LapLap

Half a century of never having crossed the International Date Line only to pass it numerous times (I lost count) on a JL flight between Tokyo and London.

That kept me transfixed by the flight map for hours. The “how close will we get to the North Pole?” bonus content was also very absorbing.

I do appreciate that JAL’s entertainment options are not the most extensive but this shortcoming is, along with bringing a pair of slippers in Y, by far the easiest to make up for and resolve by myself.

DDurm

Or JAL could simply add a better selection of entertainment like almost every othe airline.

CPH-Flyer

​​​​​​The entertainment selection is one of the items I do list whenever JAL asks me if there are points in their service that could do with an improvement. JAL is neither good nor bad when it comes to IFE, they are somewhere in the middle, not that mediocrity is an aim or praise in itself. And considering how good so many other aspects of their service is, they should really lift IFE a bit. But extremely limited is hardly an accurate description.....

JALPak

Unless they let you stream whatever you want from your streaming service and add multiple live channels, whatever selection they add won’t be enough for all the flights you take

GordonMacPherson

nothing in entertainment system is as good as whats in my mobile device.

CPH-Flyer

I have usually synced quite some GBs from Netflix or Amazon Prime to my phone to supplement the airline selections.

Recently I had the chance to run through season 1 of White Lotus on a flight, now I just need to find an airline that offers season two. JAL has neither 1 nor 2 though. Some would consider that ancient selection, but it was probably one of the few things on this airline I had not watched to death already. Another airline with a quite dated and limited selection gave me the opportunity to watch Bombshell and The Whale, not the newest, but I don't think I have seen either available on an airline before, so it was great to catch up on some "antiques".

JAL has a decent section of Japanese content, which seems rather popular with the core customer group, and is probably part of the reason why the Hollywood selection is a bit thinner than some other airlines. There was an article in either the in-flight magazine, or the entertainment guide (when that was still on paper) once, where they talked about the movie selection, and one point was that there basically always is a movie with Tom Cruise as he remains extremely popular in Japan. And they can see that movies with Tom Cruise is played a lot on the system. Edge of Tomorrow seems to be a fixed item on the JAL system, probably can't even be removed from the storage units.

freckles123

In fairness, that movie was underrated when it was initially released

JALPak

Right now only limited episodes are loaded. I would want an entire season of the Japanese or Western drama. Otherwise I won’t be able to easily watch the remaining episodes if they aren’t available on whatever streaming service I have.

CPH-Flyer

It is not a bad movie, I have watched it more than once. But probably enough by now....

CPH-Flyer

That is a thing that annoys me, few episodes from random seasons. Whole seasons please!!

CPH-Flyer

I just counted the movies listed under Hollywood on today's JAL flight. Including Edge of Tomorrow there are 100 movies to pick from. There should be a chance to find something that is more entertaining than twiddling thumbs.

dvs7310

Exactly correct, for all of the JL entertainment doubters, counting the movie titles is certainly more entertaining than twiddling thumbs. Sharpens the mind too.

But on a more serious note, I've flipped though those titles what feels like a million times myself and am quite surprised it's that many. It definitely "feels" less than it is when scrolling which is why I'm sure it gets such a bad review from B/Vloggers. But I've always got a device I'm quite happy to watch offline movies on if nothing on offer excites me that day. Then I've also slept through a good portion of most of my mid to long haul flights this year, so I only need one, maybe two decent titles to entertain me the whole flight a good bit of the time.

Pickles

Another thing to consider is that JAL's entertainment selection also "feels" limited because the UI in their Magic whatever system is so ferkakte. Constant scrolling isn't going to make things look good. It's not like you can see page after page of thumbnails as is available in more enlightened IFE systems out there.

Their non-Hollywood selection can be pretty decent, with movies from other countries on rotation. However, the whole intent falls apart when the only subtitles for non-English/non-Japanese movies is in Japanese or Chinese. Big fat help for many of us.

samwise6222

They seem to always have Interstellar.

I just use that movie as a bankground noise and imagine that I am stuck in a spaceship.

lrdpenn

Yeah this is the real issue I think people are complaining about. It's not really a lack of content; it's a lack of content with English subtitles. Even Japanese TV shows lack English subtitles even when they already exist - e.g., Midnight Diner.

It just reminds me of the experience to fly any "foreign" carrier without knowledge of English. JL has always struck me as catering to the Japanese market, and everyone else comes along for the ride (which has its pluses and minuses), which is obviously fine.