REEL JAPAN

Score: 9/10

A charming ensemble workplace comedy sprinkled with hints of sci-fi and the supernatural, HOTSPOT will pull you in and make you fall in love with the humdrum personalities that populate this small resort town in the mountains. Its ingenious title is a pun on the hot spring vacation spot where it is set. That town is near the iconic Mount Fuji and most of the characters work in the hospitality industry. Japan is sprinkled with such geothermal waters called onsen. The title also refers to this particular fictional town’s extraordinary proclivity for attracting the abnormal and even the paranormal. 

HOTSPOT does pack enormous charm. Part of that charm derives from the chemistry of the cast and their commitment to their characters’ individual quirks. Another part draws from the unmistakably Japanese workplace humor, grounded in its own kind of awkward. Coworkers twist themselves into pretzels trying not to speak their minds too directly and hold grudges over small incursions of personal space and autonomy. Internal monologues are a necessary apparatus of the storytelling, making it more David Lynch than The Office, but Lynch-lite. Finally a significant portion of the charm builds on the whimsy of the world the writers built.  These days, studios want to cash in on whimsy, building marketable and toy-line universes, or worse, multiverses. Not so here. I doubt Hotspot will ever return in any form. You will want to take this unique world for a spin and then must leave the mountainous resort town with its galactic/supernatural connections behind. 

HOTSPOT’s writer (and longtime comedian) Bakarhythm has a reputation in Japan for offbeat humor and it shows. He co-wrote the recent historical film FAKING BEETHOVEN, which features an all-Japanese cast portraying the 19th century musical scene. 

HOTSPOT’s success relies upon its cast, including its two leads. Kakuta Akihiro is endearing as Takahashi, drawing from his comedy background for timing but never straying from realism and subtly. Ichikawa Mikako as Kiyomi plays the comedic straight man to Kakuta’s (inadvertent) clown. Ichikawa was also excellent in the crime procedural UNNATURAL and in SHIN GODZILLA. 

At the start of the series, plots seem driven mainly by the personal connections and bonds of trust which the characters build. Science fiction elements are added (or revealed) to explain strange behaviors first seen as personality quirks. In the middle episodes the writers rely upon the tried and true formula of superheroes avoiding the pitfall of their powers and identity being revealed, as journalists swarm the town. The final episodes surprised me when further qualities of scifi and elements of the supernatural were added like pot luck entrees, creating a more chaotic story smorgasbord. Also to my surprise, a heist plot involving local politics took a central focus. The heist plot works adequately because the fate of the town’s economy and of its most vulnerable resident relies upon the outcome. But the heist does distract somewhat from the organic texture of the comedic narrative. I would have liked to see these ideas explored in a further season; there simply was not enough HOTSPOT for me. It is the most intriguing workplace comedy I have seen since I discovered the hit Icelandic comedy (and Jon Gnarr vehicle) NAITURVAKTIN in 2009. 

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