Times have sure changed regarding watching Japanese dramas. Back in the day, you had but two channels to choose from here in Hawaii (local Channel KIKU or pay-channel NGN), and in the days before the internet, the sole place you could get announcements and information about the Japanese shows and it’s airtimes was the KOKIKU Magazine.
Kokiku! That nifty little local publication focusing on Japanese shows and events- the magazine that gave you the details of each show on the air, cast member information, episode synopses, and (if you were lucky) maybe even a picture or two from your favorite show!
Though KOKIKU had been around since the mid 70’s, it wasn’t until I got turned onto the wonder of Japanese dramas in late 1995 that my drama viewing increased enough to warrant picking up the KOKIKU each month for myself. And even then, when I began buying it, it was sporadic at best (I even missed out on the wonderful cover with Emi Wakui in Pure, shimatta!) but then LONG VACATION came along and my love of Japanese dramas just EXPLODED and became the high point of what I consider my “golden age” of J-drama watching!
Once that happened and Japanese Drams became my life, KOKIKU became my most important source of information for everything I needed to know about my beloved Japanese shows! Every third week of the month was spent in anticipation of the next issue, wondering: Who would be on the cover? What exciting new shows would NGN and KIKU be picking up? All these answers waited for me at the local Shirokiya each month!
My 1995 Issues:
My 1996 Issues:
My 1997 Issues:
My 1998 Issues:
My 1999 Issues:
My 2000 Issues:
Beginning around, oh…late 1999 or so, I began to get bored with most of the shows out there, and began to drift away from j-dramas as a whole. By 2000, I was hardly watching any Japanese shows, and by the time NAOMI and MONA LISA HOHOEMI (among the last of the "golden era' shows I watched) wrapped up, I was only picking up KOKIKU out of habit than any interest in j-dramas, and by April of 2001 I gave it up.
My Kokiku Issues 2001-2005
From there, I only picked up the January New Year’s Issue of each year for the Kohaku Uta Gassen and Record Taisho information of the airtimes and the musical guests… and then by 2006, with the advent of the internet, started getting all my information online instead.
For awhile there, I didn't watch any japanese dramas, and for the next eight years or so, I watched maybe only six or seven shows in total, if that! It wasn't until a chance viewing of the cute Ayase Haruka drama HOTARU NO HIKARI online (streaming) in 2009 that jump-started my j-drama watching passion, a love that continues to this day!
Thus began the new phase of Japanese drama watching: I (like most people) get and watch all my shows off of the internet (whether by download, torrent or stream), and all the information, airtimes, episode synopses and drama photos I need are all at my fingertips! I wonder how many viewers out there know how lucky they are to have everything just a click away! Sure, things are much much easier now, but MAN, you will never be able to replace those days of running to Shirokiya and the excitement of seeing the crisp, brand new issue on the stand!
The Shirokiya I used to pick up my issues of Kokiku was at the Pearlridge Shopping Center, and though that one is now long-gone, the Ala Moana Mall still has one, and visiting the shop last night, I was quite pleased to see that both KOKIKU and its entertainment-equivalent Eye-Ai are still being published today!