The Dorama Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953 Paperback – November 1, 2003

This is the book that Japanese drama fans have been waiting for. As a fan and also a creator of the online J!-ENT Japanese Dorama Database, it is a real pleasure to see a book not only covering Japanese drama but also sentai and including anime references for the anime fans who have discovered Japanese dramas. Within the last five years, there has been a significant Japanese dorama boom in many countries thanks to the growing popularity of anime, Japanese music and Japanese/Asian entertainment. Although Japanese drama is not readily available as Japanese animation or Asian cinema on DVD, there is a growing fandom for dramas thanks to the International channels, Japanese rental stores, fan-trading/subbing, BT and VCD's. What I like about this book is that it has something for everyone. For fans looking for information on trendy Japanese dramas, the very long duration NHK and TBS dramas (especially those samurai/historical dramas), sentai and of course, dramas within the last fifty years, I was very impressed how the authors handled and included them in this book. What I worried about the most was the translation or the titles that would be used for the drama because what other countries have used as their English title for a Japanese drama has nothing to do with the translated title and thus, I was happy by the way this book handled that. One thing that also impressed me is the author and Stone Book Press's dedication to update the encyclopedia (there are dramas missing and a few errors but they are not as numerous and can be fixed in the next version especially with the input from readers). For a freshman book, it actually surpassed what I was expecting and I highly recommend the purchase of this book. So, may you be the trendy drama fan like me or the fan who just watched the live version of GTO or You're Under Arrest and are hooked and want more! This book is THE ONLY SOURCE that you will find this much information on Japanese dramas.-KNDY

Thank you for the Dorama Encyclopedia. I am an avid fan of Japanese dorama and have been watching them subtitled in English for over 20 years. I was very excited to find out about this book. It really is the only "hardcopy" reference resource I know of for dorama.It's true the doramas are listed by their English titles, but the Japanese title is also given and is referenced in the index. I've used this guide to look up descriptions of a show and information like the original broadcast station, year it was broadcast, cast, number of episodes, theme song etc.True, you can find a lot of this information on the internet, but even an internet junkie like me can look up information a lot faster with this guide. And there are many, many entries in this book that you will just not find on the internet.One thing I would like to see in future guides are category lists. For instance, shows categorized as comedies, romance, horror, family drama, etc. Or by favorite actor, actress, or producer. It would help someone find shows in a genre they like or avoid ones they dislike.This book is an interesting supplemental reference guide for the dorama fan.

but it was published in the early 2000's so it does not cover later shows. but this is a valuable reference for older shows, esp the 90's, which was a great decade for jdramas.

Bought this years ago and probably old and outdated now but some of the old dramas are the classics and all sorts of tidbits found here. Fun reading.

While being far from being complete, Jonathan Clements' "the Dorama Encyclopedia" is none-the-less an invaluable resource for those wanting to know about Japanese TV Dramas since 1953. Clements and his staff of researchers should be commended for their valued efforts. I was very much pleased and surprised by many of their inclusions. Many shows which I thought would be overlooked are included. Such obscure shows like "Private Eye Story", "Unbalanced", "Buska", "OL Police" and "Uchu G-Men" are given very good entries. Tokusatsu Fans will be especially pleased by the inclusion of most of the Super Sentai Shows from "Go Ranger" to the current "Aba Ranger" as well as perenial favorites such as "Zone Fighter", "Kikaida", "Ultraman" and even the Toei/Marvel Comics version of "Spiderman". Trendy Drama fans will also rejoice at the inclusion of many favorities including "Tokyo Love Story", "Love Generation", "Love 2000" and "101st Proposal". Even cult shows such as "G-Men '75", "Sukeban Deka", "Sign Is V", "Sure Death", "Kamen Rider", "Seibu Police" and "Zatoichi" are covered. As is to be expected, with this amount of coverage, there isn't much room to put any detailed information in but for the most part, the entries are sufficient to give the reader a general idea of plot and storyline. My only complaint is that the promise of photos from the various shows never materializes. In many instances we are given line drawings and black and white artist sketches of some of the shows in question, which I found to be a bit of a letdown. In one silly instance the entry for "Kamen Rider" shows a toy (Kamen Rider Black RX on a Motorcycle). Another nitpick is that some notable omissions are found. Such shows such as "Playgirl", "Big City", "Resolved! Zubat", "Stewardess Story" and "Doberman Detectives", and "Zero Zero Kunoichi" are not included. All in all however I was very much impressed by the scope of the entries. Kudos to Stone Bridge Press for another great and well-researched resource!