I think that if we as a community ask for more content, Viki will look into ways to add more.
I’ve know of many dramas that were not here and after many people requested it they added the content.
Watch Green Door is really good
I would really like to see more Japanese dramas here too.
angelight, is it on Netflix? i do see so mny on Netflix. they do those animations too right? maybe this older lady would like to see some of those too.
JAPANESE on NET&&&X: The best animation like drama is FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST.
I love the GREEN DOOR (japanese version)
SMOKING (japanese)
YAE’S SAKURA (JAPAN WOMEN FIGHTER)
YOU WOULD THINK SINCE THE NEW CEO HERE IS FROM JAPAN, WE WOULD FINALLY SEE MORE JAPANESE DRAMAS HERE, BUT IS NOT HAPPENING SO FAR. I LOVE THE JAPANESE MYSTERY/HORROR DRAMA. THEY ARE GREAT AND GIVES US VARIETY OF THE MONOTONOUS ROMANTIC DRAMAS THAT HAVE THE SAME REPETITIVE SCENES IN THEM.
IF you live in US you will find the one’s I mentioned above. They also have great documentaries like A Power Crisis. Homeless in Japan
Try to watch Gabi: Russian Coffee (iS SIMILAR TO mR. SUNSHINE FROM sk). is a good one too.
PS. I BOUGHT A NEW LAPTOP AND I have to get used to it. lol
got the green door and a few others on Netflix. will start watching them.
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Different people see things in different ways but I do not know how, objectively speaking, you can issue a blanket statement that “Japanese TV is pretty awful” based on the silliness factor in a few dramas. Yes, there is a lot of that in Japanese dramas - and in dramas from all over the world - but there are tons and tons of J-dramas that are dead-serious.
I think maybe your perception is skewed by the fact that romantic comedies tend to have much more of the silly content than other genres, but for whatever reason Viki is currently overloaded with rom-coms.
I’ve done my list of faves in the “What J-dramas do you want to watch” and “More in the future” threads, but to focus on just a few of the serious, silliness-free dramas I’ve seen:
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Edison no Haha (2008) - about a child prodigy and his single mother, struggling to protect him from the envious “educators” and parents who want to kick him out of school for being “too smart”;
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Life (2007) - I described this in detail on the other threads, but this is about brutal school bullying, basically “Like ‘Aliens’ but with scarier monsters,” with understated but stand-up-and-cheer heroes who triumph over their tormentors with perfect ethics;
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Voice (2009) - A dead-serious and intense drama about a group of forensic pathology students who solve mysteries using the evidence that they get from the dead that they examine in class;
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Yukemuri Sniper (2009) - A former hit man seeking to leave crime and rebuild his life goes to work at a rural onsen, where he ends up helping people find justice;
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Tantei no Tantei (2014) - Kitagawa Keiko’s spectacular portrayal of kick-butt detective Sasaki, who investigates corrupt detectives - just a cop show, but again dead-serious, a good theme of justice vs. scumbaggery, and with some excellently-choreographed fight scenes;
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Yasashii Jikan (2005) - An intense father-son estrangement melodrama that takes place in Furano and Biei on Hokkaido. It’s got a heavy-duty emotional vibe, a great story, unforgettable characters, and zero silliness;
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Joker Yurusarezaru Sosakan (2010) - Another unforgettable cop show, about a cop turned vigilante - an excellent and dead-serious meditation on the ethical questions implied by vigilantism, some incredible twists, and excellent acting of the lead role by Masato Sakai, whose inscrutable smile (masking deep secrets and conflicts,) reminds me of Gary Sinese;
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With Love (1998) - An oldie-but-goody about anonymous email communications, which aired in Japan ten months before the American movie “You’ve Got Mail,” which had a very similar story. No silliness, just a lot of brilliant music and a cool romance (though the leading lady was horribly miscast.)
