The Japanese remake of Extraordinary Attorney Woo has made history on Netflix. Extraordinary Attorney Minami, starring Ashida Mana as rookie lawyer Minamida Minami, ranked fifth on Netflix’s weekly Global Top 10 for non-English series for the October 19-25 chart week, becoming the first Japanese terrestrial television drama ever to break into the global Top 5, according to a report by Japanese entertainment outlet Oricon cited by TV Report.
The milestone is even more striking because only the first episode was available during the tally period. According to Tudum, Netflix’s official rankings site, the premiere drew 3.4 million views and 3.2 million hours viewed in that single week. Netflix calculates views by dividing total viewing hours by a title’s runtime, which in this case was 57 minutes for the first episode. The series also topped Netflix’s weekly Top 10 in Japan and entered the Top 10 in 11 countries and regions, including No. 10 in South Korea, where the original aired, No. 4 in Hong Kong, No. 6 in Taiwan and No. 10 in Brazil.
The strong streaming performance is matched by solid domestic numbers. Video Research data for the Kanto region put the October 19 premiere at a 3.9 percent individual rating, while the second episode, which aired on October 26, rose to 4.1 percent. On TVer, Japan’s official catch-up service for commercial broadcasters, the first episode passed 3.94 million plays within eight days of release, setting a record for the Monday 10 p.m. drama slot, and the second episode also reached No. 1 on TVer’s overall ranking.
Extraordinary Attorney Minami is a faithful remake of the 2022 ENA drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo. It follows Minamida Minami, a rookie attorney on the autism spectrum with a brilliant mind, as she joins a major law firm and solves cases with her own distinctive way of seeing the world, growing as a lawyer and as a person through her relationships with colleagues, friends and family. The series airs every Monday at 10 p.m. on the Kansai TV and Fuji TV network and streams worldwide on Netflix immediately after broadcast.
Ashida Mana, who has been one of Japan’s best-known actors since her childhood roles in Mother in 2010 and Marumo no Okite in 2011, prepared extensively for the role. In an interview released by Kansai TV on August 25, she said, “I read books on autism spectrum disorder and spoke with a supervising expert, and I deepened my understanding by visiting a school for people with developmental disabilities and meeting many people there.”
The original series sets a towering benchmark. Starring Park Eun-bin as Woo Young-woo, the 2022 ENA drama became a syndrome-level hit, peaking at a 17.5 percent nationwide rating and becoming the highest-rated drama in ENA history. It spent a cumulative 21 weeks in Netflix’s Global Non-English TV Top 10 and held No. 1 for nine weeks, though those rankings were compiled under the older hours-based metric, making a direct comparison with today’s view-based tally difficult.
Reactions to the remake have been divided. Some viewers praised Ashida’s careful attention to detail, from Woo Young-woo’s signature bob hairstyle to her speech patterns and gaze, while others argued the performance leaned too heavily on repetitive mannerisms and found the direction lacking when measured against the original. One online commenter wrote that the Japanese version “even seems lacking in its direction,” while another countered, “If you don’t compare it to the original and just watch it as a J-drama, it’s fun.”
With the second episode already out-rating the premiere at home and the series holding its global Top 5 position, Extraordinary Attorney Minami has a full season ahead to prove whether a faithful remake can step out of the original’s shadow. The next test will be whether the weekly ratings climb continues and whether the series can hold its place on Netflix’s global chart as more episodes arrive.
