Where Do You Find Japanese Dramas?

Published on May 28th, 2009.

Sometimes I kind of feel like this when I get the question, just want to hide!

This is a question people ask me quite often, especially by people who are either new to dramas or by people who usually rely on streaming. I’ve always been watching dramas by downloading fansubs rather than relying on (legal) streaming which I tend to do with anime. So to all who are having trouble finding dramas with English subs, D-Addicts is the place for you. This is pretty much the sweet home of dramas, both raw and subbed. If you’re looking for subtitled dramas and they’re not on D-Addicts, there’s a high chance that they don’t exist.

Well, that’s pretty much all I wanted to share. Most of you all probably already know about D-Addicts but in case you didn’t, well, now you do!

Streaming or downloads? [POLL CLOSED]

Downloads – 65%
Streaming – 35%

http://www.otakuphone.com Ragnar
Streaming? You can actually stream them? Well, yeah, there are K-dramas on Crunchyroll but J-dramas?
But yes, D-Addicts is THE place for dramas.
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  Well, MySoju is one of the popular sites you can stream them on for example.
http://www.otakuphone.com Ragnar
Streaming? You can actually stream them? Well, yeah, there are K-dramas on Crunchyroll but J-dramas?
But yes, D-Addicts is THE place for dramas.
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  Well, MySoju is one of the popular sites you can stream them on for example.
http://www.otakuphone.com Ragnar
Oh, and Zettai Kareshi was a freaking awesome drama, loved both of the main actors… Hayami was just f’in awesome – way too amazing acting.
http://www.otakuphone.com Ragnar
Oh, and Zettai Kareshi was a freaking awesome drama, loved both of the main actors… Hayami was just f’in awesome – way too amazing acting.
http://lusciousasnaked.blogspot.com Elenora
“If you’re looking for subtitled dramas and they’re not on D-Addicts, there’s a high chance that they don’t exist.”
Amen.
http://lusciousasnaked.blogspot.com Elenora
“If you’re looking for subtitled dramas and they’re not on D-Addicts, there’s a high chance that they don’t exist.”
Amen.
http://lisette.livejournal.com elyse
I rely on two important sites for my JDramas feeds: D-Addicts & LiveJournal! xD
LJ is like a treasure box… you can find almost anything there, even those you can’t find in D-A! ^^
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  Is that so… I’m really not familiar with LiveJournal, I should give it a shot. Are there any specific places that you can recommend or do you just do a global search or something?
- http://lisette.livejournal.com elyse
  To get started in LJ:
  1. Sign up at LJ ^^
  2. Check out my LJ profile (http://lisette.livejournal.com/profile — add me if you’d like) to see which communities I’m a member at. You can make use of the “find interest” on the upper right side to find communities based on your interests.
  3. Many of the posts in most communities are friends-locked, so you have to join to see them (in order to download ^^). Be sure to read the rules for many communities now screen membership.
  4. If possible, do post in your LJ every now and then to show that your LJ is not empty (and thus putting you in “leecher” status and your membership application might be denied because of it).
  FYI: many fansubbers now opt to release only in LJ and/or forum, and stop releasing torrents in D-A because apparently many of their works were uploaded to both mysoju & dramacrazy (which is against their rules — absolutely no uploading to streaming sites).
  Email me if you still have any questions :) Good luck!
http://lisette.livejournal.com elyse
I rely on two important sites for my JDramas feeds: D-Addicts & LiveJournal! xD
LJ is like a treasure box… you can find almost anything there, even those you can’t find in D-A! ^^
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  Is that so… I’m really not familiar with LiveJournal, I should give it a shot. Are there any specific places that you can recommend or do you just do a global search or something?
- http://lisette.livejournal.com elyse
  To get started in LJ:
  1. Sign up at LJ ^^
  2. Check out my LJ profile (http://lisette.livejournal.com/profile — add me if you’d like) to see which communities I’m a member at. You can make use of the “find interest” on the upper right side to find communities based on your interests.
  3. Many of the posts in most communities are friends-locked, so you have to join to see them (in order to download ^^). Be sure to read the rules for many communities now screen membership.
  4. If possible, do post in your LJ every now and then to show that your LJ is not empty (and thus putting you in “leecher” status and your membership application might be denied because of it).
