Category — Japanese Dramas

Can I just say that I am totally excited for this drama? I’ve been a fan of Ueno Juri since Nodame Cantabile and Eita is a familiar face for me too, again, thanks to Nodame Cantabile.  But one thing that makes me squeal like a fangirl that I am is my hubby favorite TVXQ/Tohoshinki member, Kim Jaejoong.

This isn’t Jaejoong’s first acting gig. He has been in a telemovie before entitled Heaven’s Postman which was written by Eriko Kitagawa and co-incidentally or not, is also the writer for this drama.  Erika revealed in her blog before that the producer already chose Jaejoong for the character even without Eriko’s recommendation.

The story revolves around five people who met through Twitter.  Haru (Ueno) is a temporary teacher at a private high school while Nakaji (Eita) works as a photographer. Jaejoong is a doctor who came to Japan from Korea.  The other characters are Peach played by Megumi Seki and Rinta who is played by Tetsuji Tamayama.

Sunao ni Narenakute will start airing on April at 10:00pm (Japan time) every Thursday.

After two seasons of not being seen on the boob tube, Yamashita Tomohisa or Yamapi is back with a sort of sports drama entitled Buzzer Beat.

In the series, Yamapi is a salaryman who belongs to his company’s basketball team.  He’s weak under pressure when it comes to work and romance so despite having a girlfriend, he falls in love with another woman. Ahem…this storyline is sure intriguing huh?

He co-stars this drama with Keiko Kitagawa (The Fast and the Furius Tokyo Drift), Saki Aibu (Zettai Kareshi), Hideaki Ito (First Kiss) and Junpei Mizobata (Akai Ito.)

Buzzer Beat started airing last July 13 and is currently occupying the Monday slot at 9:00pm (Japan time).

credits: Tokyograph

For drama otakus like me, it’s pretty interesting to see the anime versions of Japanese live action dramas. And there are a number out there since Jdoramas are mostly taken from mangas.

Hana Yori Dango, for example, has three live action drama versions, two live action movies, an animated feature movie and an anime series. That’s how popular it is.

Nodame Cantabile, another popular manga was also made into a live action drama, an anime and I’ve heard that they’re making a live action movie. More Chiaki-senpai goodness, yay!

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Does anyone here know whether Japanese actor-model Hayami Mokomichi is really half-Filipino? DramaWiki says he has a Japanese father and a Filipina mom but I seriously doubt the veracity of this info. I checked out his official site but all I could get from his profile is that his favorite sport is basketball. Hehe, so much for my elementary Nihonggo.

Hayami-san reprises his role as robot lover Tenjo Night in the SP of Zettai Kareshi.

Here’s the second part of my summary:

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Zettai Kareshi returned with a two-hour SP last March. Despite the anticlimactic ending, overall I thought the SP was packed with all the stuff that I liked about this drama—Night’s extremely cheesy and hilarious antics, Soshi’s silent suffering and Namikiri-san’s unflinching loyalty to his robot. Of course, a Zettai Kareshi episode won’t be complete without the tearjerker scenes and life lessons. I’ve written a pretty long episode guide so I’ll be posting it in two parts.

The SP revolves around the inevitability of death and learning to move on after a loss. As Soshi’s father puts it:

“Humans inevitably die someday. Since we know death is imminent we do our best to live life to the fullest. When you’re about to die, you want to leave something behind for those around you. Even if you pass away, you want those you leave behind to live happily. I’m able to do my best to live because I thought this way.”

This reflection finally puts an end to Riiko’s dilemma as Night makes the difficult choice between life and death.

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