Pride / プライド

2004 Fuji TV drama that stars Kimura Takuya as Satonaka Halu, a brash, overly confident but lonely and desperate young man who plays minor-league hockey for a living.





Y'know, I never gravitate toward sports-themed dramas or movies because aside from watching tennis on TV, sports has no appeal whatsoever -
yet, every time I watch one of these types of dramas or movies, I can't help but get sucked in both emotionally and figuratively until the very, last episode.

Everyone who reads my blogs knows all, too well that I only watch what I like, and if I recognize the name of someone I'm crazy about or madly HORNY for, I'll watch them in anything!

He wasn't the star, but Sakaguchi Kenji is in this one, so how could I possibly resist?


NOT a spoiler, so re-LAX


Halu (funny how his co-stars called him Ha-Ru) is super-popular, blindly followed by his peers, and the ace goal-scorer for the Blue Scorpions.
He's also cynical about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness, so he makes a 'game' of dating girls via 'contract' - assuring him of a no-strings relationship until he gets bored and wants to move on.

A girl who works at the head office of the local franchise, Takeuchi Yuko as Murase Aki, gets talked into joining her co-workers at the Face-Off bar near the office, and Halu easily spots another victim in her.
He moves in on her almost immediately, and since she is overly bored waiting for her boyfriend of two-years to return from overseas as he promised, she decides what the hell, I'll play along and accepts Halu 'contract' to pretend-date until the anticipated first-love eventually decides to return to Japan.

Aki hasn't heard from this guy in over two years, yet every, single Sunday she goes to a bridge and waits for him since that's where he asked her to meet him on the day he left her.

She's not into sports (like me) and at the first game she attends, instead of cheering for the team, Aki cringes every time a guy slams against the wall, flips over backwards onto the ice, or gets body-checked by an aggressive opponent (same way I'd do if I tried to watch a game that violent).

Halu scores a pretty impressive goal, though, and he skates up to the wall, staring at her until she uncovers her eyes, then pointing to his eyes, he gives her the signal to keep them open next time.
After the game, he hands her a molar that was knocked out during the game, totally creeping her out, but she takes the unexpected present, making Halu smile.

Aki has a friend who is determined to marry money, and by innocent mistake, Sakaguchi's (I totally love this name) Hotta Yamato borrows his rich buddy's sports car to take the girl home.
This gives her the wrong but exciting impression that HOT-ta is not only gorgeous but loaded as well, so naturally she wants him and decides to marry him right then and there.

HOT-ta just wants sex, though, but deep-down, he's a good boy with character, and it isn't until he falls in love with her that he takes her to a 'love' hotel.



The rich hockey player and flashy dude on the team is Ichikawa Somegoro as Ikegawa Tomonori, a playa with long hair and a sense of style who loves the ladies and drops c-notes like they are monopoly money.

As with a majority of Asian dramas, especially Japanese, EVERYone has a secret to hide and a sob story to tell.
Pride is no exception to this unwritten rule, and for 11 episodes we find out the secrets and stories of the key team players and the gals who adore them.

Sato Ryuta is Shimamura Makoto, the team clown and chicken-shit more interested in being close to Halu than participating in or even learning how to play hockey.
I love Sato, and in every drama or movie I've seen him in, he's always managed to tug at my heartstrings and make me say 'aw!' at least three times.

The guy from Kougen e Irrasshai, Sato Koichi, turns out to be the Blue Scorpion's replacement coach after their first coach ends up in the hospital.
Halu doesn't like him one bit, having grown up with and hero-worshipped the old coach, so the two clash almost every time they meet.

Yes, Halu starts to have deeper feelings for Aki and vice versa, and of course the latent boyfriend decides to return from overseas at the most inopportune of times!

Snobby girl finds out eventually that HOT-ta isn't the rich guy she dreamed of marrying, too.

Richy Rich Tomonori gets in trouble by being accused of knocking up a high-school girl, and when sad-ass Makoto ends up getting dropped from the team, his hero Halu doesn't come to his defense or even argue about it with the coach he loathes.

Snobby girl ends up falling for a 'real' rich guy who also happens to play on an opposing team the Blue Scorpions are doubtful they'll be able to beat in the championship games, and HOT-ta goes out of his way to beg the rich guy not to use her as a 'mistress' instead of marrying her.

Yea, that's how he ends up in a pool of blood, but I sure as heck ain't telling you how or what happens afterward!

Even the new coach ends up with a few secrets and stories to tell, though he remains an aloof hard-ass throughout the drama, he's still got a lot to say and even more to bring to the table in this excellent, 11-episode jaw dropper.

This is how it ends ...

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Honjitsu mo Hare. Ijo Nashi / 本日も晴れ。異状なし / Clear Skies, no incidents

A Japanese human interest drama that aired from January through March of 2009.

