Lucky Seven

ラッキーセブン

2012, 10-episode FujiTV detective drama that starred Matsumoto Jun as Tokita Shuntaro, a 'freeter' who is great with women as well as reading people.

The story unfolds with some private detectives spying on a married woman having frequent interval sex with an unsuspecting Shuntaro. The PI's pop the woman, and the next day, when Shuntaro calls her for another bit of afternoon delight, she tells him to stop calling her on account of being caught by her upset husband.

Shuntaro figures out how it happened and goes after Eita's Nitta Teru, one of the spies he bumped into in the underground parking garage of the 'love' hotel.

The two don't get along, and the first episode showed it in spades. It was an action-packed episode straight out of the gate that never slowed down much until the very end, and even then it had me wide-eyed and laughing.

Nitta is a hot-headed loud-mouth with issues who isn't inclined to smile, much less take the time to listen or get to know anyone.

After the two duke it out inside the detective agency, the boss appears to break it up, and then she propositions Shuntaro, asking if he thinks he can cut it as a detective.

This is the second time around for me, having watched it shortly after its upload at aznv.tv and then again at dramacrazy.net because apparently aznv.tv is having technical difficulties once again.

The subs were stupid. Since graduating (even before) I began to notice that one of the big issues with these subbers is their inability to comprehend or lack of education with regard to prepositions, subject/verb agreement, and tense.

A, and, the, is, was, the be's, etc.

The inability to properly word phrases, too, like butt OUT.

Then there is the problem of Asian phrases not being properly translated to English. Their strange use of ordinal versus cardinal, time, and context.

I'll leave 'first', and hang up 'now', until just now, and since just then don't compute well in English vernacular and sound ridiculous to the English-trained ear.

Regardless, this had a minor effect on my LIKE of this drama.

Each episode brings a new client into the office, and then the mismatched group of detectives do their thing right up to the very end - which starts out normal, goes wrong, and usually with Shuntaro figuring out what needs doing to set things right.

The first episode, though, was a powerhouse packed full of amazing and hilarious fight scenes between Eita's Nitta and Jun's Shuntaro.

Their first client is a disillusioned and heartbroken fire fighter who gives up on life and keeps entering illegal fight club rounds, letting whatever contestant ends up in the cage with him beat the crap out of him without defending himself or fighting back.

The tag team of detectives discovers gambling on the premises and enlists the aid of the police, but until they can get there, a diversion is needed in order to keep their client's aniki out of the ring - fearing he might, just die this time around.

Enter Shuntaro and Nitta.

Way too much fun there.

An aside or story-within-the-story is Shuntaro's little nephew, who lives with Shuntaro, his grandmother, Shuntaro's mother, and his father, Shuntaro's aniki.

The little boy is addicted to a long-running detective show on TV, and toward the end of this 10-episode drama, fantasy meets reality.

The five-rainbow rating is simple. This drama is re-watchable, not over-the-top stupid, less predictable than you'd think, and not cram-packed with ganbatte messages.

Watching guys like Matsumoto Jun and Eita bicker, learning the secrets of what makes each of the stars character's tick, and being interested in each of the stories that make their way into the detective agency also helped decide on such a high rating.

If you haven't seen this one yet, get going. You won't be disappointed.

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Nodame Cantabile

2006, 11-episode Fuji-TV JDo that starred Ueno Juri as Noda Megumi aka Nodame (Piano) and Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki Shinichi (Piano/Conducting).

This is based on Manga of the same premise and characters, and the two leads did terrific jobs portraying the stressed-out, uppity conductor wonna-be Chiaki, and the flaky, unrealistic kindergarten teaching hopeful, Noda.

Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki Shinichi

This is the fourth time I've watched the drama and the movie that followed shortly after it ended. Not a waste of time at all, either.

The reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 is because while I enjoy reading Manga and don't mind too much that it becomes live-action, it still bugs me that there aren't more novels that become that way instead.

