Spend any time with a worker in the Japanese entertainment industry and you’ll eventually hear about all the problems plaguing it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a long-time acquaintance or someone you ran into in a bar. The moment their work comes up, you’re in for something between a structural analysis of TV studios and personal venting session.
Netflix’s Did Someone Happen To Mention Me? explores a variety of topics over its eight episodes, but at its most compelling the series zooms in on Japan’s labyrinthian entertainment industry from the perspective of someone trying to navigate it from the outside. The challenges, failings and ultimately thrills of trying to create within this system come into full view, getting at why people push themselves through all this in the first place.
Mention Me? comes courtesy of writer Kankuro Kudo (Ikeburo West Gate Park, Let’s Get A Divorce!, Extremely Inappropriate!) who loves nothing more than a high-concept premise. The story this time follows beloved Japanese actor Gen Takesagawa (played by Koji Yakusho), an accomplished screen and stage presence still clouded by being the son of an even more legendary performer. He leaves Japan to play the titular role of King Lear at the Globe Theater, wowing the audience and further proving his chops…which Takesagawa needs to be constantly recognized for.
During his time in England, Japan experiences a pandemic akin to COVID-19. Takesagawa can’t return home for six months, but after a vaccine is rush-produced he can finally re-enter the country. Yet from the moment he arrives, seemingly everyone has forgotten who he is…including his family, management company, and entertainment at large. Now unknown, Takesagawa has to start from zero and work his way back up to superstar status…with hopes of starring in a Tokyo-based production of King Lear.
From here viewers watch as Takesagawa navigates Japan’s 21st-century media landscape, starting as an extra and attempting to move up the hierarchy. Along the way he also wrangles with assorted personal and relationship drama involving the people in his past life (and, almost as compelling as the acting adventure is the tightrope Mention Me? walks in regard to its central concept of a vaccine seemingly causing everyone to lose their memory of Takesagawa, with moments making you wonder “is this J-drama going full QAnon?” Ultimately, it manages to avoid that tumble down the conspiracy hole and actually delivers some good gags tied to it).
Kudo has recently been fascinated with unraveling the inner workings…and failings…of modern Japanese entertainment, most notably with the time-travelling Extremely Inappropriate! spending significant screen time comparing TV of today with the looser version of the ‘80s. That becomes even more central for Mention Me? as every episode basically plays out as a micro examination of a certain element of modern entertainment, running from existence as an extra to a semi-meta look into creating a streaming series to something approaching a time slip when Takesagawa lands a background role in a period piece set in Kyoto. Kudo generally gets away with a lot in his works, though Netflix allows for even more ambitious touches, such as switches to other forms of presentation outside drama such as fictional documentaries and variety shows.
Watching Takesagawa’s journey back up to stardom is the focus…and it’s compelling largely because of how well Kudo captures both the arrogance and eventual humility his character goes through…but him having to start all over again also allows for an empathy for everyone involved in the creation of art to shine through. Takesagawa might be in the spotlight, but he only gets there by learning how to work with flailing scriptwriters and aspiring directors on the verge of collapse. An early challenge finds Takesagawa, long able to steal the scene, having to learn to “act normal,” which leads to his journey into the life as an extra, a humbling experience that celebrates an often overlooked element of visual media (and which makes the background come much more alive as you start looking at this show’s extras after).
It also makes the criticisms all the sharper. Like any industry vet, Kudo has his qualms and isn’t afraid to voice them, with Mention Me? zeroing in on the low pay, grueling hours, and even shitty bentos they get for lunch. It’s not even necessarily redemptive in the end, with some characters in this world exiting the profession…and finding a much better existence elsewhere.
Yet Takesagawa and many around him keep pushing, both for attention, but also to create something special that will leave an impression on viewers. By the end of the series, everything becomes circular and self-aware as Takesagawa stars in a stageplay about…his predicament, filmed and presented as a theatrical work (which was actually staged and filmed in its entirety, and you can watch for free until the end of this week, if you want a particularly dramatic way of spoiling the series). Once again the same slips and slides of entertainment appear, but delivered in a way reminding of why everyone endures them anyway.