GOSH did I like this!
And, not just because it starred hunky Sakaguchi Kenji, either.
It's no surprise to me that anything I watch from this country will effectively manage to take me away and then help to make me feel better afterward.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Japanese screen writers are incredibly talented.


When I watch dramas of this caliber, it makes me feel like I'm watching something in black & white from 1940's Hollywood, and THAT says a lot about the storyline, the actors, and the direction.
I tell myself that it's probably something my parents would enjoy viewing, and that always makes me feel good.

Sakaguchi plays Shirase Ryo, a detective from Tokyo who takes time off work to stay for a year on a tiny island in greater need of a doctor than a beat cop.
At the start, Ryo is overbearing, loud, and impatient, which is in obvious contrast to the laid-back, simplified lifestyle the islanders are accustomed to living.
It's not clear at the beginning why he's actually there or what he hopes to accomplish by butting his nose in everyone's business all the time.
Ryo is obnoxiously enthusiastic in his bumbling efforts to make a good impression on the islanders, and he arrives at a time when most of them are at a crossroads in life, too.


The scenery was breathtaking, but I'm confused by the dramawiki remark that the island itself is 'based on' the real-life island of Hateruma.
?What?

Anyway, Ryo eventually blends in, makes a good impression, and works hard to help everyone solve or deal with their personal issues.
He fosters a teenage girl, Tamashiro Minami, and her baby brother, Shota, who lost their mother the day that he arrived on the island.
He visits daily with the sick & elderly, taking their blood pressure for them and listening to whatever it is they want to talk about.
And since he's a big guy, he carries heavy bundles or sacks of flour for the women, too.


He also helps out at the school, which is ready to close due to dwindling enrollment.



The island produces sugarcane, but only enough that one family is capable of taking care of the entire crop.
A majority of the island's inhabitants leave when they graduate high school, which means little in the way of hope for the survival of the island.

It sounds doom & gloom, but it's not that kind of a story at all.

Ryo sent a man to prison under false charges, and the mistake ate away at his conscience.
He's overly compassionate, so when he heard the old man singing a childhood tune, he requested to work on the island, where the old man once lived.

He rides a bike around the island each day, and every night, he records the same thing in a log book.




Twists & turns abound, with a smattering of humor and even a few tear-jerking moments as well.
Ryo puts out one fire after another while he's there, and despite the island's laid-back nature, he still maintains a modicum of spaz that helps to up the humor ante.

THEN his boss arrives to drag him back to Tokyo, where he believes Ryo is needed most.



Kataoka Shinichiro is a detective who first agreed that Ryo needed time off work to reflect, but after awhile, he grows restless and wants the no-nonsense, awesome fighter back on his team.
He phones Ryo to say he's coming for him, and when Ryo turns around, he gets kicked in the ass by Shinichiro.



At a meal, the elder detective insists that Shota eat something, scaring him half to death in the process and making him cry.



He then proceeds to follow Ryo around the island, curious to know what he's been up to for the past, few months.
He's not happy, and he ends up shoving his foot in Ryo's ass again, -




- but at the school, and the children there gang up on him, angry that he would hurt their hero friend, Ryo.

That night, we find out just why it is that Ryo is behaving so stubborn about remaining on the island and wasting his talent & time.





Ryo learns a lot about himself and others, which is the whole point of the story.
He also helps the man he sent to prison, though it seems totally pointless to the viewer up until the very end.

Shota misses his dead mother and has a hard time coping in & out of school.
Minami feels horrible about being obligated to Ryo and the islanders, so she continues to think up ways to leave.
A woman who owns a bar there is running from an abusive husband while her two, little boys think happy thoughts about the day when their father will return.
The young, female teacher (Saimon Ulala) hates her life and behaves differently in public than she does while hiding out in her room, hording beer & spam and wearing funky clothing.
The principal seems wimpish on the outside, but he's actually quite capable and much stronger than his younger, doctor brother, who refuses to live on the island where he's needed most.
And an elderly woman ends up being a foster mother to the man Ryo sent to prison.

For a tiny island with few inhabitants, Ryo has his hands full trying to keep up and solve their everyday problems.

In one scene, Ulalah confronts Ryo about not giving Minami money when she asks for it.
Turns out she ran out of feminine stuff, and when Ryo wouldn't give her the money unless she told him what it was for, she turned to the teacher for help.

Ryo and Ulalah end up working together to make changes happen, falling in love in the process.

At the beginning of Honjitsu mo Hare, Ryo helps Shota by letting him paint a mural on the wall outside his 'police box' home, and Ryo is somewhat disappointed to discover that Shota drew everyone but him.



At the end of the drama, he returns to the island with the assistance of a cane, and he's overwhelmed to see that Shota drew a great, big picture of him at the end of the wall.

~He's got the look~

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