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The story
Netflix’s Korean drama ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ is getting a Japanese remake, with Fuji TV/Kansai TV announcing it will premiere in the “Getsu 10” (Monday 10pm) slot on October 19. The protagonist’s name in the remake is “Minami Minamida,” played by Mana Ashida.
On the thread, alongside expectations for Ashida’s performance, reactions were mixed — comments touched on the budget and quality gap compared to the Korean original, plus questions about the reasoning behind the remake.
Korean drama ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ gets a Japanese remake — ‘Attorney Minami Minamida Is a Genius’ stars Mana Ashida [Japanese version story/staff details]
It was announced on the 25th that Netflix’s Korean drama ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ will be remade in Japan as the Kansai TV/Fuji TV Getsu 10 drama ‘Attorney Minami Minamida Is a Genius’ (starting October 19, airing Mondays at 10:00 PM).
Mana Ashida stars as the lead, whose character name is “Minami Minamida,” and the first key visual has been released.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Worse than Roppongi Class.
The fact that it's Fuji TV is the biggest problem lol
Well yeah, that's just how it goes.
Japanese dramas only run about 10 episodes,
while Korean and American dramas run much longer, so they can flesh out the story properly and you actually grow attached to the characters.
And compared to Korean and American dramas, Japanese dramas just don't have the budget, so they end up looking cheap.
>no law firm would hire her
Is this setup even realistic?
I could buy "got hired but it didn't work out," but
getting turned away outright means something's visibly off from the start, right?
I know someone who got into Todai's Type I humanities track (dropped out without graduating) who couldn't even hold down a fast food job, so honestly it's pretty realistic lol
If autism were really that severe an issue, I'd think she'd trip up already during her legal apprenticeship (shiho-shuushuu).
For example, Attorney (now lawmaker) Kitamura had to repeat a year of his apprenticeship lol
It's probably just another same-old Japanese drama that hasn't changed in 20 years, right?
Even on Netflix and Prime, Korean-linked domestic dramas are unpopular.
Gas Man (Korean director/screenwriter) and Hanzaisha (rewrote the original to swap the Japanese character for a Korean one) both flopped hard too.
The Netflix series 'Gas Man' is actually based on Toho's 1960 tokusatsu film 'The Human Vapor,' directed by Ishiro Honda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya.
And it was good, too.
Oh, that one's about autism too, huh.
Exactly.
Copycats always end up failing.
LMAO
Yeah, that Nakai-kun drama was embarrassing.
when Japan remakes them, it crams the story into
Japan's standard broadcast slots. They remake it
at half or even a quarter of the original length, which is why
people say the quality suffers. The scenes with the parents were great in the original,
but the remake will happily cut the parents almost entirely.
Even the picture quality and editing degrade in these Korean drama remakes.
Makes you wonder if terrestrial TV is really that broke.
> For example, Attorney (now lawmaker) Kitamura had to repeat a year of his legal apprenticeship lol
That checks out.
He didn't actually repeat a year.
The legal apprenticeship term was 2 years for the 41st class (which Kitamura was in), 1.5 years for the 53rd–59th classes, and 1 year after that.
Maybe that's what got misread as "repeating a year."
Must be frustrating not being able to beat Korea,
nothing but remakes over here.
Huh?
Korea remakes Japanese works too, you know.
Recent examples:
Confidence Man JP
Tonight, This Love Will Disappear from the World
Kiss of the Siren
(a remake of Ice World, which starred Yutaka Takenouchi and Nanako Matsushima)
And this fall, Yonekura's Doctor-X is getting remade too.
Background and Key Points
The original, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” (Netflix/ENA, 2022), was a genuine phenomenon in Korea: a legal drama built around a rookie lawyer with autism spectrum disorder who graduated top of her class, ran 16 episodes, and became one of the most-discussed non-English Netflix titles worldwide. Japanese “Getsu 10” (Monday 10pm) is Fuji TV/Kansai TV’s drama slot, distinct from TBS’s more famous “Getsu 9” — worth noting since foreign readers often conflate the two. Mana Ashida, cast as “Minami Minamida,” has been a working actress since early childhood and is now attempting a rare pivot into a demanding adult lead role built around neurodivergence, a role type Japanese TV rarely attempts.
The thread’s real fault line wasn’t Ashida’s casting, which drew mostly optimism, but whether Japanese remakes can ever match Korean originals given structural constraints: Japanese dramas typically run a single “cour” of around 10 episodes versus Korea’s much longer runs, and budgets are visibly smaller, which posters argue forces remakes to cut subplots (the parents’ storyline was singled out) and shoot on cheaper equipment. A secondary debate concerned plausibility — whether a Todai-trained, top-scoring bar exam passer would realistically be shut out of every firm.
What outside readers likely miss is the “shiho-shuushuu” system referenced in the thread: after passing Japan’s bar exam, candidates must complete a mandatory apprenticeship before practicing law, a step with no exact Korean equivalent, which is why one poster’s claim about a lawmaker “repeating a year” turned out to be a misreading of that program’s shifting duration rather than an actual failure.
*This article is compiled as excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “[TV] Korean Drama ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ Gets Japanese Remake… This October, Fuji TV’s ‘Attorney Minami Minamida Is a Genius,’ Starring Mana Ashida.”
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