Can a drama be Zen?

It would be hard to argue that nothing happens in this short Jdrama: there's a fist fight, a cleaver attack, a death and multiple people cheating on their relationships. But the tone of the series frames all of these events as rather small ripples in a pond.

The drama mostly centers on Shiro (Lily Franky) who is the middle-aged owner of a small pension or bed & breakfast, essentially. He's a bit prurient, but he's also open and accepting, and so he welcomes people into his life and home without judgment which provides space for them to find themselves.

The story is reminiscent of the Zen koan Is That So (https://ashidakim.com/zenkoans/3isthatso.html), and raises the question of whether a drama can or should be Zen since the acceptance of the world as it is and living in the moment is kind of antithetical to the dramatic tension that most people look for in a good drama.

Special mention should be made of Sairi Ito's performance as Shiro's daughter Haru. The climax of the series focusses almost exclusively on her reactions, and she nails it.

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Well Acted, Poorly Written

Based on a manga serialized in the fashion magazine "with" as a way to present the results of laughably awful relationship question surveys, Peanut Butter Sandwich tells the somewhat compelling stories of the love lives of four young women friends within a cringy "comedic" wrapper of a secret government agency which investigates why women in Japan are not getting married at the rates they used to by invasively surveilling the four women while also continuously eating the eponymous sandwiches. (You see, the abbreviation of the name of the bureau ... gah, no one cares, and the bit isn't funny.)

The stories of the four friends are reasonably well done, if nothing you haven't seen before. The script is somewhat overly reliant on voice-over to present what the characters are thinking - lots of telling rather than showing - but the primary characters all have reasonably good arcs and most provide the actresses with moments to shine. Takamoto Minori as Miharu gets the most interesting role with the greatest range and does well. Hotta Akane as Sayo makes the most of the least interesting arc by making some really out there choices for behaviors with a light, comedic touch. Kakei Miwako as continues to progress from her days on Terrace House and gets a couple of major emotional scenes which she handles well. This is Niwa Niki's first role in a J-Drama (after also being on Terrace House) and, well, she's a bit wooden, but seems to be hitting her marks and effectively learning her lines as Akane whose story-line might have been more interesting in more veteran hands.

The entire staff of the secret bureau consists of three people: the chief Gonda (Ito Shuko), her flunky Kobayashi (Ito Kentaro, an erstwhile host of Terrace House) and Tsubaki (Yohagi Honoka) who is the only person who does any of the work. (You see, it's a commentary on senpai/kohai relations in the the workplace ... gah, no one cares, and the bit isn't funny.) The wrapper is meant to be comedic and provide context for the stories of the four women, but brings the show to a didactic halt every episode by providing the results of a survey of a whopping 200 women. (You see, most women think their experiences are unique but the surveys show ... gah, no one cares, and the bit isn't funny.)

The one redeeming feature of the series is that it's blessedly short at eight 24-minute episodes, and so it is not much of an investment to check it out, But there are far better ensemble romantic comedies out there which have no need for a secret government agency to halt the actual plot by spewing survey results. Go watch the K-Drama Because This Is My First Life if you want a comedic sismance with a deft injection of real math - it includes a marriage proposal which invokes, I kid you not, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. Or if you must have a J-Drama, Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu, which partially inspired that K-drama.

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