that, Jun looks cute~ >3<