Formigas sem Guarda-Chuvas (2016)

First of all, this is what you need to know straight away: this drama is very short, it's about a writer trying to write a story (and mostly failing at it), his emotional connection to a friend that will aid him in more ways than he thinks and it's based on a book, which is a compilation of short stories, what results in various genres and outcomes in the same drama.

Now, let's move on to the specifics. As far as I'm concerned, the book this drama is based on groups 6 short stories, which are unrelated to one another. This drama uses, in one way or another, 3 of them (the protagonists of the drama being characters from the last story) and make a small reference to another story, which is not fully covered. The other two are, as far as I can tell, nowhere to be seen. So, if you read the book, don't worry, you don't yet know how this is gonna turn out because the plot twist in this drama has nothing to do with the book.

I find it strange that, being the actual writer of the book involved in the drama (and performing in it), he'd choose to make such big changes as to end with a resulting different story than any of the others, but maybe it was taken as an opportunity for people who had read the book to still be surprised and for people who haven't to still have a chance to read it and find out other perspectives. Still, I find the resulting story of this drama a bit lackluster in comparison to the ones in the book, in the sense that the plot twist of the drama is not the most unpredictable one you'd see, which contrasts with a story that was pretty heartfelt and trying to be very honest.

I enjoyed the performances, especially from Renn, and I think the drama is enjoyable as a whole, yet it may have benefited from either following the self-conclusive aspect of the short-story style the book has, picking one and going with it from start to finish or providing more episodes for this style they chose to really take flight. As it is, I like the idea of the "stories inside a story" style they pick for the first part, it's a good narrative device when used well, but being the amount of episodes so little, I found the change of perspective a bit forced and it didn't allow the self-discovery and emotional-fulfillment aspect the drama was trying to go for at the end to fully show.

There is a speck of LGBT representation in this drama, not as well handled as in other dramas of 2015 I've seen, but it is there and it's more than just a BL-ish fanservice note, it has to do with character development, so it's worthy of noting. In the book, though, the outcome of that character seems to be better.

All in all, it's an interesting format and it deserves a go. It has a bit of mystery, a bit of fantastic and a lot of emotion. To me, it was interesting in a narrative level, as to see the use of different devices and how that worked (or didn't). I'd like to see what other stories can Shige bring in the future.

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I feel kinda weird about this. I have no idea if this has some other souce material (I read here that's a book or a compilation of short stories) and because it's so short we don't really get that much character development. The story is about Hashimoto Jun, a writer that lives in Tokyo and his editor is asking him to write a love story, since it's been two years and he haven't been able to complete and publish anything. Suddenly Murata Keisuke, Jun's childhood friend arrives at his house. Jun haven't seen him in 15 years, but he is nice and cool, cooks for him and encourages to write the love story.

The story at the beginning has a big comedic touch into it but then it gets really dark and sad. The performances and good and the music and technical aspects are ok. I don't think it should have been longer but I think it could have been handled better with the emotional punch. maybe two episodes more. Overall, I liked it and it broke my heart.

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