The second reason is because of the pretentiousness with which the entire story was presented. Classical music isn't and shouldn't be portrayed as something high-brow, upper class, and worth giving up your entire life to perfect, much less pursue. It's for everyone to enjoy as well as to play and participate in.

Someone always has to be god-like as well, and I've said all I can about the way that line of thinking makes me feel.

Until now, I mistook him for Ikuta Toma. They have similar facial features but not the same voice, I think. Still, they're both hot and worth spending hours staring at and admiring. Hiroshi-kun was amazing in this drama!

Nodame Cantabile is about Chiaki-kun's journey to self-discovery in the form of learning how to grow, let go of past notions about life and career, to get along well with others, and then accept the things that come to pass without fighting against it via self-will.

He's a child prodigy who grew up in the lap of luxury and never got rid of an initial desire to conduct orchestras rather than play in one like his estranged father, a concert pianist.

He attends a music academy in Japan but wants desperately to return to Europe and study with his old master. Unfortunately, after his parents divorced when he was young, he returned to Japan with his mother and experienced a bad plane landing which resulted in his fear of flying.

Stuck on land in Japan, he stomps his way through this academy, complaining about everything he hears being played by the other students. Naturally, the chicks dig him for his looks and size, but he isn't very receptive to their advances or even the fact that the guys there would like it if he were their friend.

He keeps attempting to get into the conducting division at the academy, even knowing it's pointless since he'll never be able to reach Europe without overcoming his fear of flying. Each time he applies, though, the request is turned down.

At the apartment, he meets his neighbor, Noda Megumi. She's the complete opposite of him, and when she drags him inside her apartment, he realizes what a slob she is. Later, on his balcony, he notices a nasty smell and then watches in horror as neon purple liquid begins oozing onto his side of the wall.

Upset, he marches into Nodame's apartment and insists that she clean the place. Chiaki-kun ends up doing all the work, though.

Then he is forced to have to play a piano duet with her in a classroom setting. He's reluctant at first, but he's already heard her play before and is overly curious about her lack of control yet ability to captivate.

He's crass and rude to Noda, always shouting at her to get her act together and do the right thing while she ignores it all and continues to smile, goof off, and do everything the way she sees fit.

Everything about Nodame annoys Chiaki, and yet he's still drawn to her. Because of his desire to conduct, it's natural for him to want to help draw out the natural talent he sees in her.

She's not there to become famous or travel the world as a member of an orchestra, though. Noda has aspirations of becoming a kindergarten teacher.

I didn't get that. I had no idea why she'd spend good money at this academy if that was her goal. Do music academy's teach education classes for kindergarten students?

Regardless, for the eleven episodes, we watch how these two opposites end up in a budding relationship, spend time together, and how their personalities end up having some type of effect one over the other here and there.

At the same time, though, their personalities are such that regardless of how the two end up being sucked into the other's world, they both always return to who they are naturally.

The kotatsu episode was a case in point and hilarious as well.

The more that Nodame ends up falling for Chiaki-kun, the harder she attempts to mold herself into his ideal, and sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Every time she upset Chiaki, he'd toss her aside like a rag doll, and every time this occurred, or when he said or did something to upset her, she'd let out this word.

Funny, cute, silly stuff completely in line with the Manga.

I had issues with the subs, too. At the beginning of each episode, it stated that this was beta and would be cleaned up later. Um ... not sure how that is possible, and this is 2014 now. I've yet to find another streaming website that uses cleaned up subs.

This can't be what she said, and regardless, it makes no sense.

Another of my favorite Japanese actors starred in this one:

Eita as Mine Ryutaro (Violin)

He started out as an electric violin player intent on restructuring classical music by adding a Rock & Roll flavor that would be a definite hit with kids his age and younger.

Early on, he ends up befriending Chiaki, and not long afterward the whole gang shows up at his father's tiny restaurant to meet, eat, and drink, chat, commiserate, and plan their next move.

Loved the rainbow hair clips.

