Drama Prime Time Report – July 15th~18th

Lots of naked ikemen in "Ikemen desu ne", desu ne?!

It was a long weekend in Japan thanks to ‘Marine Day’ on Monday and people had other distractions to keep them away from the small tube, except for sport events like the World Cup or certain music and variety specials. When looking at the dramas, there were two big losers with “Zenkai Girl” that almost lost 5% and “Hana Kimi 2011” that is now down to ratings that are usually only reserved for late-night dramas.
Let’s start with Friday, because it featured one of the two new starts this weekend. “Ikemen desu ne“, starring Takimoto Miori, Tamamori Yuta (Kis-My-Ft.2), Fujigaya Taisuke (Kis-My-Ft.2), and Yaotome Hikaru (Hey! Say! JUMP), started with a two-hour-long episode and achieved a rating of 10.9%. It’s bad compared to last week’s variety special, but it’s actually okay for such a long episode. Compared to previous Friday dramas it doesn’t have to be ashamed either. The ratings of the next two episode will be important, especially when looking at other dramas and their huge drops.

Watch out for koala ambushes! ("Yuusha Yoshihiko")

On Saturday, “Don Quixote” managed to withstand the mega music special on TBS and only lost 0.7% compared to last week. Its ratings might even be able to increase again next week, without such a strong competition.
Now onto the problematic Sunday that started with the worst rating for “Gou” since it started airing. Here you could use the variety special on TV Asahi as an excuse, but the ratings have been gradually decrease over the past weeks again anyway, despite the appearance of Mukai Osamu and more screen-time for AKIRA.
However, nobody really cared about the ratings of “Gou”, because “Hanazakari no Kimitachi e” surprised everyone with a huge nose dive by 4.1%, down to miserable 6.0%. Of course, many people expected it to lose viewers, but that’s a lot. Several tabloids and self-proclaimed critics are already pointing out all the faults, but let’s hope the cast and team don’t get discouraged by those and the miserable ratings. Maybe it will already recover next week? Meanwhile “Hanawake no Yon Shimai” only lost 1.0% compared to last week.

After looking at the ratings... ("Hana Kimi 2011")

Today’s report also includes the Monday ratings due to the long-weekend and unfortunately I have to continue with another drama that lost even more percentage than “Hana Kimi 2011″. I’m talking about Fuji TV’s ‘Getsu 9′ drama “Zenkai Girl” that lost 4.8% and is now already below 10% with a viewer rating of only 9.8%. The drama actually received a lot of positive responses after its first episode, so this might be an even bigger surprise for many viewers and fans. Unlike “Hana Kimi 2011″, it had to compete against a very strong variety special, but on the other hand it also had quite a decent lead-in with the “Hey!Hey!Hey” music special that gained 13.2%.
Anyway, in the end everyone only looks at the figure and has to realize that it’s the first drama in the history of Fuji TV’s ‘Getsu 9′ time slot to already reach a single-digit rating with the second episode. Let’s hope it won’t continue to make history, especially since it’s the first starring role for Aragaki Yui and the Nishkido Ryo’s first ‘Getsu 9′ drama. The bad ratings could easily hurt their market value.
Meanwhile TV Tokyo started airing their Monday drama “IS“, starring Fukuda Saki and Gouriki Ayame, but sadly it’s a bit difficult to obtain ratings from TV Tokyo; not that it could compete with other dramas anyway.