Cooking in a prison
Maison Prison is a really cute Japanese drama, but it has a huge issue; which is it only has 5 episodes. I mean, this goes really fast, and the timeline between each episode feels confusing. I think this really affected my watching experience, especially since this had a lot of potential to be a great drama.
So the story follows Yoko, who is a high-class Italian chef who suddenly finds herself without a job since her restaurant owner ran away with the money. Being a single mom, she finds herself without a job, so she decides to pick up a job as a prison nutritionist. From here, it starts an adventure of Yoko in this new environment and learning the rules and regulations at the prison while trying to create delicious meals.
I love food-centered dramas; I find them to be very interesting when it comes to learning new recipes. However, I would say in this drama the recipes are not that original and actually are very simple, and this is also because of where this takes place. The drama does a great job highlighting how there is a difference in cooking for guests and for inmates, and cooking has to take into consideration a tight budget, since the meals are made with taxpayers' money and therefore they can't and won't be getting fancy food. So Yoko finds herself having to work with a tight budget while wanting to make meals that make the inmates look forward to a something special.
Of course, the meals are tied to a sentimental story for the inmates, and it follows their correction through the prison.
Also the drama give non realistic view of the prison and each inmate is shows as someone who is kind and gentle, which is not always the reality, if this drama was longer, they could have gone through some of the main issue when it come to prison environment.
The premise is great, but the biggest problem for me was the episodes. There are only 5, and you can't really keep a long storyline with only a few episodes. The scenes and situations kind of run really fast, and the timeline feels not cohesive with the events that take place. I strongly feel if they had at least 8 episodes and we had a bit more time to see the changes and relationship develop between the people, it would have been so much better.
So the story follows Yoko, who is a high-class Italian chef who suddenly finds herself without a job since her restaurant owner ran away with the money. Being a single mom, she finds herself without a job, so she decides to pick up a job as a prison nutritionist. From here, it starts an adventure of Yoko in this new environment and learning the rules and regulations at the prison while trying to create delicious meals.
I love food-centered dramas; I find them to be very interesting when it comes to learning new recipes. However, I would say in this drama the recipes are not that original and actually are very simple, and this is also because of where this takes place. The drama does a great job highlighting how there is a difference in cooking for guests and for inmates, and cooking has to take into consideration a tight budget, since the meals are made with taxpayers' money and therefore they can't and won't be getting fancy food. So Yoko finds herself having to work with a tight budget while wanting to make meals that make the inmates look forward to a something special.
Of course, the meals are tied to a sentimental story for the inmates, and it follows their correction through the prison.
Also the drama give non realistic view of the prison and each inmate is shows as someone who is kind and gentle, which is not always the reality, if this drama was longer, they could have gone through some of the main issue when it come to prison environment.
The premise is great, but the biggest problem for me was the episodes. There are only 5, and you can't really keep a long storyline with only a few episodes. The scenes and situations kind of run really fast, and the timeline feels not cohesive with the events that take place. I strongly feel if they had at least 8 episodes and we had a bit more time to see the changes and relationship develop between the people, it would have been so much better.
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