2003 JDorama that stars Abe Hiroshi as an eccentric (kind of) anime artist and a young girl in search of a job.
She's late for an interview after attending a friend's wedding, and while still in a pretty, red kimono, she ends up getting the rented garment stuck inside the door of a van in front of the office tower where she's supposed to have the interview.
Abe happens along and is immediately reminded of a pet goldfish he once had that liked to race around the bowl before leaping to apparent freedom.
Natch, the interview doesn't go, too well, but when Abe's character sees her trying to leave the building, he insists that she be the one to assist him on his latest endeavor - which is to leave the city and hide out for about 3 months at a quaint Onsen so that he cannot be persuaded to work for anyone else since everyone in the publishing industry is dying to contract with him, and he can't say no.
She tells them she will do the job if they book a room at the Onsen her brother (head chef) works.
I must quote the synopsis for this drama:
Yumi (Yuko Takeuchi) is a 23-year-old office worker. Out of the blue, she is fired from her job. A few days later, wearing kimono, she is rushing to an interview for some part-time work at a publishing company. She was at a friend's wedding that went on a bit longer than expected and she has no time to change from her kimono.
In another room at the publisher, popular comic book writer Reijiro Sakurai (Hiroshi Abe) is having an editorial meeting with some staff. He is planning to lock himself away at a hot spring for the next three months to concentrate on his next project. Yumi stumbles into the room, looking for somewhere to change out of her kimono. Sakurai comments that if Yumi were to join him he wouldn't mind being away for so long...
Sounds totally creepy and a bit on the hentai side, don't it?
If this is what kept you from watching (like me) then forget it because THAT is not quite how the story goes.
From start to finish, I enjoyed nearly every second of this show.
The storyline was credible as well as refreshingly different - the characters were believable - and the director didn't stray or even dwell too long on aside characters issues.
The whole point of the story was about acceptance, change, and tolerance, which the writers tackled with finesse and made things all the more entertaining as a result.
Abe will always be one of my favorite, Japanese actors, and this is twice now where I've enjoyed Yuko's performance.
Despite the fact this had such a great (somewhat anyway) cast, I can't go any farther than 3 fairies for this one.
This is the original, live-action version of the Korean hit movie that started out as Manga, turned Anime, and then became this ... an eleven-episode drama from back in 2001.
The storyline was somewhat the same as that of the Korean version, but they did not play up the fact of Naohito-kun's gayness, Taki-boy's over-enthusiasm, nor the unsolved mystery surrounding the leading rich man's kidnapping.
I'll hazard a guess it was a sign of the times and leave it at that.
Still, this version managed to drag me in and keep me watching for the duration, and about half-way through, I totally forgot about the Korean version to enjoy what the Japanese had to offer.
I was just grateful this was finally uploaded at aznv.tv (a mere twelve days ago).
2009 Fuji TV drama that stars Abe Hiroshi as Sakura Haruo as a small-time Yakuza member in love with a sickly woman in need of surgery. He begs to be released from the gang in order to find a full-time job that can support his girl, but he is beaten severely instead and offered more than enough money to cover the hospital expenses if he will kill a rival gang leader.
Haruo accepts the job, and in unexpected, bumbling fashion, he shoots his target, killing him - but only after missing a few times and then shooting himself in the leg while both he and the target roll down cement steps in the pouring rain.
He spends nine years in prison, is released on a sunny, spring day, and he wanders into town with about 375,000 yen (the equivalent of $4,000 US) in a brown envelope. He stops in at a tiny restaurant where an old man is the proprietor, and after noting how cheap it is, he proceeds to order everything on the menu. Afterward, he stumbles to the bathroom to puke it all up, and when he returns to his table, he finds that the envelope is missing from his black man-purse. Haruo runs into the street in search of the thief, and he sees a man hailing a bus with the envelope in his hand, but it is too late for our gimp to reach him before the bus takes off. After staring down the frightened, old restaurant owner, Haruo dines & dashes.
