Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! 明けましておめでとうございます!
A very happy new year to everyone, no matter where you are and regardless of how long you have been following this blog! I wish everyone all the best in the year ahead and that you will find and come across more gems in the J-drama and J-movie universe and derive joy along the way while finding new titles to watch and keeping in touch with related developments through this space.
This year marks a very significant milestone for Dorama World as this blog began exactly 20 years ago in August 2006 (although it was in a different form prior to that). I don't know how many of you have been with me since then but this is indeed a very long time (way longer than I expected when I first started writing the blog) and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support to date.
Honestly speaking, for this to have lasted 20 years as a solo side project while juggling other commitments without any help and hardly any promotion beyond organic reach and word of mouth, I am humbled by where I am today with regard to this blog. No doubt this may not be as well-known or influential as some of the other J-drama blogs out there, I hope that you have enjoyed what I've dished out over the years.
I haven't thought of what to do to celebrate this occasion but there are still a number of months to go until the anniversary month of August so I'll be planning something for sure.
And so, in this special year, I thought of doing a recap of what I watched in 2025 and give you some ideas of what's coming in this space for 2026. While I don't think that what I chose to watch, like or dislike may be in line with everyone's tastes, you may be curious about what I watched and through this post, you can hopefully uncover or find out about something which might just interest you. With the increasing Japan-related content on OTT platforms this day, there is a lot to watch - to the extent that I just can't catch up because my to-watch list keeps growing and time is so limited these days due to my tight schedule. This is a happy dilemma though because more content is better than no content.
Last but not least, note that the selection of titles are not restricted to new/current ones because the OTT platforms had uploaded a number of past-season or classic titles which I may have missed when it was in-season.
Here's a summary of my key statistics in 2025:
* In terms of the number of titles I watched in 2025, the total of 64 was slightly higher than in 2024's 61. However, when it came to the breakdown between dramas and movies, I watched more dramas than movies in 2024 (34 vs. 27) while 2025 saw a more-or-less even split of (33 dramas vs. 31 movies). I think this has to do with the fact that there were more movies available to watch on OTT and that I had much lesser time to watch full-length dramas and needed to be very selective on what I chose to watch.
* When it came to the source/platform I watched the dramas/movies on, it is probably not surprising that the bulk came from Netflix (38) with Amazon Prime and TVer tied at second with 10 each.
* As for the "producers" of what I watched, while TBS' works were my top choice in 2024, the distribution was more spread out in 2025 - TBS (9), Netflix (6) and 5 each from NTV and TV Asahi.
* In 2024, there was a drama which I gave a perfect score of 10 i.e. "Lion no kakurega" but there wasn't any this year. The highest score I gave in 2025 was 9 out of 10 for two titles: "Mikami-sensei" and "Gekieiga Kodoku no Gurume".
On the other end of the spectrum, I gave the score of 1 for 1 title in both years i.e. "Anata no ban desu Gekijouban" (2024) and "Housoukyoku Senkyo" (2025).
* In terms of the ratings I gave for the titles I watched this year, it seemed like I was more satisfied with my picks in 2024 because 41% of the titles got a score of 8 and above. In contrast, only 25% were in this range in 2025. The bulk of the titles got a score of 5 to 7.5 i.e. 56% compared to 39% in 2024. The percentage for titles scoring below 5 was about the same for both years i.e. around 18%.
* As for my most "productive" month, I watched the most titles in March (12), April (10) and June (9).
NOTE THAT I still have 4 titles in 2025 which I haven't posted the reviews for so will get that done, hopefully by the end of this month.
First title I watched in 2025 was...
And I ended the year with this...
Coming to my plans for this space in 2026, what's for sure for now are:
* Clearing the outstanding quick reviews for the 4 remaining titles in 2025
* Planning for some celebratory activities for the anniversary month
If you have any ideas on what you would like to see, please feel free to send them along. As to whether I can incorporate them in the anniversary month, the biggest challenge is time so I seek your kind understanding if I can't commit or deliver on certain suggestions.
As for my viewing plans in 2026, I think my selection will be very much focused on what the international OTT platforms have to offer. It's tougher for me to follow TVer which doesn't keep its dramas on demand for a long time and I can't really stick to the weekly viewing schedule these days (unless it's a must-watch-now kind of situation). For now, I intend to watch whatever is still in my to-watch list first so you may be seeing reviews of 2025's seasonal dramas along with older selections progressively in 2026 and this means that the newer titles may not be covered so promptly. Using this year as an example, I haven't watched all of Netflix's J-drama/J-movie productions except for "Imawa no kuni no Arisu" which I finished in days after its release. As such, please don't be surprised to see something released months ago being covered here much later.
Before I end this post, in case you are wondering what I watched on the first day of 2026...