His character was a little on the spaz side, but he didn't shout a whole lot or annoy. His passion was what ended up helping Chiaki-kun realize his dream of becoming a conductor. Mine made it to a second-string orchestra, and the conductor bailed, so he and Nodame enlisted Chiaki for the job.

Mine played the cheerleader, the go-to guy, and the referee in times of conflict. He fell in love as well, and he continued to cheer on the girl after she ended up leaving for Europe and further studies.

Then there was the guy with the interesting mustache. He also sported an afro, but it didn't stick out as much as the 'stache.

Koide Keisuke as Okuyama Masumi played timpani and had a huge crush on Chiaki-kun. Every time that Nodame entered the picture, his jealousy showed to the point of mild violence.

Masumi was always there whenever another girl (or guy) tried to wile their way into Chiaki's private time, and Chiaki-kun eventually learned to appreciate him while ignoring his one-sided affection.

He liked to wear 1970's apparel to include bright colors, paisley, bell-bottoms, vests, and white lifts.

Another aspect of Nodame Cantabile that I always enjoy is the music - of course.

Here's where the pretentiousness comes in, though.

It's great to learn new things, and I like finding out stuff I didn't know before, too, but still. The way it's presented is annoying and in-your-face, making me not appreciate the effort.

Again, the subs kept making the mistake of referring to a concert as a concerto.

Concert: [kon-surt] a public musical performance in which a number of singers or instrumentalists, or both, participate.

Concerto: [kuhn-cher-toh] a composition for one or more principal instruments, with orchestral accompaniment, now usually in symphonic form.

However, I'll give them a bit of credit since there were times when the actors themselves said concert-o, which might be habit rather than misconception. They can't end any word with a consonant, but the two words are pronounced much different, so the subber's should have known better.

Anyway, I liked watching this drama a lot and I loved hearing the music, too.

It's my understanding, too, that the Korean version will finally become reality this fall. Sources report Joo Won as being the Chiaki-kun, too.

Wait and see for me. It's still too early to get excited until all the pieces are put in place.

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Nodame Cantabile SP-MOVIE

Nodame Cantabile SP (Movie)

GYABO!

The 2008 movie special released soon after the drama ended picks up where the drama left off, with Chiaki-kun and Nodame leaving for Paris together.

This is Chiaki's chance to prove himself as a conductor, and before he can meet with his life-long coach, he needs to enter and win a competition.

The pretentiousness aside, this SP turned out to be as good, if not better than, the drama from which it sprang. Fast-paced, ricochet dialogue meant to help cram a ton of stuff into less than two hours worth of film.

Takenaka Naoto as Franz Strezemann (Milch Holstein) appears at the end to drop another portent onto our unsuspecting couple, too. "Prometheus of the Desert" as he refers to this latest order.

The original cast have returned as well, though their on-screen time is very limited - relegated to Mine's father's tiny restaurant, where they meet for drinks, reminisce, and shout the ganbatte stuff again and again, esp. for their hero, Chiaki-kun.

Chiaki-kun goes up against two of the greats in conductor-dom, and he remains confident, precise, and overbearing as he behaved in the drama. He's at the top of the heap one minute, sinks to the depths of despair the next, and then with Nodame's flighty help, rises back to the top bigger and better than before.

In this movie, she's more flirtatious, evoking more of her feminine side, which is a good thing except that Chiaki-kun and his one-track mind aren't interested in anything other than winning the conductor's competition so that he can face his old Senpai with dignity, and with his head held high.

Yah! Whatever, dude. No one ever listens to me when I try to tell them that GETTING LAID helps in stressful situations. No one in Asian Dramaland cares to listen, though.

Didn't quite know what to make of Wentz Eiji as Lantoine Franz, but he wasn't on screen that often to make a fair judgement anyhow.

More important than the cute guys, this time around I felt that Ishii Masanori as Katahira Hajime nearly stole the show. He played one of the contenders for the conductor crown, and he did a great job.

Ah! And, a mystery from the drama is solved!

"...a chicken shit" but whatever. I knew something wasn't quite right with the original interpretation, so there.