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Ghost Writer (2015) - About a famous writer who’s stuck with writer’s block and allows her assistant to ghost-write her new novel; the assistant is actually a better writer, and fans start to ask questions about the strange change in writing style - which sets up some heavy tension and suspense. I had a problem with the ethical ambiguity that the writers of the series settled on in the closing episodes, but it’s an interesting look into Japanese publishing, and a good example of a totally serious drama;
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Biblia Koshodou no Jiken Techou (2013) - Gouriki Ayame plays an owner of an antique bookshop, who has an unusual Sherlock Holmes-like ability to unravel the deep secrets of books’ past owners, just by examining the books. Another all-time fave of mine, a serious drama but with a breezy feel to it, but no throwaway silliness.
I could give dozens of other examples, but this is a textwall already and I just wanted to make the point: For every comedy with goofball humor, there’s another ten with serious, heavy-duty food-for-thought plots and themes.
It just depends on what you choose to watch.
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I watched “Good Morning Call” and “Mischievous Kiss” and liked both - at least the first seasons. I can’t remember if GMC had a second season, but I started “Mischievous Kiss 2” and the writers turned the Kotoko character - whose hilarious personality was what made season 1 work so well - into a clingy, dependent and creepy character who made the second season a depressing drag, so I just stopped watching midway through.
I got disgusted by Netflix doing remakes of original Japanese dramas and then calling them “Netflix Originals” (which is flatly fraudulent,) so I canceled Netflix a couple years ago and have never regretted it. Viki and Crunchyroll are both cheaper and have original Japanese dramas - though they both need to add more - and I don’t have to deal with the cheap, corrupt political soapbox that Netflix is turning itself into.
“Hana Kimi” (Hanazakari no Kimitachi e") and “Hana Yori Dango” are a couple other good light-hearted rom-coms that are worth watching - though IMO Viki is already top-heavy with romantic comedies.
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I didn’t keep count but I saw more J-drama’s than I expected. 
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If you go back now, you’ll be pleasantly surprised and very pleased on how many great Japanese dramas/movies/documentaries they have on Netflix, and the variety is immense from Thrillers, BL to great romantic stories.
But one thing I love the most about Japanese dramas is the almost PERFECT English translation they have to offer in dramas/movies, shows etc… I don’t understand why Japanese are able to provide such great translations, and I still struggle when viewing dramas in OL with good translations (Chinese dramas have taken a turn for the worse when it comes to translation, and Korean is next). It’s sad to see that happening now. I file complain after complains, so I’m hoping they change the translator and get better ones soon.
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I also am watching a couple of Japanese dramas on NF
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Those Japanese guys are getting so masculine and handsome now, and thankfully they don’t ‘‘scream’’ when they talk like they used to do in the past which annoyed me so much lol
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Angelight - yeah, a couple months ago I bought a Netflix gift card to give it another try. As reported in various news sites, in the spring of '22 NF’s management did an apparent policy change away from political partisanship, though it remains to be seen whether it’s just window dressing to win back people like me who bailed. And yeah, there’re a few new J-dramas on there in both movie and series formats.
Another peeve of mine regarding Netflix and Amazon Prime alike is that when they do put new Japanese dramas on they seem to gravitate, bonehead-fashion, to stuff about yakuza. It’s like the NF dweebs down on Sunset Blvd (and at AP up in Seattle,) are so clueless about Japan that that’s all they can think of, so that’s what they contract to show. So where Viki has genre-tunnel-vision with Rom-Coms, Netflix and Amazon Prime are weirdly fixated on yakuza. YMMV but generally speaking I find organized crime, whether American shows about mafia or Japanese yakuza dramas, to hover somewhere between boring and annoying, so they’re generally a wash. However, comma…
I’m a longtime heroine addict, so last night I dove into “The Violence Action” - because despite being about yakuza, Kanna Hashimoto’s lead role as Kei the impossibly-kawaii and supremely-confident assassin won out over the yakuza subject matter:
Trailer with English subs is here:
https://www.netflix.com/title/81623164
It was also cool - and funny - to see Yu Shirota playing one of the Bad Guys. 
You’re right about the sub quality too. A few years back on NF I watched the long series “Buddha: Rajaon Ka Raja” by B.K. Modi (no relation to the current Indian PM,) and the subtitle translations were flawless. (And then they removed the show of course and it’s not available on DVD either.)
But I’m still waiting for Viki to provide a reason not to dump my subscription when it expires next February, and nothing has shown up, unfortunately.
