Friday, March 20, 2009

Jdramas Winter 2009 Reviews

Friday, March 20, 2009
So it's now Spring......

Oh well. But this post has been sitting in my drafts for months till I am sick of seeing the orange words every time I log in so I thought I'll just publish it anyway. Dramas for this season isn't as hot as Summer's but with enough nice dramas to keep me happy :) Do not have the time to follow too many dramas anyway as one can only watch so many episodes in one weekend. Following dramas are ones I didn't bother watching because of the low ratings and lack of free time: Triangle, Zeni Geba, Love Shuffle, Q.E.D, Kami no Shizuku. I know KnS is Kame's drama and therefore should be on my list but:

a) I don't really like Kame in the first place.
b) I really don't have the time.
c) I heard that it really sucked.
d) It's about wine. WINE. Nothing can be more boring than wine where everything is done at a snail's pace.

So anyway, below are the dramas I liked and am currently following :) Everything is under a cut because I am considerate (lol) and wouldn't like the idea of your computer getting killed by my blog.

Kiina
Total Episodes: 11


At first glance Haruse Kiina is a completely normal 29-year-old. However, Kiina is the head of a special investigation unit nicknamed "Beppan" which deals with strange cases. With an unorthodox approach to solving crimes, she draws on her exceptional memory and powers of observation, and gets so absorbed in the pursuit of these cases that she forgets to eat or sleep til she solves the mystery.




Like The X-Files, only everything is scientifically proven in the end. So I didn't have any expectation for this drama in the beginning because there isn't any pretty young idols and all the cast is virtually unknown to me except for the rare 2 or 3 I've seen in various dramas over the years and was ready to ditch it until it started raining fish.

Now how is one supposed to react to that except go all wth?! and stick around long enough for a logical explanation. Which is what I did and was pleasantly surprised at how interesting this drama was despite all the bad lighting and stuff. It's of the mystery genre and you all know what a sucker I am for mysteries :D


So basically, Kiina and the guy whose name I cannot remember make up the Beppan unit and are in charge of all paranormal seeming cases. Like a transplanted heart that can give off past memories of the deceased donor, poltergeists, death through fortune telling etc. However, after much investigation all turned out to be simple scientific stuff anyway and so are mostly plain murder cases masked by paranormal myths to throw the police off.

But it still gives you the shivers every now and its just sooooo gooood. I love Kiina's weird personality and I am all for her and that guy ending up together somehow or another in this drama :D They are so perfect for each other and oh so cute. WANT. Please please please let them end up together. Or at least go on a date.

I know that romance has nothing to do with this drama but c'mon, I want this pairing to happen :3


So Kiina also has this amazing photographic memory where all she needs to do is just FLIP through a page and everything is embedded in her memory. Huh. Right. That part I don't buy. At least scan through the pages instead of just flipping through it like some motion picture book. She can remember every detail in a glance too.

Oh and that fat guy above is her ex and I, like every other viewer, find it amusing how that guy, gah I need to google his name brb, ahhh Takeru! Yeah, how Takeru keeps hounding her in disbelief about her actually dating a fat guy before. Like lol that would've been effing rude in real life if you ask me. And I don't know what he find so shocking about that since I've seen tons of couples where the girl was drop dead gorgeous and the guy........well, leaves much to be desired. AND IF HE IS LIKE SO AGAINST HER DATING HIM, THEN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, ASK HER OUT INSTEAD.

I think she still likes her ex though and vice versa BUT NOOO I WANT KIINA/TAKERU OKAY *stubborn*


Anyway, it got one of the highest ratings for the season so I'm not the only one spazzing about how interesting this drama is. Its weirdness is its charm

My rating: 4.5




Mei-chan no Shitsuji
Total episodes: 10
(dramawiki link)

The story revolves around a young woman named Mei, who was rescued as a young girl by someone calling himself her "butler." With only a vague memory, though, the experience seems like just a dream. But one day, after her parents' accidental death, he appears: Rihito comes from a line of outstanding butlers, and he has been appointed to serve her! Now her ordinary life has completely flipped, as she discovers that she's actually the heiress to a fortune, and is forced to transfer to St. Lucia Girls' Academy, where all the students have butlers! As a result, her childhood friend Kento decides to enroll in a butler school so that he can stay close to her.


