Hokaben (2008)

Country: Japan
Genre: law
Format: drama 10 episodes
Cast: Ueto Aya, Ryo, Kitamura Kazuki, Kato Shigeaki, Osugi Ren, Toda Nahu, Sasai Eisuke, Nakayama Megumi, Kato Kazuko, (Quests: Katsumura Masanobu, Katase Nana, Sato Tomohito, Yamazaki Hajime)
Synopsis: Domoto Akari is a fresh lawyer just graduated from university. She starts working at a famous big law firm mZa in pro bono section - the section, which deals with social service obligations. Domoto Akari has a naive thinking that she can help the weak ones and make world a better place, but the reality is something else.
Rating: STARLESS
After watching this I seriously consider giving "Sugar and Spice" at least one star because "Hokaben" showed me what STARLESS drama really means.
It had nothing!! They had a fabulous cast, but the drama was just soo horrible and boring! The script seemed like unfinished. It had a proper start, but then there was no development in main story, did  not have an end (It was totally predictable end to finish this drama -.-). Also it did not had side story lines. It seemed like they wanted to make DomotoXKatase love line. Thanks to Kato Shigeaki's amazing acting, it was totally see-able that Katase had feelings for Domoto, but Domoto was just eeeemm plain dumb. Compared to Domoto, Katase was like a grown up and knew what it means to be a lawyer and it was so sad in the end that this liking went to unliking ("From crush to crash" like my sister said). They wanted to make SugisakiXKuramoto love line, but it sucked, because they did not show that really much. They also did not explained the situation between Sugisaki and Kudo. I thought that may be they were ex-lovers or something happened with work or something, but they gave me nothing!

But the worst thing in "Hokaben" was the main character Domoto Akari. She was always whining and complaining, she was totally unprofessional in her work, she was tactless and loud. She disobeyed the confidentiality between the client and lawyer. She said she wanted to save the weak ones, but she managed to ruin over 20 people lives in one episode (The episode of bullying). They wanted to give a big impact to her words, but actually they did mean anything, mostly she said two-way stuff, which was total crap. How was it possible for her to graduate????!!! I felt like she only dreamed in university, but did not study the law perfectly, because she was just so naive and did not know the basic laws! -.-  In addition, they all said that Domoto reminds them Sugisaki - I thought "WHAAAAT???! They are totally opposite!!!" Sugisaki was a real lawyer until the accident and after that he just stopped working properly.  I would never want to have a lawyer like Domoto, because all her appearance told me how unprofessional she was. She did not even knew what is the case when she went to interview!! A social worker or a detective work would have suited to her much more than a lawyer's. She like always forgot what her job is about.

I liked that Ryo played a total bitch, it was funny xD But  I really watched only for Kato Shigeaki (Now he seriously must love me, because those were 10 most horrible hours of my life. I hope I made up that "Gekidan Engimono - Ie ga tooi" picture),  but he only got mostly up to 2 minutes of screen time in every episode and he did not get much lines. My favorite scene was when Katase and Domoto were in a bar, but that was the only high point in this drama.
This is the drama where I really want to say "I do not recommend it to you", but in the end it is your decision. I managed to live those 10 hours, but it was real torture. I have heard of many people who have dropped this after first or second episode (It was a great decision as the first one was most promising episode).