Right out of the gate, the TBS drama “Extremely Inappropriate!” (“Futekisetsu nimo Hodo ga Aru!”) established itself as a conceptually highwire program before the climax of its Jan. 26 premiere. It’s a show about time travel, with characters moving between 1986 and 2024 via public buses.
That’s already a lot for any J-drama to introduce, but then it revealed an additional wrinkle: It’s also a musical.
“Extremely Inappropriate!” which wrapped last week, stands as the most ambitious and divisive Japanese TV show of the year so far. The reasons for both might seem clear from the description above — time travel, musical numbers, oh my! — but adding extra tension to it all is how the show satirizes social issues prevalent during both the Showa and Reiwa eras (1926-1989 and 2019-present, respectively), while also demonstrating the pros and cons of each.