Gen is a retired assassin who now quietly works at the hot spring inn Tsubakiya in a remote area of Japan. Hoping to restart his life, he applied for the job after seeing an ad, claiming to be a middle-aged salaryman who just got laid off. He hides his past from the inn's beautiful proprietress and veteran clerk, as well as the rest of the people around him. These include a once-famous stripper named Tomoyo, a hostess bar owner, and Q, the only man who knows Gen's past. Surrounded by this unusual cast, Gen is constantly tangled up in various troubles at Tsubakiya.Edit Translation
I could only find this unsubbed (and without the Special, BTW), but I still just HAD TO watch it, since it's based on one of my all-time favorite manga (published in English as "Steaming Sniper"). Unfortunately, my understanding of Japanese is limited to the simplest sentences, although I could still follow some eps - those which were (loosely) based on chapters from the original manga so with those I already knew more or less what was going on - and the 2-out-of-10 words I could grasp here and there also helped a bit; so all in all I won't comment on the dialogues, as it'd be unfair of me to do so. I'll still comment on the script, though, albeit admitting that, given the complexity (and the length) of the manga, there was no way one could manage to squeeze it into 12 short eps. (less than 30 minutes each, minus the opening and ending credits and the preview of next episode, let's say around 25 minutes each, actually). The only way one could have done justice to "Steaming Sniper" would have been to make an AsaDora out of it. Now, if you watch this dorama you'll think that it'd be absolutely impossible, given the sex and the violence which are in it! Well, this is where, fluency in Japanese aside, I have a real beef with whoever scripted this abomination, as it has very little to do with the original story, and that showed a lack of respect which I can't forgive. For instance, although targeted at a more grown-up audience, the manga ain't no freaking hentai nor a frigging gangster story "à la John Woo", for crying out loud! It's a "slice of life" story, dammit! Still, the dorama writer(s) specifically selected the manga chapters containing some sex & violence (which are minor ingredients in the manga chapters themselves, but became, like, the main dish here!) and even went the extra mile and added more sex and violence which weren't anywhere in the manga - and all this really pissed me off, to be honest. So, I'll stand by my opinion that this could've worked as an asadora, since "Steaming Sniper" doesn't revolve around sex and violence, and 99% of that could be expunged from the story without affecting its value at all (and as for the remaining 1%? Well, what's so bad in a good old fadeout here and there?), and with 16 volumes, each consisting of 10 or 11 chapters, there would have been enough material to write the around 150 eps. of an asadora. Had they done that, maybe they could've also afforded a better cast - and look, I'm not discussing the acting skills of the actors/actresses chosen for this; I'll only say they have very little - and in some case nothing at all! - in common with the manga characters! I particularly disagreed with the casting choices regarding Gen-san, the Okami and Tomoyo-san! (Ooohhh, that lazy and silly decision of using two different actresses for Tomoyo-san with or without makeup! Aaaargh...) Okay, I've written too much already: considering all of the above, I couldn't possibly give this a passing grade. The beautiful, jazzy musical score still managed to sweeten the pill up a bit, so I'll give this "only" 5 out of 10 and not 4 or even 3 as I was tempted to...
