A group of musicians meet by chance in a Karaoke Bar and decide to makes a Quartet together. They move into a house in the woods together but soon realize that each of them have hurt in their pasts. Together, they mend this pain with friendship and music.
Quartet is a mature Japanese drama for people that want a truth to reality type of story. Its a simple drama that drives its plot off of interaction between the characters. A few scenes can literally be the characters sitting around the table talking or sitting in the living room talking about strange topics. These topics can be true to life that a person can relate to but its the way the characters go about talking about this topics that make their conversations so interesting. Someone might ask a question that a normal person wouldn't normally ask just so the conversation can be talked about from that view of that question. The references to different Japanese stories and other forms of entertainment is funny to listen to. These lines might be lost on a viewer who doesn't know about Japanese folklore. Hopefully, you watch with a good english subtitle that explains what the references are plus where it came from. There's defiantly a witty aspect to this drama that masks the deep seriousness of each character's situation. When the characters are not eating and talking with each other, they are playing music in their Quartet known as Doughnuts Hole. Music is used to light each character's way in a life that leads each of them down dark paths of sorrow. I wasn't expecting the plot to have a major shift in emotional tone after the first episode. It was like your informed directly that this drama is a breed of its own. It has its own original story as well as a special way in telling this story. Each episode had a shocker moment that makes your mouth hang open. The plot does well staying mature without selling out to a bubble gum pop mainstream result in overall storyline like many daytime dramas. Well, this is more of a problem with Korean drama than Japanese drama in my opinion. All of the characters are running away from problems they have in life until they realize that they don't have to face their problems alone anymore. They have each other to support one another. Through the music they create together, they can support all who listen also. No matter how popular their Quartet is or the negative opinions of others.
I wanted to see Ryuhei act out a role that wasn't strange. He plays a lot of dark monotone characters that don't express themselves much. Even his character here isn't too outgoing. He's laid back for the most part. He still was open to participating in all the crazy actions the other characters did. I felt for his experience of one sided love. His character is like the leader of the Quartet. He pumps everybody up while still being slightly awkward himself. While the drama is very mature, the characters didn't partake in acting like middle aged adults all the time. One character liked laying in a full body animal suit in the middle of the living room floor under a table. She had the nerve to have different ones! Way to make that a fashion statement. None took out the trash like they were supposed to either expect one person. I loved the backhanded comments that they would make about each other when they sat down to eat dinner. Its so engaging that you think you're sitting at the table with them eating. Issei is getting more work after his role in My Dangerous Wife and a better actor couldn't have been picked to act with the rest of the cast. His character is a joker of sorts. You don't know what he's thinking a lot of the time unless its about his family. The character hides his feelings behind carefree jokes filled with occasional sarcasm. His screams are the funnest screams I have heard from a TV character in a LONG time. They're like an animal that can see that it is about to get killed by some predator but can't do anything to stop it's slaughter. Its even funnier that he has a natural deep voice. I can appreciate classical music to the point that the musical scenes were enjoyable to me. The instrument playing looked realistic too.
A house in the woods in the mountains of Japan is the set on location for Quartet. Its a really nice looking modern day house that a medium sized family could live in. Outside of the house is nothing but woods and highway. The seasons change throughout the drama from snow to spring flowers in bloom. The camera seemed to be always ahead of the characters so that they could capture them plainly in action. The scenes in the home are done from side angles as to catch the actors together talking to each other face to face without having to transition angles constantly. A drone was used for full landscape shots that needed to show the whole location of where the characters where. I like these shots because I'm a scenery lover. When they did their musical performances, the camera always felt like it was on stage with them showing their performance to the viewers and also showing the audience in a shooting style that make you feel like your seeing them through the eyes of Doughnuts hole's members.
Quartet is so simple in presentation that it makes for an interesting J Drama. Don't be fooled though. The drama also give you enough plot conflicts to keep your eyes peeled to the screen. That ending theme song is my jam right now!!!! Happy watching!!!
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