  FYI: many fansubbers now opt to release only in LJ and/or forum, and stop releasing torrents in D-A because apparently many of their works were uploaded to both mysoju & dramacrazy (which is against their rules — absolutely no uploading to streaming sites).
  Email me if you still have any questions :) Good luck!
http://www.jamaipanese.com/ Jamaipanese
D-Addicts is the only place i have used so far for the few Japanese dramas I have seen
http://www.jamaipanese.com/ Jamaipanese
D-Addicts is the only place i have used so far for the few Japanese dramas I have seen
http://www.joesblog.jp Joe
D-addicts and LiveJournal for me. I would never use a streaming service, and it pisses me off that so many people do. It’s caused a lot of stuff i’ve been watching to stop being subbed and has meant some groups don’t put their stuff on D-Addicts anymore.
http://www.joesblog.jp Joe
D-addicts and LiveJournal for me. I would never use a streaming service, and it pisses me off that so many people do. It’s caused a lot of stuff i’ve been watching to stop being subbed and has meant some groups don’t put their stuff on D-Addicts anymore.
http://thenihon-suki.blogspot.com/ Mary
mysoju.com is my place.. I hate having to download torrents and then wait with my crappy connections for them to finish. I watch both Korean and Japanese on mysoju and I also download from there as well :-p
I’ve recently been using keyhole tv though to watch live Japanese TV.. I often catch the recent J-dramas there as well!
- http://www.joesblog.jp Joe
  now your part of the problem, loads of subbing projects that I have been following have been cancelled due to people uploading them on places like mysoju without permission. so, thanks a lot. :
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  Yeah that’s a big problem and a topic that I’m going to talk about more in a future post :)
http://thenihon-suki.blogspot.com/ Mary
mysoju.com is my place.. I hate having to download torrents and then wait with my crappy connections for them to finish. I watch both Korean and Japanese on mysoju and I also download from there as well :-p
I’ve recently been using keyhole tv though to watch live Japanese TV.. I often catch the recent J-dramas there as well!
- http://www.joesblog.jp Joe
  now your part of the problem, loads of subbing projects that I have been following have been cancelled due to people uploading them on places like mysoju without permission. so, thanks a lot. :\
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  Yeah that’s a big problem and a topic that I’m going to talk about more in a future post :)
http://twitter.com/un3xpectedfate Jennie
I usually stream dramas. The thing is– many fansubbing groups complain of uploading dramas to streaming sites. But I think that’s unfair. I don’t have the fastest connection, and streaming flash is way faster than downloading a big file for just one episode. I never download dramas, maybe anime because the episodes are shorter and take up less space.
To Joe- you can’t just call a person who streams the drama part of the problem. I think that’s disrespectful. The problem is the site that uploads without permission. But in reality they are doing a favor to people like me that don’t have a fast enough connection to download the episodes.
- http://www.joesblog.jp Joe
  well whilst I sympathise with your situation, you are part of the problem. If people didn’t use the streaming sites they wouldn’t last very much longer.
  my connections not exactly blistering, but I just leave uTorrent running in the background all day and watch episodes in the evening.
- http://thenihon-suki.blogspot.com/ M-Kat
  You know, what may be a overnight thing for you maybe a week for others.. I see nothing wrong with streaming I mean .. you are already taking a show that BELONGS to another company and putting it out on the net with your own subtitles.. even if it is a d-addicts through torrents or d-addicts even puts the raws on there too …and also.. if the show is popular most tiems it is licensed… meaning the people who sub the show MUST STOP.. by that time most people have already seen the show and will not go out and buy the DVD promoting the sales anyway in a way we all are wrong
  mysoju doesn’t even claim the videos as their own they say that on their site.
  it’s just an easier way of watching something that might take me weeks to watch
- liz
  I don’t like streaming either because they are MAKING MONEY (ie. dramacrazy, mysoju off the ads they place) over something they got for free. The worst is dramacrazy because they actually put their name over the video. But question, so are you telling me that you don’t think people should sub? So you have never watched anything subbed (which is illegal yes we all know)?
  Two wrongs do not make a right. Just because subbing is illegal doesn’t make it okay to do MORE illegal shit with the file like converting them to DVD files which some pirated dvd companies do and sell them.