Speaking of subs, they were great, then mediocre, then good, then dumb, then great again (depending on who subbed which parts, I think).

They continued to use the word Concerto, too, instead of just Concert.

Not sure how or what to say about the scenery here, either. Being fooled into thinking I'm actually there when in reality I'm not has made me a little gun shy about reporting such things in this blog. Perhaps the stills were real, and glimpses of the inside of buildings as well. Even when they visited the monuments of Paris, I got the sneaking suspicion they were filmed, but that the actual scenes were done in a Japanese studio and not on-sight.

Okay, so now on to the second part of this SP ...

Part 2 of the SP Movie ...

It's Nodame's turn to shine. Chiaki has earned his wings, isn't too afraid of airplanes now, and has signed on with Franz Strezemann as an assistant. They tour Europe and Asia, and while Strezemann does a majority of the conducting, Chiaki-kun is left to assist him.

Meanwhile, Noda is left to her own devices in Paris and finds out the hard way that kawaii doesn't always cut it in the real world. She's got a terrific ear and pitch for music and can play well when she wants to, but she hadn't applied herself too well to the technical side of the music world and now suffers in these advance classes.

However ... music wasn't her initial goal in life. She wanted to teach kindergarten, and then she met Chiaki-kun and wanted to become his wife.

It was toward the end of the drama that Chiaki-kun realized that Noda completed him, and I think this SP Movie was meant to highlight that aspect of their relationship.

One might consider this sexist, and in Japan, there is no such thing, really. In Korea it's macho, and in Japan it's about power. In both cases, men possess each while women are expected to go along for the ride.

At least Noda made her debut in one of the greatest of all European Castles (if we can believe that) - at least we got to get an outside glimpse of the place. She did great, made Chiaki-kun shed tears, and he even finally kissed her afterward.

this appeared twice, and I think the subber got it backwards. 

In this scene, she's become a little fish in a big pond.

always enjoyed and adored the goofy graphics peppered throughout the drama and the movie

case in point ...

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きみはペット / Kimi wa Petto

You Are My Pet

     

2003 JDorama that was first manga about a ToDai grad with an awesome job as a journalist who is reaching 29 when her life takes this amazing and drastic turn.

She's seen as a tough bitch with balls, but the reality is she has inferiority issues and a somewhat unrealistic fear of being discovered as a fake.

Being shy, it's difficult for her to express her true feelings, though at the start of this 10 episode story, she hauled off and punched a superior in the nose after he suggested being able to stroke her fanny the same way he wants her to let their foreign clients get away with doing.

That move sends her packing for another department within the newspaper office, where she's met with more than just the scorn and jealous assumptions of her new co-workers.

The office betch who sucks helium and smiles all fake-like in order to snag a husband is on to Iwaya Sumire (Koyuki) right from the start, and when she finds out the tall, sexy woman with low self-esteem is the love interest of a man the entire building wants to see naked, she naturally sets out to steal said hot man from Sumire-san.

Tanabe Seiichi as Hasumi Shigehito is the hunky world reporter who has just returned from a stint in Rio de Janeiro and is overly glad to find his love in the same elevator as him.

He is Sumire-san's senpai, and she also had a huge crush on him while they attended Tokyo University - and right away, they begin their romance.

HOWEVER ~

Before that occurred, Sumire-san was struggling to get over a nasty break-up with another man from another area of the office - who was too weak to let her know he wasn't happy with their relationship or her, so he had an affair with another woman, got her pregnant, and when Sumire walked in on them, that was when he decided it was time to let her know he was marrying someone else.

When she arrives at her weirdly named apartment (Mom Paradis) one, rainy night, feeling dejected and alone, she finds a big box marked 'Hawaiian Bananas' at the entrance of the building, and when she peers inside the box, she finds a beaten unconscious, young man inside.

