Dokushin Kizoku

A Swinging Single

2013 Fuji TV 11-episode drama that I found just yesterday and watched straight through with only a few bathroom/food breaks in between it was THAT good.

Stars two all-time greats:  Kusanagi Tsuyoshi as Hoshino Mamoru, the President of a production company and Hideaki Ito as Hoshino Susumu, Mamoru's younger brother, a playboy producer.

The English title for this one is a misnomer in that while Susumu is in the process of a divorce at the start, he has to move in with his aniki but entertains a new woman every night. Mamoru, (the lead) on the other hand is a solitary man with refined tastes and zero interest in relationships, commitment, love, or even women as a whole. He's not gay, just reclusive and stubborn, and he has convinced himself that the life he leads is far better and far more meaningful, without the stress, agony, heartache, headache, and mundane of having to deal with the opposite sex.

The reason I gave this one such high marks ~ believe it or not ~ has nothing at all to do with the handsome men involved. 

Shōjikina.

Even if Ito was a lead, and I think that Tsuyoshi has the greatest facial features of just about ANY man I'll ever see in my lifetime. AND even the fact that while it was too little too late, Yamashita Tomohisa made a few appearances as well.

These are all asides when it comes to something this novel, this refreshing, and this enticing a drama.

Sorry KDo fans, but, when it comes to real love stories with semi-realistic pretense and dialogue ~ but most appreciative and best infused emotion ~ JDo's can't be beat.

Also, it is extremely rare to get that "...this is gonna be good" feeling prior to watching, and my sixth sense didn't let me down again.

I just knew I was going to like this one, and I did. A whole lot.

This is the story of a guy who doesn't believe in commitment, and a girl who hangs on to the  thinning thread of a dream in the form of wanting to write scripts for movies.

She's a lot like our Mamoru in that they are both relatively shy, introverted, and emotionally attached to their ideals. They share the same notions about life in general, the same work ethic, and even enjoyed the same hobbies and movies, which gave them something to talk about even when Mamoru wasn't the type who made himself available to anyone for things as useless as chit-chat.

Every day Kitagawa Keiko as Haruno Yuki checks (google) to see if anyone has accepted her script. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it went, and after watching this drama, I kind of had to wonder if (google) didn't have a hand in that one. Why would anyone check a search engine to find out if they got accepted or rejected? Wouldn't it make more sense to check the publishing house's or the production company's website instead?

Whatever.

Yuki is down for the count and ends up having to help her friend do house cleaning work to help out with the bills.

They clean Mamoru's apartment a few times a week, and they think he is a 'swinger' or

the girl with the (deliberately?) bad accent

This one claims 'he' has 8 women a day, which would likely put a huge dent in any guys wallet/lifestyle/work/ etc. eh?

Anyhow, it isn't the homeowner who lives this way but his little brother, Susumu - the guy in the process of a divorce living off the homeowner.

Yuki eventually figures out that the yamato no orochi is the owner of a production company and sets her script on his coffee table with a sticky note asking him to please read it and get back to her.

The brothers are actually in a bind, though, because the 'famous' author (who hasn't written anything in ten years) has bailed on them.

Yuki ends up getting a job at the company, and no one likes her at first because she's new and doesn't know anything about the business. But, Mamoru continues to help with her script, and though she thinks that he is mean and heartless with his criticisms and doubts about her talent, she soon realizes what a terrific help his no nonsense and blunt critique of her work actually ended up being for her.

While it seems as if Yuki and Mamoru are starting to hit it off, the brothers aunt (a woman of botoxxx extreme) steps in to mess things up for Mamoru. She keeps threatening to sell the production company if he doesn't get married, and then she quickly sets him up on a blind date. She's homely but extremely wealthy, which is all the aunt really cares about since Mamoru 'seems' to be ruining the company with his high quality standards.

She is annoying as hell, too, with her helium voice grating on my last nerve and proving that Mamoru's theory about women in general is true.

Women with marriage on the brain are boring, chatter unceasingly about mundane things, and care less about anyone other than themselves and their ultimate goal of snagging a man to drag down the aisle.

His father taught him a rude but kind of funny trick when in the presence of such women, and Mamoru employs this trick every time he is forced to have to meet with his 'intended'.

He is falling for Yuki, but so is Susumu, and when Mamoru finds out, he backs off immediately.

Instantly. Like, the very next day. How he found out was heartbreaking to have to watch, and it made me root for him 100% up to the very end.

There were a lot of nail biting moments that nearly gave me a heart attack, too, but that was part of the reason why I enjoyed the story so much and gave it 5 hearts.