ASKAJDFALSF COMEDY ROMANCE WITH TONS OF HOT GUYS YES YES YES MY FAV. GENRE OF ALL TIMES!!!!! WOOTS ♥


HOT GUYS IN ♥ Drama totally made my Winter. Besides topless!Massu of course :D Unlike HanaKimi (most awesome comedy romance jdrama of all times), the ratio of girls to guys is even and the drama considerably less mindless. Not that mindless fun is anything bad. I ADORE HANAKIMI TO BITS. So guess how ecstatic I was when I realized who the main character for this drama was:



NAMBA SEMPAI!!!!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥


adasdafasldfas guy is SMOKING HOT I tell you. He played Asamoto in Zettai Kareshi too and is mostly portrayed as a charming playboy half the time but with looks like that, it isn't hard to believe. I'll follow him to the moon if he asks me to *____* In this drama, he's Rihito, the elite S-rank butler everyone wants a piece of. And not in the I'm gonna bash you into pulp kind of way. Gosh, I love him. Namba sempai ♥ I have no idea what his real name is actually (too lazy to google) and would probably be forever known to me (and I'm betting half of the world too) simply as Namba sempai from Hana Kimi lol.

I know his face is like damn asymmetrical and therefore should be considered ugly but wth he has charms like nobody's business. I give you 10 minutes of watching him in action before you want in his arms too 8D

Anyway, where was I?

Ahh, the rich elite all girls school.....


So as you can see, each girl has her own hot boy toy butler. And Shinonome Mei (wth tongue twister much?) in the 2nd pic is the rags to riches Cinderella who snagged the elite Namba sempai Rihito as her butler. And like all dramas, she hates her new life of riches and prefers her old one. And this is why all dramas are fake and unrealistic and should never be your guide to life. UTTER BS I TELL YOU.



What kind of girl would hate to discover the fact that she is secretly an heiress? Hello, if it were me, I'll totally go all OMG GET ME TO THE NEAREST PRADA SHOP NOW QUICK while planning my marriage to that hot little butler of mine in my spanking new limo. Or maybe he can just stay as my hot boy toy butler hmm...



Their butler serves to do every single thing for them like carrying them across a drain only a foot wide wth, comb their hair when the wind blows it into a mess, turn the pages of their textbooks, cut up their food (honestly, what next? help brush their teeth?), personal spa massages etc. The only rule is that relationships between girls and their butlers are forbidden.



Guess who failed. No surprise there.



Anyway, to make summarize the plot: OMG THOSE TWINS ARE VERY THE HOT TOO!!!! They remind me of hot Thai brothers Golf & Mike *drools* No, wait, must. not. lose. focus. So girl is secretly an heiress and is required by her mean manipulative grandfather to attend elite rich all girls school to learn to become a lady, with Rihito as her butler, if she was to inherit the fortune and have her parents buried together. Guess who her best guy friend who is sekritly in love with her turn out be brothers with? Yes. Rihito-sama and his brother are now fighting for her, rules of forbidden relationship be damned. There you go, your love triangle. But no that is not enough, they have to take a page from the Koreans and turn it into a rectangle by adding another girl to this plot.



YES THAT IS TAMAKI FROM NODAME CANTABILE 8D

Bitch in question is the wheelchair girl (Lucia-sama) with her white haired butler 5 pics above. She is the leader of the whole school whose butler used to be Rihito before he got snatched away from her to serve Mei. Guess who is in a jealous rage now and wants to kill Mei? Easy to hate as she is pretentious and downright nasty. So she practically controls the whole school thanks to her power as head girl (or the equivalent) and the lousy useless school director who does nothing but read manga and sprout gibberish advice. Ending is easy to guess and even if I know she'll get crushed in the end, human nature wants me to witness her defeat in glee :DDD



Only dilemma I'm in is who she should end up with. I'll like to say Rihito but for like 97% of the drama he was nothing but a spineless wuss who preferred to keep things inside instead of voicing them out (SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, EVERYTHING COULD BE SOLVED IF ONE WERE TO JUST TALK IT OUT. But I guess that's not gonna happen like how people are forever gonna split up in horror movies and get their heads lobbed off) thus causing a lot of unwanted pain to everyone. His brother on the other hand had always stayed true to Mei and was always the first one there for her. Not to mention he had made his intentions very clear to her too, sparing her from confusing guessing games of love. So I think if anyone deserves her, it's him.