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Yes, they better work something out soon because they are not listening to the people/viewers/paying or non paying, and in the long run, that’s going to be their doom. Whatever hurdles RViki may be facing right now, they need to jump over, and at least try to head for the win. So far, and in my honest opinion, things here went from bad to worse. They are not putting enough effort to get the problems they have here resolved. Like the song goes: 
Another one bite the Dust
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That’s because the Japanese dramas here on Viki are the ones that are not popular in Japan. While the ones that are popular and being aired primetime in Japan are not here on Viki and Viki only has a few of them. That’s why the quality of the Japanese dramas that you see on Viki is not that good. The streaming service “Tuduumm” has the popular Japanese dramas.
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Thanks! 
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You’re welcome! Glad Viki got this.
I was waiting to watch it on N F licks but would rather watch here.
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I’m kind of a broken record on this, but today in Rakuten/Viki’s “See New Dramas? ✓ Yes X No” email the three new Japanese dramas are: “Boys Over Flowers 2” (Romance • Drama), “Between Love and Friendship” (Romance • Drama), and “Koinaka” (Romantic Comedy • Drama)
So again there’s a single-genre tunnel-vision (i.e., Romance only,) on new J-Dramas. Meanwhile, the new roster of Korean dramas has one title from the Thriller & Suspense • Crime & Mystery genres and one from Medical Drama genre. If only we could get some representation of these genres from Japan.
And there are plenty being produced - like the whole “Doctor X” series (which of the few episodes I’ve managed to see have been excellent - Yonekura Ryoko just rules in pretty much everything she’s ever starred in,) “Joker Yurusarezaru Sosakan,” and “Voice,” which latter stands out as one of the most intense and heart-wrenching medical dramas I’ve ever seen (but barely remember 'cause it was literally years ago,) and likely dozens that have been released since those were new.
This is especially frustrating in context of the new “Shōgun” FX/Hulu miniseries - which I just stumbled onto last night ('didn’t realize it was a free-with-ads “On Demand” thing in LA’s Spectrum cable system,) and which is of course a new version of the late-'70s miniseries based on Clavell’s novel. So it’s a “Historical Drama,” definitely - something else Viki’s Japanese lineup is sorely missing. I ended up bingeing three full episodes until I looked at the clock and saw “3:00 am” and thought “Oh, I should probably crash” even though the show had me wide awake. Continuing today. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had to force myself away from a drama. In contrast, I’m on the second-to-last episode of the K-Drama “Inspector Koo” on Fletnix, and though the characters are good the story drags, I’ll have to force myself to sit through the last two episodes, and I’ll be relieved to be finished. And Korea is still nowhere near as interesting to me (or useful in my language study,) as Japan.
Anyhow, endlessly mystified as to why Viki can’t manage genres outside of the (frankly boring) Romance • Romantic Comedy • Romantic Fantasy sameness.
A few years ago a friend lent me a DVD set of “Ryomaden” - the 2010 NHK drama series based on the life of Sakamoto Ryoma, starring Masaharu Fukuyama (who was Yukawa Sensei in the instant-classic series “Galileo” - another drama Viki should consider,) and I learned more about Japanese history from “Ryomaden” - the transition from the Tokugawa Shogunate to the Meiji Restoration - than I’d learned anywhere else, least of all in American schools (which seem to pretend that Asian history doesn’t even exist.) 'Really wish I could see that one again, but… nowhere to be found and that friend has long since moved away.
As a longtime fan of Yoshikawa’s 1935 novel “Musashi,” the 素晴らしい Inagaki film trilogy of the novel from the '50s, and of course of Yonekura Ryoko (who, to recap, rules,) my jaw about dropped when I found a trailer on YouTube for a 2003 production of “Musashi,” also from NHK:
'Looks fantastic, would love to see it - nay, I’d be willing to cough up the usual $250+ for a subbed DVD set if such a thing were available - but nowhere to be found except tantalizing snippets on YouTube, most with no subs (and my Nihongo is still nowhere near even conversational ability and 'still need the training wheels.)
So the point of the ginormous textwall (brevity - sorree 
) is that while anything new is appreciated, we’re still starving for variety out here.
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