He ends up in a park where children like to play and not, too far from where nice people dole out free food and makeshift shelter to itinerant workers. He also spends a night at an internet cafe where he inadvertently meets two, young lovers. Haruo has one, other friend from his days with the Yakuza, and before he went to jail, Haruo made him promise to get the 8 million yen to his girl so she could have the operation that would save her life. Haruo finds him at a bar, and it is then that he discovers his girlfriend actually died shortly after he was sent to prison. For several, more episodes poor Haruo wanders around trying to figure out why and how it was possible if she had the life-saving operation. He finds out that his girl quickly moved in with another man who runs a bakery, so he heads there and proceeds to terrify everyone, including the man who runs the shop. He thinks that Murakami Yasushi (Endo Kenichi) is responsible for the death of his girl because he used the 8 million yen to open the bakery.
Haruo is actually a shy, frightened character but his size and huge, round eyes make him seem powerful and domineering to everyone he manages to intimidate without trying.
Intimidating, that is, to everyone but a little girl (Sachi) who draws his portrait while he tries to nap on a park bench. She begs him not to move so that she can finish her drawing, and that she gave him wings makes him curious.
Her two friends don't share her interest in him, though, and when he roars at her to let him be, one of the girls presses an alarm attached to her backpack which sends nearby adults running to the scene.
Eventually, though, he and Sachi become friends.
Haruo moves in with the young couple from the internet cafe, and while they fall victim to scams and end up on the wrong end of the Yakuza stick, Haruo ends up getting a job at the very bakery where he still thinks that Yasushi had something to do with the death of his old girlfriend. He also takes for granted that she fell in love with Yasushi and that the little girl is theirs.
I, for one, will always love Abe Hiroshi no matter what character he portrays, and as shocked as I was to see him this way, I will never regret finally giving in to this story. I refused to watch it because the poster made him look like a very, bad man, and that was not how I wanted him to be portrayed or remembered. For me, this was a 'box of tissues' drama with a surprise ending that left me agape in horror and crying out with grief, begging them to just STOP. Haruo goes through so, much from beginning to end, and there was no way for me not to be drawn to him no matter how hard he tried to keep people from getting too close. I loved this, and I think that you will, too, if you haven't, already watched. The title is linked to aznv.tv in case you're interested.
A 2005 TBS release that stars Abe Hiroshi, Yamashita Tomohisa, and Koike Teppei among others.
ABE (ah-bay) is so, totally COOL!
In this drama, he's a low-level attorney down on his luck AND cash.
His office is a one-room, dilapidated mess with papers and discarded food containers everywhere.
Its also where he sleeps every night since he has no place else to go.
He ends up taking on a challenge to bring up the test scores of a lower-level high school by vowing to accomplish the impossible task of having a minimum of five students succeed in one year or he will walk away.
The five students are from different backgrounds and with varying degrees of incompetence, and the 11-episode drama focuses on each of them up to the end, when they take their college entrance exams and it is decided whether or not Zakura Dragon has succeeded or not.
I'm still trying to figure out why Tomohisa didn't register with me when I watched Buzzer Beat.
In every drama I'd seen him star in up to that point, he looked the same to me - and then I watched Buzzer Beat and ---- huh?
Whatever, I don't think that Dragon Zakura was about him or the kids but about Abe instead and his quest for perfection amongst the imperfect of Japanese society.
It was an awesome drama and I recommend it to anyone who has yet to watch (though I doubt that'd be anyone on the planet who enjoys Asian dramas!)
Ok, so I said I'd watch Green Rose ... Not that I don't want to, or even that I won't watch it! I just saw the word Yasha when I opened Mysoju, and decided that staring at someone as incredibly hottt as Ito might be worth my while. So, all day (and night) yesterday, I watched Yasha.
I became dead-tired around 9:30 pm, but I only had about six episodes to go, so I decided to stick it out and watch the entire, ten episodes before I crashed for the night. I'm glad that I did, too.
For YEARS, Yasha's storyline didn't appeal to me. This JDorama came out back in 2000, and even though Hideaki Ito is the star, (and as twins, no less!) I just, didn't think that I'd like watching anything as far-fetched and gruesome as genetically altered ... well, Yasha people roaming the earth, doing despicable things because they are conceived in a petrie dish, and therefore have no soul or conscience.
The storyline turned out to be fascinating, though. (Why have I not learned by now to simply TRUST the powers that be in Japanese cinema to fascinate the hell out of me, regardless of the storyline, genre, or even characters?)
Sting's Desert Rose was completely apropos for this drama, and I also liked the soma.fm-esque Drone Zone music in-between.