Matsumoto Jun as Goda Takeshi is a runaway, gifted dancer from a well-to-do home, (his best buddy is Eita, btw) and after shoving the heavy box into an elevator and sliding it inside her apartment, she gently tends to his wounds while wondering who he is and why he was inside the box.

She isn't over her latest heartbreak, but she did own a golden retriever when she was ten - a time in her life that she would rather forget except for the dog - so, when Takeshi begs to stay, she offers to oblige if he will become her pet and act like a dog, not a human.

Of course, he agrees to the weird offer and becomes 'momo' the human dog.

Her best (and only) friend is a pretty and laid-back woman with a baby girl, living in a great house thanks to a pilot husband who is never there, and Sumire-san relies on her for advice about what she's just done to herself and the life of a veritable stranger.

The whole point of this story was to show how humans relate to one another versus their relationships with animals.

The writer even tossed in an office psychologist who carried around an adorable Chihuahua as a way to drive home that point I suppose, but his role remained relatively imperative throughout the show since Sumire-san, and then her handsome lover, and eventually even Takeshi-kun ended up seeking his advice about their relationship troubles.

Am I the only one who didn't know that men see women who own a pet as unavailable or worse - unattractive - because they are using the animal as a replacement for the husband they don't have?

Sumire-san couldn't, under any circumstances, behave natural around Hasumi-san, and it was supposed to be because of the immense fear of her being rejected that made her act that way.

At home, though, and with Momo-chan, things were completely different.

Sumire-san could laugh, speak her mind, let down her hair, and even shed a few tears without that fear - which made ZERO sense to me, but then I may be the bad guy for not possessing that sort of a personality, who knows.

At the same time, though, I could totally understand where she was coming from: since I, on occasion, have felt that way and even acted that way around guys I thought were ten times better than I was, but resentment at feeling that way was what made ME walk away, and not the other way around.

I can't fake it, I guess.

Anyway, she wants to believe she truly loves Senpai, but even when he springs a pretty engagement ring on her, she remains tight-lipped and with that furrowed brow in his gentle and patient presence.

Momo-chan remained true to his own nature in a round-about kind of way; pretending to be a dog while also not ignoring the budding emotions that continue to grow for the sexy woman he is shacking up with, but to keep their relationship going, he avoids letting her know how he really feels until the sexual tension builds to the boiling point, he lets it out on her, she slaps him and tells him to leave ... and so he does.

This was another of those dramas that I bookmarked YEARS ago but let the synopsis keep me from watching for so long.

I've learned my lesson and will NEVER do anything that stupid again, I promise myself.

Especially when it comes to anything out of Japan.

I must remember that the twits who write the synopsis are a-holes with no brain and not jump to any, irrelevant conclusions until I've given at least the first episode a try.

I wasn't, too fond of the OST or theme song, but there was one, underlying tune (usually played during pregnant pauses in the show) that I just HAD to hear again, and this time I got lucky - finding the entire soundtrack online for free, and as I type, I have that tune on repeat via WinAmp.

I'm not saying this was the greatest thing Matsumoto Jun ever starred in, but I will admit it wasn't the worst, either.

He looked damn fine in this show, too, and he had an amazing head of hair I jealously watched our Sumire-san get to run her fingers through and even shampoo several times.

Some day I'll have my own place again, and when that day comes, the FIRST thing I intend to do is buy a pet dog or cat - but, it won't be because I don't want a man in my life.

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めだか / Medaka

2004 Japanese drama about a woman slowly but surely going nowhere in life and still thinking that she'll find a man, get married, and settle into the life she was born to live.

Instead, she ends up teaching night school at a nearby high school, where she encounters a host of misfits, scholars, and drifters.

I figured after the first episode that each, subsequent episode would spotlight one of her students private life while also keeping us updated on the heroines personal problems, and I was right.

Eita is in this, and he happens to be a guy from her elementary school days, which shocked her at the start, but then they became good friends, and for eleven episodes I hoped they would get busy, too.

It wasn't a bad or boring drama, even if no one spectacular starred, and some of the storylines brought tears to my eyes while others made me groan.

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