Who will end up with whom, will I see more of Tomo? and PLEASE don't let it end this soon kept running through my mind. I didn't want this one to end as quickly as it did. Sometimes 11 episodes just aren't enough for me the same way that sometimes 16 KDo episodes are far too many.

Speaking of the 'adults' ... I am in a quandary once more as to the age of some of these characters.

Honestly, the boys father when they were 'little' looked like he was in his late 60's, and the blind date chick's father? Holy crap! Dude had to have a foot and a half in the grave already. HAD to be in his mid to late 80's for sure.

Great grandparents with children in their late 20's and early 30's.

Really?

I need to do some research. Shouldn't their parents be in their mid to late 50's?

Do people in their mid to late 50's look like they are in their mid to late 80's?

Is it a big, fat lie that Asian people don't age as gracelessly as us Westerners do?

Total confusion.

The chemistry between the two leads was awesome. Right away, too. It was as if they were made for one another off-screen as much as on.

Comments at the website where I watched this ranged from the ridiculous to the curious.

A few mentioned that it was refreshing to see Kitagawa Keiko star in a realistic and non caricature role for a welcome change. I wouldn't know the absolute value in that remark, only that she did a great job as Yuki, the struggling script writer who loses her way on the road to love.

I wasn't as surprised about the comments made regarding the soundtrack, though. I'm sure a lot of kids aren't familiar with or have ever listened to anything older than they are, which is a shame, but I don't care. My music taste is narrow yet broad in that I love everything from classical to jazz, 90s new wave to R&B and ambient. However, I am just as familiar with the Big Band era, Frank Sinatra, and the like because like our two leads, I grew up on black and white movies from the 30's, 40's, and 50's, too. I still watch them when the mood strikes. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir has a fantastic soundtrack.

The Moon River version played throughout this drama, though, was pitiful.

In the drama, they referenced Sleepless in Seattle but not the movie that movie was bounced off of that starred Debra Kerr and Cary Grant, An Affair to Remember.

Neither of these references, though, had much to do with the drama, so don't get all worried like I did. The comments were just dopey (again).

The movie I kept harking back to throughout this drama was actually Sabrina (the Humphrey Bogart/Audrey Hepburn version), but I could be wrong as well. Not entirely, but it had the same elements - more so than sleepless or an affair at any rate.

Throughout this drama, they kept showing the hood ornament on Mamoru's Rolls Royce being lowered in park and raised in drive. Toward the end of the eleven episodes I started to hope that they would show one, last scene where the hood ornament is raised and that Empire State Building with the heart would rise up.

LOL

You have to watch the show in order to get the meaning behind that remark, though.

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First Kiss / ファースト・キス

2007 Summer drama from Japan that starred Hideaki Ito (my favorite Japanese actor!)

I thought I already blogged about this one when I first watched it a couple years ago, but I can't find it, and since I watched it again, I'll blog again.

He was so smokin' hot in this show, it kills me.

First Kiss rates up there in my top FIVE all-time favorite dramas, and watching it a second time made me feel as happy, excited, and enthralled as I was the first time I saw it, too.

Everyone in the whole world knows the story about a bratty girl with a heart condition who had to undergo risky surgery that might kill her, (in an American hospital where everyone had an Aussie accent) so she decides she wants to return to her brother in Japan and find her first love ~

(well, it took a second watch to realize that what she actually wanted was to reconnect with her big brother - her first kiss, her best friend, and the only guy who truly cared about her - )




~ so I won't blog about the details here, except to say Ito makes a great, big brother and I wish he was MINE!

Well, not a brother - a lover I mean - but even as a big brother, I'd be totally down with that.



The theme song is an all-time favorite of mine as well, and if this works, here is the upload since I can't get the actual song to play on my blog:

Kokoro by Kazumasa Oda

(its my understanding that the lead actress really liked his music at the time, so it must have made her really happy to have one of his tunes as the theme song!)

Ok, so I'm totally in love with this guy, I wish I could see him in person, even from a far off distance vantage point, and what I wouldn't give to get close enough just to memorize his scent.

(sigh)

So, I'm browsing the net to get more info on the drama, when I ran across this old but totally hilarious and interesting article about him:

Hideaki Ito spotted with heavily intoxicated woman

(courtesy Japan Today) Saturday 30th January, 08:21 AM JST

"Just after 2 o’clock in the morning on Jan 16, a couple was seen coming out of a Nishi-Azabu multitenant building. The two were tottering, or rather, the man had his arm tightly around the woman’s waist as though to keep her from falling. Passersby turned around to stare at the tall man, who was actor Hideaki Ito, 34.

