‘The Days’ Review: Netflix Tries Doing Their Own Chernobyl in This Fantastic Japanese Series

Just before the pandemic stroke, HBO got to release one of the most amazing miniseries in their roster. The series dealt with the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. The disaster is one of the most famous tragedies humanity has ever faced. Not only because it put the knowledge of hundreds of people to the test but also because it showed just how fragile our dominion over the atom is. Nuclear power was once seen as the solution to the energy crisis; those days are long gone, yet many nuclear power stations still function worldwide. The Days, a new Netflix series, shines a light on one more nuclear disaster.

The Days is a miniseries developed by Netflix and directed by Hideo Nakata, and Masaki Nishiura. The series is based on the book by Ryusho Kadota, which fabulously deals with the disaster.

The series also counts an amazing cast of actors, including Koji Yakusho, Fumiyo Kohinata, Kaoru Kobayashi, Kenichi Endo, and Yuriko Ishida. The series tells the story of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that occurred off the coast of Japan in 2011. The disaster created a before and after for the country in dealing with events of this nature. Still, the prevention of a bigger disaster was achieved.

The Days are indeed the Japanese Chernobyl. From the moment the series starts, you can see that the event in question is the show’s protagonist. Chernobyl felt different from other shows because, while it followed several characters very closely, it never felt like we were seeing these characters’ stories.

Instead, we saw characters dealing with an event that was much larger than then. The characters were only vehicles for ideas and concepts. They were not the driving force behind the flow of the story. The event they were dealing with was.

Here in The Days, we are dealing with the same kind of setup. The Fukushima Daiichi event could possibly become another Chernobyl, and maybe, even something worse. However, thanks to the efforts of the people on the ground, such a fate was avoided.

Still, Fukushima Daiichi revealed major flaws in how the Japanese nuclear technicians and the Japanese government were equipped to deal with events of this nature. The Days follow characters both on the ground, dealing with the disaster, and then the pen-pushers trying to know how to control the damages.

The event resulted in a shift in the Japanese political landscape. The way the government reacted in the face of such a possible calamity was met with anger and disdain. The trust in governmental figures dismisses considerably.

Still, after over a decade, the politicians have not recovered from such a slip right before the Japanese people. Let’s remember that Japan might have the most intimate connection to nuclear power and how much harm it can do. And so, The Days does a fantastic job of relating the moment-to-moment of the tragedy and how things moved along to deal with such an event.

Japan has produced many entertainment products that deal directly and indirectly with the event. The most famous of these projects must be Hideaki Anno’s Shin Godzilla, released in 2016. The movie, which won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Picture and Best Director, used the famous kaiju to tell a story about the country and how bureaucracy failed the citizens when dealing with disasters in time. The Red Tape syndrome that affects Japan as a nation was brought to attention, and yet, it is hard to say if it has really improved since then.

The Days offer a close inspection of the event, and the level of realism that the series has achieved is truly outstanding. The series begins by introducing us to the main situation and then throughout eight episodes.

It sends us deeper and deeper into the hundreds of implications and possible futures that the event could lead to. It is quite overwhelming. Thankfully, the series also managed to touch on some more personal stories, and it really leaves the people on the ground as the tale’s heroes. It is here that having such an amazing cast becomes a golden ticket.

Having amazing actors such as Yakusho, and Kobayashi on the cast becomes a huge strength for the show. It is them who make this story meaningful beyond the facts, numbers, and predictions. Each actor puts a face to some part of the tale, and in the end, the show manages to create a very broad picture of what happened.

The pacing is also quite good once the disaster occurs. The series leaves us with very few moments to rest. This is great because it helps generate a level of urgency that the characters themselves must feel.

From a technical point of view, the series offers an amazing tone to the visuals. They are distant and try to cover as much of the frame as possible. We will be spending a lot of time inside rooms with people talking, so seeing all the people inside each room becomes a sign of how much Red Tape there is at an event like this. When decisions have to be made fast and firmly, we then see that these decisions need to be passed around through hundreds of people before they can be given the go. It is frustrating, but it is a reality of the situation.

The Days also offer really solid work when it comes to visual effects. Especially in its opening episodes, when the tsunami that strikes the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is realized beautifully through CGI and composite images.

This is not a Hollywood-level production, but the fact that they managed to pull off such a sequence speaks a lot about the visual effects team and technological advancement in that field. The rest of the series has to come up with other tools to maintain things interesting, but the filmmaking team achieves this for the most part.

The Days might not be the masterpiece that Chernobyl was for HBO, but it is almost there. It offers an amazing study of the event, and the ramifications are generated in many different fields.

The cast is stunning, and the direction and visuals are also very solid. If you know nothing about the Fukushima Daiichi incident and are curious about it, this is the perfect show to learn a bit about what happened and how many bad decisions were made during it. With just eight episodes, the series becomes a good binge-watch that will stay with you after the credits roll.

SCORE: 8/10