Underwear

A new employee at an exclusive lingerie shop is enamoured with the beautiful products the owner designs but has her own ideas on what is suitable for her. The series has a superb female cast and looks at the ethics of conglomerates stealing ideas from small independents and the struggles of artisans competing with mass production. The pace and character development is excellent and you become invested in the individuals and their futures.

Years ago there was a local PBS channel that was leased for Japanese broadcasts in its off-hours, and I saw so many great Japanese TV series. So I thought I'd check this out.

This silly show is about a young, eager woman who goes to work for a prickly lingerie fashion designer. The young woman is very passionate about textiles, and makes a number of speeches in the first episode about how wonderful some are, and the whole series portrays the creation of bras as this amazing, noble thing, and it's all rather odd.

Outside of the first meeting between the girl and her boss, who offers the wit and presence lacking from the rest of the series, there was nothing in the first episode that made me want to watch a second. It's not terrible, but it's a far cry from those series I saw in the 90s like Kagayaku Toki no Naka de or Furuhata Ninzaburō. I know there's good Japanese TV out there, but outside of anime it's hard to find.

The young and the old, both in transition, makes up the story of "Atelier" a 2015 miniseries from Japan.

Adorable Mirei Kiritani stars as Mayuko, a young woman who comes to work at the Emotion salon in the Ginza section of Tokyo. Her boss Mayumi (Mao Daichi), made up to look like Anna Wintour, is tough but fair. The lingerie is hand-made and exquisite, and Mayuko falls in love with the whole industry, to the point where she wants to create something herself.

Mayuko and Mayumi learn more from one another than either one thought possible, as Mayuko works to find out who she is and Mayumi realizes she needs to invent herself.

Lots goes on in these 13 episodes: designs stolen, a theme for a fashion show stolen, a child who is estranged from his mother who appears, going into mass marketing, and lots else.

I have never been to Tokyo - it looks so beautiful on this show - it's like watching Manhattan, where I have lived, on Suits or White Collar. At the end someone is out on the sidewalk and you can really see that the streets are crowded like New York in midtown.

Learning a little of the culture was amazing also - lots of bowing, not a huge amount of touching, people seem to treat one another with respect. It's a more formal culture.

Someone on this board said the show reminded them of anime because some of the younger women had plastic surgery. I was wondering during 13 episodes why some of the women seemed to be a mix of American and Japanese.

Mirei Kiritani is so pretty and played the part of a naive girl who wants to learn everything very well. Mao Daichi, who seems like Japan's answer to Joan Collins, is perfect in her role of an elegant, somewhat imperious woman who hides her vulnerability underneath. She wears an Anna Wintour wig -- I'm not sure if I saw her in something else if I would know her. I believe at one point the character is said to be 50, or maybe I misheard - Daichi is 60, and I could have believed she was late forties.

The other actors were all wonderful, including Mayuko Kawakita, Ken Kaito, and Wakana Sakai.

Highly recommended - and for those concerned about language and nudity - this is cleaner than a Disney film.

Good to see content from Japan. Great production values.

I found the musical score intrusive and too 'on the nose'. Signaling what you should be feeling now in case you can't figure it out from the script - determination, inspiration, sadness etc. Lush, redundant and mostly saccharine. Especially that damn piano! Coincidentally just having rewatched The Birds which has no musical score at all. Wish there was a separate mute for the music.

Subtitles in yellow often lost on a light background.

A weirdly depopulated Ginza and too-blue sky over Tokyo. The distraction of anime-looking characters thanks to cosmetic surgery especially among the young actresses.

The melodramatic line readings and swelling music when someone said something like, I will make...bras that I like! The simpering overacting and fumbling by the doe Kiritani in the early episodes.

Male characters mostly emasculated or evil. What was up with the coffee guy? Poor schmuck.

Not crazy about the stereotypical work-life imbalance, would like to have seen some of the characters' lives outside of work.

Other than Kiritani, a great cast. In particular could watch Mao Daichi sew and drink coffee all day. Without music and maybe without that Anna Wintour haircut. Her 'regal bearing' is an inspiration, as is her enunciation which is great for students of the language.

My wife started watching this show, but I got hooked shorlty. I believe the values presentes in the script are one of its best features and production is very good. It really makes you appreciate the effort on lingerie creation.

I'm currently learning Japanese and the type of conversations taken on this show are perfect to get the feel of normal Japanese people (unlike anime) and tune the ear for the languaje. The respect and candor of the characters is just like many Japanese persons I met on a recent trip. Worth watching !