This guy appeared at the end of beginning credits (if that makes any sense), and for the first, few episodes I couldn't figure out who it was, or why they had to show him. It still looks nothing like Ito to me, but I began to wonder if it might, not be Moichi, the pianist? Sei never wore a white coat ... unless it's a lab jacket? I think the guy has glasses on though, and I'm sure it has to be Ito's character, but I just, don't see it.
I especially liked the piano tune that Sei's surrogate mother taught Moichi (Kashiwabara Shuji, 柏原収史).
It's super-pretty, but of course, I'll NEVER find out what it is, let alone who performed it ... because since 2000, no one has posted a reply to the dozens of questions regarding that particular piece of music!!!
Sei (Hideaki Ito) is a genetically cloned ... human,
Good Clone Sei
and Rin is his nine-month apart twin, also cloned at the same genetic lab.
Bad Clone Rin
Sei lives with his surrogate mother, and his best friend is Moichi, a blind boy with a natural talent for the piano.
When Sei is twelve, the genetic lab that created him tries to take him back, and in the process, his surrogate mother is killed (or so we think for the next, few episodes).
At age twenty, Sei returns to Japan, and he meets his twin, Rin, at a new-age nightclub.
Now, ... this is where the storyline did a weird twist on me ...
It was revealed late in the drama that both Sei AND Rin were conceived of the ovary and sperm of Sei's surrogate mother and Rin's adoptive father. So, does this really qualify as genetic cloning, and how could their cells die early if they are, in fact, of two, human beings? It was pointed out numerous times (perhaps so we wouldn't forget) that Sei is an uber-genius, with the highest IQ possible, the quickest reflexes known to man, and with the ability to hear and see at great distances. THESE traits were ... added to the fertilization process, and both Sei and Rin are of equal genetic make-up as well as phenomenal, human capabilities.
Sei finds out that his mother is still alive, and that Rin's father loved the woman deeply. Still, Rin's father is the mad scientist type who works with a warped Congressman to help 'balance' the already dwindling population of Japan by spreading these lethal viruses that infect everyone, but that only kill off ... undesirables, like old people and unintelligent folk (like me).
People that think this way make me nervous for a number of valid reasons, and Yasha made me naturally curious about the Rhysyn (sp) thingy that occurred in that country, killing all those innocent people on the subway train in Tokyo.
I know ... turns out it was a wack-job from a cult, but still ...
Sei is the good clone, and Rin is the bad clone, but not because the scientists injected a bad boy gene into Rin's petrie dish. He's not supposed to be human, but Sei is traumatized by the shooting death of his mother, and Rin is jealous of the fact that the surrogate mother cared so much for Sei. So, Rin is on the side of the wipe-em-out-with-deadly-viruses plan and Sei is against it.
This guy was smokin' hot, but I have no idea who he is. He came in toward the middle of the drama, as the son of the woman that carried Rin's cloned cell, and she died after giving birth to him. So, I don't know if this qualifies them as brothers in any way, and even though the hotty knew that Rin was the reason for his mother's death, he still sided with Rin and even became his sex partner toward the end of the drama.
I felt that Rin was the hotter Ito Hideaki character,
but as this drama unfolded, I began to dig them both equally for their raw sex appeal.
Ito has got it goin' ON, and I just wish that Japan would relax their copyright laws, because I really want to see EVERYTHING that Ito has starred in! And ... what is the deal about BUYING these things online? I can't, even find his dramas or movies on Amazon, so what gives? Japan only wants people from their own country to watch their dramas & movies, is that it?
I did, happen to find a movie he stars in ... Kodoku no kake 孤独の賭け. I hope that it arrives before my Christmas break from school ends.
Yasha also starred the equally HOTTT Abe Hiroshi as Sei's terminator-type bodyguard.
This guy is HUGE compared to all of the other actors in this drama! He seemed to tower over even Ito! Ito is 182cm and Abe is 189cm tall. Ito is nearly 5 feet 10 inches tall, while Abe is 6 feet 2 inches tall. Both numbers are unusually high for Japanese men, and I don't think that Abe is of a mixed origin, either, like our dashing Hideaki Ito, with his smoldering, Portuguese blood pulsing through his red-hot veins.
I leave you with lots of pretty pictures from the drama, and a trailer for the drama at the end.