But we'll see

Finale is this week lol this review is really late :p

My rating: 4.5




RESCUE~ Tokubetsukodo Kyujotai~
Total Episodes: 09
(dramawiki link)


Kitajima Daichi (Nakamaru Yuuichi) is a young man inspired to become a firefighter after a childhood incident in which he was saved by a rescue squad. Now he is aiming to become part of an elite rescue team, along with several other candidates.


~No cut because I'm pimping this like no tomorrow :D

HOT GUYS. WHO FIGHT FIRES. AND RESCUE PEOPLE. ACTION. BATH SCENES. MASSU.

NEED I SAY MORE? *__________*

Only thing I have to say is WHAT?! WHY ONLY 9 EPISODES DAMN YOU TBS! and why no Tegoshi as guest star :C Oh and the theme song is damn kick-ass too and probably the hottest KAT-TUN single to date. Runnin' up, I'm running, runnin' up~♪

Here's the PV:


THERE IS GIRLS YO!!! GIRLS!!!! YAY! JE is now one step towards being less gay XD My wish for a sexy NEWS pv with hot girls all over them just might come true one day :D

And because I can, here's Tegoshi with sexy Massu for you all :DDDD



Yes, its the calendar. Now in its HQ glory ♥♥♥

Gosh I LOVE MASUDA'S HAIR A LOT. To think I used to hate it when I first saw it. IT'S SO DAMN SEXY OMG AND I HOPE HE STAYS THIS WAY FOREVER ♥ Sure, his old hair was terribly cute but this, this is HOT. I want more. Give me moar! An-an photoshoot maybe

Anyway, I took a million screenshots for the 1st episode and flailed all over this drama previously before here.

My Rating: 5 5 5 5 5 5!!!! I AM BIASED AND I DON'T CARE :D



Voice
Total Episodes: 11
(dramawiki link)


A group of five medical students take on the task of conveying the "voices of the dead."

Kaji Daiki fails to get into a popular heart surgery seminar but is somehow accepted into a seminar on forensic pathology. When he approaches professor Sagawa and asks him why he ended up in the seminar, Sagawa challenges him by asking why he wants to study heart surgery. Daiki replies that medicine is meaningless after the heart stops, but Sagawa counters that medicine also applies to the dead.

And so, together with fellow students Ryosuke, Kanako, Teppei and Akira, Daiki begins to explore the mysteries of death.



CSI: Japan yo! :DOnly less interesting murders, actually it can't be called murders at all cuz they all turn out to be accidents D: Also less fancy stuff. Probably a more accurate version of what people in forensic labs does all day but I say screw realistic. This is TV so I demand grisly murders and cool gadgets and terms that might as well be alien speak but sound awesome, but beggars can't be choosers. After all, YOU DON'T GET IKUTA TOMA IN CSI: USA no? =P


TOMA ♥♥♥ MY FAV. JE BOY after NEWS =D Add him in NEWS and I'll be the happiest fangirl alive ^^

Which was the whole reason I even bother watching this drama in the first place. The first episode was kinda blah until the end where they solved the mystery which was kinda touching and then GReeeeN's song Setsuna started playing simultaneously and I was hooked. That, my friends, is how important choosing the right theme song can be.

Voice is kind of a idk how do you call it, real life kind of drama? Very down to earth and nothing exaggerating like Hana Kimi or the kind of BAM BAM BAM suspense you get in Maou or even the 'this is supposed to be a popular drama even if its kinda boring' feel you get from the all star cast of Code Blue.



