グッドラック！！ / Good Luck!!

Yes, I would get on this plane and fall asleep without worry knowing my pilot, Shinkai Hajime, is at the helm!

If you can't tell, I have a fear of flying on aircraft, though I do it on occasion, and while watching this 10-episode, 2003 JDorama, it made me wonder if knowing that the pilot or co-pilot were handsome, that it might, somehow help me to relax.

I doubt it, but then again, I can't be too sure, since it is usually the moment when the pilot or co-pilot comes over the pa system to announce the fact that we are now at 30,000+ feet above the ground, and that the weather seems favorable for an eventless flight that I become even more aware of my helplessness and tend to panic further - so, if I heard a silky-smooth voice at that moment and could envision it being KIMURA TAKUYA speaking to me, I'd probably exhale almost immediately and forget everything else going on just then.

HOWEVER ~ I think if I heard him say 'Good Luck!', I'd unfasten my seatbelt and demand to be let off the craft.

Enough about me, though, and more about the charismatic star of the show - Shinkai Hajime!

He's trying really hard to earn that coveted, fourth stripe on his sleeve and become a full-fledged pilot - which is what this show is all about.

Right away, he bumps into mechanic Ogawa Ayumi and the two don't, quite hit it off.

She works alongside Abe Takayuki (Kaname Jun), who has a secret crush on her, but because of her stand-offish nature, it is virtually impossible for him, Hajime, or anyone else to get very close.

Just when things seem to start looking up for Hajime, along comes prune-face senpai Tsutsumi Shinichi as Koda Kazuki - a hard-nosed veteran with more than twelve-years experience as a pilot, but who is now in charge of pilot performance.

Right away, he gets rid of a veteran who has flown more miles than anyone else in the industry because he took over when it seemed that Hajime might, not know what to do under foul weather conditions - 'lacks teamwork skills'.

No one likes Kazuki, save a pretty but aging flight attendant who also ends up in the line of fire on occasion, though she seems to understand his harsh ways a bit better than everyone else at the airline.

As you can imagine, every episode takes us on a new and exciting journey not only in the sky, but on the ground with someone falling in or out of love with someone else, and the personal lives of the players making the spotlight for the duration.

It wasn't so much about the inner workings of what it takes to become a pilot, or detailed analysis of the mechanics of a plane, either, but more about Hajime's personal affairs both in the cockpit and outside the plane.

I kept thinking how fun it would have been to be an extra for this drama, since a majority of the time we watched as unruly or terrified passengers went through one ordeal after the other high above the ground - only to have our dashing hero come to the rescue time and again.

There were a few love stories intertwined, but like all Japanese dramas I've seen up to this point, this also was sorely lacking in the emotional/physical department - with most everything about love, sex, and intimacy left to the imagination.

At least in a Korean drama they show couples in bed before or after the fact - but never in a Japanese drama (save Anego, which shocked the heck out of me) - but, most JDoramas show the one-night-stand set-up and nothing more - which I presume is meant to constantly imply that true love is pure and childish.

Funny thing is, after watching so, many of these shows, I have this distorted impression of the sex lives of Asians - which is weird since a majority of them live together almost as soon as they meet, and most always with the intention of marriage, though that doesn't, always occur.

What are all these living-together couples doing, then, if there is no sex?

Whatever ... I enjoyed watching KimuTaku fly a plane, deal with a hard-headed senpai, and make it impossible for the equally stubborn mechanic chick NOT to fall in love with him.

Good Luck! was a winner, and I highly recommend it if you haven't, already watched.