To set the scene, I don't watch TV anymore here, because the ratio of garbage to worthwhile TV is like 99-1. However, I enjoy certain Japanese films, one or two exceptionally good anime series, and so on.
What I still find interesting, after many years here, is the disparity between the typical drama with the absolutely ridiculous over-acting which seems in demand for the local dramas, and (to take a fairly extreme example) what you find in a lot of Beat Takeshi's films, where it's usually almost 180 degrees in the other direction: the characters are stoic to the point of being expressionless.
It's been pointed out that Japanese actors can easily match their western counterparts when they get the chance (which usually means a western production). See: Kill Bill, Last Samurai, and so on. I never saw "Shogun", but seeing that it is an American production, and was very well received, I would assume there's a distinct lack of over-acting in that too. There was a quirky, but generally very good, Netflix drama called "Giri/Haji", a joint UK-Japan production, which also featured perfectly natural (and very good) acting from the Japanese cast.
My wife (who's Japanese) said that for many people in Japan, the TV is literally just background noise, from which you could infer that people basically don't care about quality programming. From when we did have the TV on, the average show certainly appeared to support such an inference.
No real conclusion to this, but just wanted to hear what people think.
by Tasty_Comfortable_77