Hey, I'd like to hear recommendations for good dramas/anime/anything with Japanese subtitles, which would be suitable for beginners. I guess this means stuff from recent years, as Japanese subtitles haven't been around very long.

IceCream has already rated some dramas according to difficulty:
Autumn 2009 Drama Rankings
Winter 2010 Drama Rankings

I recommend Tomehane (from IceCream's recommendations) and I'm going to watch My Girl soon. I've also seen Bartender, which is a bit harder (not too much), but good!

Dramas seem to be a lot easier to follow compared to anime. I tried watching the anime Durarara!!, but that was way too difficult and discouraging. I guess it's easier to get the context in dramas, because you can figure out a lot from facial expressions and such.

For me, Ohitorisama was my favorite drama to watch with Japanese subtitles.
http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Ohitorisama

The show stars Arisa Mizuki:
http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Mizuki_Alisa

It's a light comedy about a 30-something woman who has no kids/boyfriend/husband.
She wants to live her life completely on her own, free of any burdens from things like marriage, children, or relationships, and pampers herself too much. She only enjoys
being by herself and lets no one in her life.

I guess you can interpret "Ohitorisama" in 2 ways.

The first is "ohitorisama" which is used a Japanese restaurant to refer to a party of one (as opposed to being with 2 or more people). She does go to restaurants by herself often.

Or, you can think of it as "my almighty self", which I think fits the main character of this show.

The beginning of each episode starts with her talking
about the various benefits of her solitary life.

The characters in the show look at her like she's crazy
and can't understand the way she thinks at all.

Through some events, she lives for a 20-something "freeter" (person who lives off of random part-time jobs). He's like a little child and has no confidence.

Barely a hint of romance in this show. So there's no sappy love story.

Really funny show. So many funny and useful Japanese words/phrases. I've had my japanese language partners crack up so many times from the words used in this show.
To the point, where they were looking forward to hearing my questions.

And everything is conversational day-to-day Japanese that you could use in real life.

To be honest, I'm still looking for another recent show that is like Ohitorisama.
So many unforgettable moments.

If you want to aim for easy and comprehensible, and don't mind genre, you should check out a shoujo show like Pretty Cure. Seriously, you don't have to worry about missing out on context with a show like this. It's simple enough that you probably could almost follow what is going on in most of the episodes on mute. So even if you don't have the subs for a few episodes, you should be able to follow it raw. (I'll recommend Heartcatch over Suite.)

Also, if you don't mind watching something you have already seen. If there is a show that has Japanese subs that you have already watched before with English subs or something you even watched before dubbed, that is also a good show to watch. Because you can just focus on what is being said, the context you should already know. (Heck this is also a good excuse to watch something you enjoyed before in raw form.)

Anyway, there is a bunch of new stuff on kitsunekko now. Large chunks of Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, and even Pokemon now. And plenty of other options.

One thing I'm watching right now is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, very enjoyable.

If you want a bit more complicated then simple shoujo or shounen, maybe something like AnoHana, Kobato would be good to check out.

And obviously if you start something and your not enjoying it, maybe find something else.

Protip: After watching an episode, if your having trouble understanding the plot, you can usually find episode synopsis summaries on the web. Typically the article for Wikipedia will have them on the episode listings section. This will allow you to know what the hell is going on without having to worry about each and every word you missed.

Sadly this is more a tip for anime. As Jdrama synopses sometimes are a bit harder to find.

Edit: Forgot to mention, Simple slice of life like A-Channel or K-ON can be a lot of fun too.

日本人の知らない日本語 is pretty easy, especially the classroom scenes. And it's pretty easy to find japanese subtitles for it.

hiya... since then, i've been reviewing stuff on a blog with difficulty levels, with Bokusenou: http://i-am-an-icecream.blogspot.com/
i've only reviewed stuff i watched all the way through, as most of the dramas i reviewed in those threads i got bored of after a few episodes... consequently there's less reviews on there, but hopefully it's helpful

Wow, that's really, really helpful IceCream! Many thanks for the reference, I'm always looking for native material that I can use for studying purposes.

zigmonty Wrote:日本人の知らない日本語 is pretty easy, especially the classroom scenes. And it's pretty easy to find japanese subtitles for it.

It's also pretty horrible. I tried to watch it for the reasons you mention but couldn't get past the cringe-worthy acting and the reallly bad accents of the "foreigners"...

SammyB Wrote:

zigmonty Wrote:日本人の知らない日本語 is pretty easy, especially the classroom scenes. And it's pretty easy to find japanese subtitles for it.

It's also pretty horrible. I tried to watch it for the reasons you mention but couldn't get past the cringe-worthy acting and the reallly bad accents of the "foreigners"...

Lol i guess that's part of the charm... love it or hate it.

I have a small blog where I post scripts to random anime scenes/interviews

http://learnfromanime.wordpress.com/2011...ore-posts/

Feel free to send a request if there's something you'd like the script to.

I second anohana. my favorite series of the year. i mean, 2011

Re: 日本人の知らない日本語

How possibly you can dislike something that has these lines?

（ダイアナ）ストローは？
（ハルコ）立って言って。
（ダイアナ）た。
（ハルコ）立って言って。
（ダイアナ）た！
（ハルコ）た？ああ～！あ～っと...。立ち上がって言って下さい。