The Ultimate Guide and Discussion Board for Asadora (Japanese Morning Dramas)

 Saburo:

NGN, my local J-TV cable channel, is airing "Mone" subtitled and I'm giving it a shot. We're way, way behind the actual episodes in Japan -- almost two months, I believe. In fact, we just began watching the new Tokyo arc and my friend is already babbling about how rich the characters are now, while trying not to spoil things so many dozens of episodes ahead of us.

I'm pleased to be along for the ride. 

That is so cool. One day when I make it to Hawaii I'll be turning the TV to NGN immediately. If not NGN2! 

In the meantime we've been watching Natsuzora and I'm surprised how enjoyable it is. I remembered mixed to positive reviews but I'd rank it nicely in the top tier of asadoras I've watched. The characters are well-drawn, the settings are gorgeous and the story is nice and layered with a lot of moving parts (in a good way).

Come Come Everybody's rating looks pretty worrying, it's started at ~16% and plummeting to 15%. Are we heading into a Second Asadora Dark Age? Which is astounding after all the Superstar-Only Heroine policy and star-studded writers and directors.

Granted, some very successful Asadora in recent times had similar thing at the beginning, if I'm not mistaken it's Amachan and Gegege no Nyobo. But their low rating period wasn't prolonged and they managed to turn things around pretty quickly.

Another possibility is that there's shift to on-demand service. But even then, other NHK flagship series like Seiten no Tsuke still enjoy high rating despite such shift.

Eco TV Subs is now subbing Shiro to Kiiro - Hawaii to Watashi no Panke-ki Monogatari. This is an interesting asadora-like series in the sense that it aired 15 minute episodes on Amazon Prime in 2018, but there were only 25 episodes total. I've had my eye on it for a while as an asadora-esque series. I'll be waiting till all eps are subbed to watch it, but I thought you all might be interested in the meantime. It's co-written by Okada Yoshikazu, of Hiyokko, Churasan and Ohisama fame. His adaptation of In This Corner of the World was really superb, too.

https://mydramalist.com/26263-shiro-to-kiiro

 Saburo:

So NGN -- the only JTV option here in Hawaii -- is wrapping up OKAERI MONE at the end of December. They usually have a filler show before embarking on the next Asadora. Just got the new schedule yesterday and noticed eh, there's some show starring Horikita Maki so it *must* be something older, so...

It's UMECHAN SENSEI, from 2012! Da hell?!! Not only a decade-old show (I honestly don't remember if this aired on NGN previously) but it's the Asadora trope I *loathe* the most: the olden days period piece from many decades ago, preferably early Showa. Yay, more opportunities to relive postwar horrors!

What. A. Drag.

So...since they're going to show Umechan Sensei, is NGN going to delay Come Come Everybody or are they just going to skip it?  How do they "fit" a complete asadora into the schedule? Like, OK, remember when they re-aired OSHIN, did they skip over whatever was the latest asadora to show that?

 Saburo:

Good question. I *assume* it'll be delayed at the very best. UMECHAN is going to be broadcast in the same timeslot as all the previous Asadora. I suspect this is a cost-cutting decision.

Is the new Asadora worth it? I have no real preference one way or the other...

I'm really loving the new Asadora so far and I would recommend it. We're still only in the first part, but so far the script has been thoughtful (albeit fast-paced!) and Mone is a perfect heroine. Everything just seems to be working so well.
 
That being said, it does start in the WWII era (which you mention not being a huge fan of, and I'm usually not either). For at least a few episodes, it's kind of what you expect of a drama set in that period 

 ZDorama:

So...since they're going to show Umechan Sensei, is NGN going to delay Come Come Everybody or are they just going to skip it?  How do they "fit" a complete asadora into the schedule? Like, OK, remember when they re-aired OSHIN, did they skip over whatever was the latest asadora to show that?

Got in touch with a rep from NGN. Apparently NHK isn't releasing the latest Asadora, Come Come Everybody, for overseas distribution. This is not unlike the previous Taiga drama, which wasn't broadcast in Hawaii for the same reason. Not certain if this is because of lack of interest amongst overseas interests like NGN or just utter indifference from NHK. I suspect the latter.

Interestingly, "Seiten o Tsuke" will begin airing on NGN beginning next week.