Subbing of Makete, Katsu was announced in October but sadly no news plus the fact that there are no Japanese subs. Went to local Asian DVD shop and their copy didn't say that it had subs. I had to try to watch it anyway and its pretty hard trying to understand the political stuff. The good news is there's plenty of English in this one so I always sort of knew what what was going.
Makete, Katsu is about Yoshida Shigeru, Japan's PM after WW2 and Douglas MacArthur the guy in charge of Japan. I really enjoyed the history lesson. Japan being an occupied country after the surrender. Issues in regards to the Emperor and his status. Threats to divide the country. Drafting of the constitution and adisarmement. MacArthur's reforms. The threat of communism. Fun and riveting stuff.
The English for once in a jdorama, is pretty good. Watanabe Ken needed English subtitles in Inception but he does a much better job here. Some conversations he just goes a tad too fast but overall no what the hell did he just say moments. Even Tanihara Sosuke does pretty well with his English lines.Whoever the English consultant has in this did a great job. The English speaking actors are not as amateurish this time around. It helps that they got David Morse to play MacArthur.
I like my history doramas as long as the characters aren't presented like they're out of a fairytale. Wish there were more MacArthur but I can't complain. Can't really label it a must watch cause quite a chunk of the dialogue was lost on me. Generally I knew what was going on but I couldn't enjoy the details. Hopefully some kind soul will pick this one for subbing or the Japanese subs will surface.Even if you know no Japanese, you can skip to the English parts anyway and a lot of the important scenes are in English.