Adapting an old socio-political novel, especially after the great Akira Kurosawa, can be a challenging endeavor, but the team behind A Town Without Seasons does it wonderfully. The show takes the ensemble cast of the original novel’s characters and places them in the present time with modern-day technology and digital payment systems– yet many of the struggles remain the same. While this series takes a sweet, slice-of-life perspective on the inhabitants, it’s grounded by an underlying awareness that most of us are a disaster away from the town’s situation. A Town Without Seasons empathizes with its unlucky characters, by taking its time to introduce them.

A show like A Town Without Seasons can easily turn melodramatic because the scenarios present can easily be sensationalized without any regard for character depth. This show thankfully avoids this. Because of the format, the show gets to delve deeper into the inhabitants’ lives, backgrounds, and stories, with each episode dealing with at least one or two families in the area. Without spoiling too much, the series at times takes pity on certain characters, but the series tends to focus on the survivor’s outlook, character, and relationships rather than how tragic their circumstances are. It’s because of this that their situations feel more immediate. The characters feel like real neighbors that you would meet next-door.