  Anyways another reason why fansubbers don’t like streaming is because they might get sued for subbing it in the first place. You might say why put their names over it then? Well some people like to claim something which is not theirs thus taking all the credit. Then some people might sell them that’s why they mention it is for free. Lastly, for those who just got into jdramas how will they know where to find the source if the name of the subber ain’t there. How are they going to find more to doramas to watch?
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  The fact that they make money out of it doesn’t matter in my opinion. It’s not like they’re doing more wrong than D-Addicts who also have ads on their site, they all need to pay for hosting. So it’s not like the streaming sites are any worse in that case.
  How do you sue a fansubbing group? They have a name but often no home and no personal information about the members. If they actually do have personal information about their members they’re just stupid.
  I’ve never needed to know the name of the subber to find dramas to watch. Why would you need to know that?
http://twitter.com/un3xpectedfate Jennie
I usually stream dramas. The thing is– many fansubbing groups complain of uploading dramas to streaming sites. But I think that’s unfair. I don’t have the fastest connection, and streaming flash is way faster than downloading a big file for just one episode. I never download dramas, maybe anime because the episodes are shorter and take up less space.
To Joe- you can’t just call a person who streams the drama part of the problem. I think that’s disrespectful. The problem is the site that uploads without permission. But in reality they are doing a favor to people like me that don’t have a fast enough connection to download the episodes.
- http://www.joesblog.jp Joe
  well whilst I sympathise with your situation, you are part of the problem. If people didn’t use the streaming sites they wouldn’t last very much longer.
  my connections not exactly blistering, but I just leave uTorrent running in the background all day and watch episodes in the evening.
- http://thenihon-suki.blogspot.com/ M-Kat
  You know, what may be a overnight thing for you maybe a week for others.. I see nothing wrong with streaming I mean .. you are already taking a show that BELONGS to another company and putting it out on the net with your own subtitles.. even if it is a d-addicts through torrents or d-addicts even puts the raws on there too …and also.. if the show is popular most tiems it is licensed… meaning the people who sub the show MUST STOP.. by that time most people have already seen the show and will not go out and buy the DVD promoting the sales anyway in a way we all are wrong
  mysoju doesn’t even claim the videos as their own they say that on their site.
  it’s just an easier way of watching something that might take me weeks to watch
- liz
  I don’t like streaming either because they are MAKING MONEY (ie. dramacrazy, mysoju off the ads they place) over something they got for free. The worst is dramacrazy because they actually put their name over the video. But question, so are you telling me that you don’t think people should sub? So you have never watched anything subbed (which is illegal yes we all know)?
  Two wrongs do not make a right. Just because subbing is illegal doesn’t make it okay to do MORE illegal shit with the file like converting them to DVD files which some pirated dvd companies do and sell them.
  Anyways another reason why fansubbers don’t like streaming is because they might get sued for subbing it in the first place. You might say why put their names over it then? Well some people like to claim something which is not theirs thus taking all the credit. Then some people might sell them that’s why they mention it is for free. Lastly, for those who just got into jdramas how will they know where to find the source if the name of the subber ain’t there. How are they going to find more to doramas to watch?
- http://www.yonasu.com yonasu
  The fact that they make money out of it doesn’t matter in my opinion. It’s not like they’re doing more wrong than D-Addicts who also have ads on their site, they all need to pay for hosting. So it’s not like the streaming sites are any worse in that case.
  How do you sue a fansubbing group? They have a name but often no home and no personal information about the members. If they actually do have personal information about their members they’re just stupid.
  I’ve never needed to know the name of the subber to find dramas to watch. Why would you need to know that?
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Where Do You Find Japanese Dramas?

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