From the perspective of a Japanese person with long overseas experience, I have considered why the Japanese drama “VIVANT” was not well received overseas. I believe that cultural factors have a major influence, and I can list the following three points.
Generally, the protagonist of a movie or drama is expected to be consistent, have special abilities, and be a charming person with humanity. However, the protagonist of “VIVANT”, Nogi Yusuke, undergoes extreme changes between the first and second halves of the story.
At first, he is portrayed as a useless salaryman, and is so powerless that he is in danger of losing his life in the Mongolian desert. However, as the story progresses, he suddenly transforms into an excellent agent. This sudden change would have been difficult for overseas viewers to understand.
It is good to depict the growth of the protagonist, but Nogi’s change in “VIVANT” is closer to a transformation into a different person than growth, and he loses his humanity and becomes a perfect agent. This makes it difficult for viewers to empathize with him.
The romance between the protagonist Yusuke Nogi and Kaoru Yuzuki, who works as a nurse in Mongolia, was also difficult for overseas viewers to understand. The relationship between the two is left unclear throughout the story, and in the final scene, they only embrace each other, leaving the relationship after that unclear.
Furthermore, the meaning of the “manju” that appears in the final scene is difficult for non-Japanese people to understand. Even if it represents some kind of command, the way it is expressed requires cultural background knowledge, so it is likely that it was difficult for overseas viewers to understand.
The development in the final scene, in which the protagonist kills his father instead of his incompetent boss, would have been difficult for overseas viewers to accept. In many countries, it is common to think that people with excellent abilities and personalities become bosses. Therefore, the choice to kill one’s father to protect an incompetent and bad-tempered boss would have been difficult for overseas viewers to understand.
“VIVANT” was an ambitious work that aimed to popularize Japanese dramas around the world, but for these reasons it failed to gain recognition overseas. In order to produce works that can truly gain international recognition in the future, it may become necessary not only to hire excellent scriptwriters, but also to have the script supervised by a Japanese person who is familiar with overseas circumstances.
