Nakuna, Hara-chan review

Nakuna hara-chan, don't cry Hana-chan, a drama featuring Nagase Tomoya. It is a romantic comedy , you can definitely expect tons of laugh! This one is hard to find too, so I will also be explaining how you can watch it.

Synopsis: (from Dramawiki)

Echizen-san is a timid, thirty-something single female who pours out her daily stress in a manga that she draws every day as a diary. The main character of her manga is Hara-chan, a man who rambles on about his complaints to his friends in an izakaya bar. Always regretting that he can never speak up for himself and taking the blame for everything — he is the projection of Ms. Echizen’s deepest feelings.
However, one day, Hara-chan's world begins to shake, and he learns "God up above is angry”... In a magical warp, Hara-chan finds himself taken out of his two dimensional world and into reality as a true man. Hara-chan ventures out to find “God” and happens to meet Echizen-san who is taken aback by Hara-chan, a strange man who suddenly appears before her. Will Echizen-san realize that he is indeed the person sketched in the pages of her daily manga and that she has manifested a man? What will be the fate of the two, when Hara-chan begins to fall in love with his so-called “God”...?
Nakuna, Hara-chan! is a fish-out-of-water fantasy with some unique Pygmalion essence that depicts a character brought into the real world and discovers the beauty of what it means to be a human, to live, and to fall in love.

Cast:

• Nagase Tomoya as Hara-chan
• Aso Kumiko as Echizen-san
• Maruyama Ryuhei as Tanaka-kun
• Kutsuna Shiori as Konno Kiyomi
• Kaku Kento as Makihiro
• Suda Masaki as Hiroshi
• Shimizu Yutaka as Akkun
• Inagawa Miyoko (稲川実代子) as Naganuma-san
• Komatsu Kazushige as a police officer
• Komoto Masahiro as warai ojisan / laughing man
• Mitsuishi Ken as Tamada
• Okunuki Kaoru as Yuki-nee/ big sister Yuki
• Shiraishi Kayoko (白石加代子) as Hideko
• Yakushimaru Hiroko as Yaguchi Yuriko

 Review

Story

Nakuna, Hara-chan is a romatic comedy of 10 episodes. It aired in 2013 where I did a review of the first episode back then. The first episode was so good that I just had to watch the entire series.

The story begins with Echizen (Aso Kumiko) working in a kamaboko factory, leading a frustrating routine life. As she get at home, she goes straight to her room and vents her emotion in a manga that she draws. The rest of the episode is magical and hilarious with manga characters coming back to life.
I found that the structure of the story was strong.  At first we are presented to the sad and normal routine life. Then we have a event that changes that routine life. At the end of the first episode, we have a really lovely song sang by the main character as a closure to the episode. With that, it might be the first time that I realized that they were stages in the story in a drama. I am quite amazed that the story wasn't based on anything like a novel. Each episode isn't episodic, the story just continues with each episode and I found it never got boring.

You have to keep in mind that it is a romantic comedy, and like usual, it is not really a kind of drama you watch if you are looking for an intelligent story. It's all about the comedy, entertainment and cuteness. This story is so cute!  

The story isn't realistic at all, it is quite impossible. Even if we account the magical coming to life manga characters, many events and things are just impossible anyways. It is in the way that people react to things or act. I had to let go of those and just enjoy the drama as it was without worrying about if it's impossible. Think of it like a story more geared towards children.

In summary, this is one of the best dramas I have watched, to me, this here is a masterpiece. However, the story is childlike and not serious and the main focus is love. It is however able to show some serious values about life and conflicts of our world. If that sounds like something you don't like you won't enjoy this drama. The is as well the aspect of humour that I will talk more about in the acting section.
 

Acting

In short, it is a Nagase Tomoya drama and it is what you can expect from that.

The cast is divided by real people and manga people. The main female real people character is played by Aso Kumiko. This is my first time seeing her, but it seems she has quite a lot of acting experience. She plays here a sad, lonely but maybe the most realistic and believable character in this drama. She was easy to identify with and I thought she was okay. I think it is interesting they chose a 35ish year old main characters for a drama like this.

Of course, Nagase Tomoya was the male main. His acting is very similar to his usual style as a over-reactive intense hilarious and stupid character. No surprise there and I still can't get enough of it. His acting is too funny to describe. I think he is totally capable to do a serious character as an actor, but he is so good at goofy stuff so he always gets those roles.

The rest of the cast was okay and satisfactory. You can tell when watching this that the staff had a lot of fun. It gives you a good feeling.
 

Music

The music includes normal background music, 2 title songs and an ending song.
The background music was okay. It is emotional, melodious and easy to remember but it isn't of the highest quality.

The 2 titles songs are sang throughout the drama by the actors and they are really cute and catchy. I find myself often singing those songs.

The ending is by TOKIO and is kinda short, but from what we hear it's good too.

Recommendation 

If you liked Nakuna, Hara-chan, the first recommendation that I have for you is to check out other titles with Nagase Tomoya. The ones that I have enjoyed and watch were Unubore Deka, Tiger and Dragon and Ikebukuro West Gate Park.

An other drama that isn't that closely related but has somewhat elements of magic, good for children and cuteness is Akumu-Chan.