Oh and every episode follows the same kind of pattern:

1. Someone dies.
2. They go around poking their noses into what is supposed to be the job of the police and interview everyone instead of dissecting the body to find the answers wth.
3. Near the end Daiki would go into a trance and flashback of bits and pieces of the entire episode -supposedly the clues- where he'll suddenly figure out what happened to the victim and ta-dah mystery solved.
4. They tell the victim's spouse/relatives the truth.
5. Cue Setsuna where you'll start feeling all teary and emotional and think its a good drama after all. Probably your hormones speaking but you don't know it and eagerly look forward to next week's episode.

Now that I look at what I've just wrote, its NOTHING like CSI. The forensic lab (more like office) is just for show honestly unless they actually put it to use in the remaining episodes which I highly doubt. It might look boring but somehow still able to keep you watching till the end. However, if you're new to jdramas, I don't think I'll recommend this, all the more if you're a crossover from kdramas. But if you're a jdrama junkie like me, then yes, give this a try =) You might just find it tugging ever so gently at your heartstrings like a soft whisper in the autumn wind, bringing with it a smile to your lips. There is not a single episode that did not leave me in tears. And if you love Toma, all the better :)

My Rating: 4




Uta no Onii-san
Total Episodes: 08
(dramawiki link)


The story revolves around an unconventional children show called "Minna de Utao!" Kenta is a young musician whose band breaks up and who gets dumped by his girlfriend. To top it off, his own family labels him as useless. Unexpectedly, he becomes an "uta no oniisan," a singing character on the children show.




Notice that the poster for the drama is like a oil painting of Ohno? That is thanks to JE's stupid rule of forbidding anyone to use the actual picture of their idols wth meaning taking photos with them if I see them or having them sign their photos is forbidden oh such stupid >C

Anyway, back to the drama. Typical JE worthy drama where you have Ohno from Arashi and Maruyama from Kanjani8 (the stupid prince in gay tights) meaning pure crack, wtf-ry and gayness to the max. You cannot not have the gay when you have a K8 member in it, its like against the code or something. PLUS THE SETTING IS A CHILDREN SHOW. I think that kinda explains all on what to expect from this drama.


I honestly have nothing much to say about this drama because what you see is exactly what you get. I have no idea why I'm watching this really. The crack isn't as funny as MBMH, Yasuko to Kenji nor Yamada Taro Monogatari so unless you have too much time on your hands to kill, go ahead. Must also be a JE fan to be able to choke down all the gayness lol.



I loved Ohno's acting in Maou so I'm quiteWHUT?! o.O when I watched this. As uhm ghei as Arashi is, I think Ohno is better off in more serious roles like MatsuJun since both are like the quietest in Arashi and so crack doesn't really go down that well with them imo. I mean c'mon, Ohno is playing a character who cannot/refuse to smile in this drama to the point I want to cut his mouth open like the Joker seriously. While on the other hand, this guy:


THIS GUY. I AM ITCHING TO BITCH SLAP HIM SO BADLY LIKE YOU CANNOT BELIEVE. He annoys the hell out of me so much to the point I'd rather be chased by a 100 mosquitoes than endure another second of his stupid idiotic smile. The arrogance of this guy who honestly thinks he's awesome as the main star in an effing children show just begs to be kicked in the nuts. I hope Ohno does. Kick him in the nuts I mean. Cuz he deserves it even if it was only in the name of acting. He annoys me and that alone is justification enough.



I would like to kill off the manager too (4th pic) for being damn spineless and such a suck-up, yet still scolding Ohno for being spineless. And am I the only one who thought the girl in the 5th pic was a boy?! I was completely aghast at how they put him in a skirt until they say it was a she. omg this is what being too long in JE does to you. What you once used to see as girls, are now all pretty boys in your eyes after being constantly corrected when you first got into the fandom D:

Shit, later I marry a girl by mistake then how?!?!?!

Anyway, predictable drama where I'm pretty sure that Ohno would soon learn to smile, be the main star of the kid's show and turning it into a money making franchise worthy of JE and possibly get back his ex gf. Which is why the lack of humor leaves much to be desired. Yawn

My Rating: 2.5


And there you have it. You can watch them online at DramaCrazy and MySoju. Downloads are can be found at the usual sites like d-addicts and the likes ^^

No comments: