Akadot: If you had to choose, what would you say is your all-time favorite Japanese drama? Why?

JC: My favourite Japanese drama is Out: Crimes of the Housewives, which is about a group of Japanese women who end up working for the yakuza, dismembering corpses. It's genuinely funny but also genuinely realistic, as a whole series of unlikely events pile together to create a wholly believeable story. It's based on a novel by Natsuo Kirino, which is just out in English.

Akadot: Hmm... this one sounds interesting, but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe I heard of it though, does it star Tanaka Misako and Iijima Naoko by any chance? I think it may have aired on the I-channel here in the states.

JC: That's the one. I also really like the infidelity dramas like Wednesday Love Affair and Parfum de la Jalousie, with all the bunny-boilers and knife-wielding maniacs. They remind me of my own love-life.

Akadot: Has there ever been a drama that you watched and found it was completely bizarre or you just didn't understand (for whatever the reason)?

JC: I had a lot of trouble with something called Love Separation Service, which was like Mission Impossible for lonely-hearts. I understood the concept, but when I put it in the player, I found myself completely out of my depth in terms of the Japanese I was hearing. It made no sense to me, and I had to pass it on to Motoko. The same applied with Geisha Detective, because of the Kyoto dialect. I lived in Kyoto for six months, but Geisha Detective was very tough for me. I guess I didn't do enough time in the company of courtesans.

Akadot: Lately, we've seen somewhat of a trend where American studios import anime storylines for live action entertainment here. If you could bring any Japanese drama to a westernized audience (of course the drama would be modified with western actors, setting, etc.), which drama would it be? Why?

JC: Why on Earth would I want to modify it with western actors? Part of the appeal of Japanese drama for me is that it comes from Japan and presents a view of the Japanese people. If I wanted to see Americans in a drama, I'd go and watch Sports Night or LA Law again.

Hmmm... now you mention it, I think that I'll Be Back might be quite good to do. It's like a Japanese Groundhog Day, where a guy has to live the same five years over and over again. I quite like Sleeping Forest as well, which is like Fight Club set in an orchid farm. And Lipstick, which is about a man who finds love in a women's prison.

Akadot: Why would you choose those dramas? Do you think western audiences would relate to these stories over ones featured in other dramas?

JC: I like those dramas because they do something that other shows don't do. A lot of TV drama, all over the world, is in the hands of producers who don't want to rock the boat, and who just want to copy everyone else. There are a lot of clone-shows. I like the ones that try something new. Every now and then, Japanese drama is way ahead of America. People are still going crazy about Six Feet Under. Japanese TV had been there and done that already in 1994, in a show called Good Mourning. An American production team could work wonders with Sleeping Forest or Lipstick. Peter Goodman, my publisher, keeps on drooling at the thought of what Hollywood producers will make of the Dorama Encyclopedia. It's unlocking a whole culture's TV, and there's stuff there than can be cherry-picked for the home market. Just look at the number of Hollywood remakes of Japanese movies at the moment.

Akadot: Just out of curiosity, I noticed Daughter of Iguana is on your book cover. Out of all the Japan dramas, was their any special reason why you choose that drama image to represent your book?

JC: Well, Daughter of Iguana has a pretty Japanese schoolgirl looking into a mirror, with a mutant lizard looking back at her. That's pretty surreal for starters. It has the normal world and a fantasy world facing off against each other, and I thought that was a pretty good example of the kind of stuff you can expect to see in the book as a whole. We have Power Rangers and Ultraman alongside school romances, cop thrillers and yuppie love-triangles. We've got the lot. Daughter of Iguana is also based on a manga, like several hundred other titles in the book. I wanted to send a message to the manga fans of America, that this was a book with literally hundreds of manga stories they might never have heard of.

Akadot: I have heard that there is such a thing as the "15-minute morning drama" (on NHK) in Japan. Do you think this concept would work in other westernized countries such as America?

JC: The NHK 15-minute drama was designed for a particular kind of person - a lonely housewife hard-pressed for time, who could only afford a quarter of an hour away from housework. It contains several features reminiscent of radio drama, such as an onscreen narrator (so you don't have to keep your eyes on the TV at all times), and a clock so that you never get caught watching TV when your husband gets home. I'm not sure that any of these features would be quite so appealing for an American audience. If an American wife was caught by her husband with her hand in a box of chocolates, watching a soap opera with the dishes left unwashed in the sink, she'd shrug her shoulders and say "So what?" Then he'd yell at her and she'd kick his ass. That's the impression I get from watching your entertaining cultural export, The Jerry Springer Show, anyway.

So, no, I'm not sure there's a place in America for the 15-minute drama. They're so damn miserable. The women in them are such losers! I know I'll get into trouble for saying that, but they are! They only ever seem to be validated by their suffering. If I want to experience that, I'll just call my mother.

And just for the record, 15 minutes on NHK is 15 minutes without commercial breaks. Some US soap operas are only about 23 minutes long once you strip out the advertisements for tampons and cat food. There's not all that much difference...

Akadot: Lately, I have heard rumors that the 12-episode prime time dramas in Japan are starting to lose interest among the Japanese and shorter two to four episode dramas are becoming popular. What trends do you predict for the Japanese drama? (i.e. length, storylines, etc.)

JC: There's been a move away from the 12-episode drama, chiefly because of the opportunities for later resale. Quite a few drama series find some excuse for having, say, four three-hour stories under a twelve-episode umbrella. What this means further down the line is that they can be repackaged as TV movies and DVD "movies" once they've initially been broadcast. It makes it easier to sell them in subsidiary markets.

But there are still plenty of 12-episode series around. The most noticeable trend in recent years has been the symbiotic relationship between Japanese TV and films. You can look at stuff like Bayside Shakedown, Ring, Spiral, Hypnosis, Yin-Yang Master, Sure Death, Another Heaven, or Leave it to the Nurses, and you realize that there's an entire generation of Japanese movie audiences who expect their movies to be spin-offs from TV serials. If you really want to understand Japanese movies of the last five or ten years, you have to watch Japanese TV too!

Akadot: So what drama are you currently watching now or want to watch? Also, if you wanted to recommend any drama to our readers, which one would it be?

JC: Right now, the shows I'm enjoying include Sky High, which is like Highway to Heaven with added revenge. Also the remake of High School Teacher, but I can't tell you why because it will spoil the twist. And something called Sister Bomber, which is about kung-fu nuns.

The shows I'm actually watching at this very moment are Chinese adaptations of Japanese comics, such as Meteor Garden (Hana Yori Dango) and Marmalade Boy. But that's a whole other story.