While some curious onlookers whispered to each other if the woman could be the actor’s new girlfriend, Ito ignored the questioning look of bystanders and held the attractive woman who had a model-like figure.

In the past, Ito was rumored to be in a relationship with Fuji Television newscaster Minako Nakano. So could this woman be his new girlfriend?

It was obvious that the woman was heavily intoxicated and could hardly stand on her feet by herself. Ito escorted the woman into a taxi, which delivered the two to a high-end condominium in Minato Ward that appeared to be the actor’s home. Ito first came out of the car, followed by the woman who collapsed on the pavement. Helping her up, the actor hugged her close and took her into the building.

Shukan Post inquired with Ito’s agency to find out about the nature of the relationship between the two. “The woman in question is an acquaintance of Ito, and they are not ‘involved’ in any other manner. It is our understanding that the two were joined later at his home by other friends who had been drinking with them in Nishi-Azabu,” was the reply."

At first, they made it sound like he was wasted as well, but when you read the article, it sounds more like the 'friend' was smashed and needed help getting around.


What a gentleman.




So anyway, here are the pictures I captured while re-watching one of my favorite dramas that stars my favorite, Japanese actor.

so bummed when his hair went from this to -


this

and then I found some OTHER interesting things to show you, too.


like this - a swing in the middle of the city!


and a really cool reflection on a glass building - it looks like a background, but its not



and these beautiful lights! (yes, the lights, not him!)


and the cool apartment building where I want to live some day



THE END!

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Onmyoji / 陰陽師

A 2001 Japanese release that is based on a novel about Japanese folklore which also turned into another manga series.

I had a lot of fun with this, and I only chose to watch because it stars Hideaki Ito, my Japanese idol.

Instead of blogging in the usual style, I will instead do a photo blog that I hope will add to the fun.

There's this guy named Minamoto no Hiromasa who is innocent and kind, and he plays the flute in such a way that everyone admires him all the more.


Minamoto-san works as a court noble, and he befriends a guy named Abe no Seimei (Mansai Nomura), an Onmyoji or Yin-Yang master with amazing powers.


Every night, Minamoto plays his flute for a veiled woman who sits inside her sedan and weeps while listening to the lovely music.
Minamoto-san is in love with the secretive female and asks for at least her name, if not a view of her face.
She tells him a sad tale of unrequited love and refuses his request, insisting that she can't love anyone else and is only there to hear the enchanting flute.

Meanwhile, there's this really bad guy - Doson (Hiroyuki Sanada) - who is plotting to destroy the Mikado by casting an eternal curse upon the Emperor.


We find out a bit later that an eternal curse has already been cast by a court official from a few, hundred years earlier who was beheaded for a crime he did not commit.

Anyway, back to Minamoto-san.

He begs Seimei to help get rid of a nasty curse inflicted upon the Emperor's newborn son, the Prince and heir to the throne.
Seimei and a ghostly figure, Aone (Kyoko Koizumi), go to the palace and Seimei transfers the spell from the baby to the woman (Aone).
The baby is fine, so they leave.

Magic stuff occurs, and then later on, Minamoto again asks Seimei for help since the bad things keep occurring within the palace walls.

Seimei sets up his bag of magic tricks and warns the Emperor not to make a sound during the ceremony.


Hiding behind a shoji screen, Minamoto and the Emperor watch as a freaky woman with 3, lit candles atop her head floats into the room asking where is the emperor and his child cannot live anymore.



Seimei has set up fake straw bodies to look like the emperor and his son, and the woman at first thinks she's talking to them.
She weeps as she explains the same, sad story to the straw emperor that she had confided in Minamoto earlier.
Heartbroken, Minamoto can't believe his ears, and stunned, the Emperor accidentally whispers the woman's name -

- and the spell is broken.

Poor, sweet Minamoto.
He's heartbroken to realize that the woman he loves was in love with his boss.


But, he tries to snap her out of the spell she is cast under by the evil Doson, but she turns into this rather ugly creature instead.

He grabs her, and she bites him -

It hurts, but this is what he tells her -

eh - sexual innuendo I think

His love manages to break through the spell, but instead of smiling at the handsome Court Nobel with the sweet talent, she instead commits hari kari.

Minamoto is very sad.

so is Seimei.

Ok, so Minamoto hangs out with Seimei, but Aone warns of impending doom for the city - and before the real fun begins, she explains to Minamoto about her life.



Turns out she's, like, 130 years old - becoming an immortal after being offered the flesh of a merman (giggle).
The then Emperor wanted her to become immortal so she could guard over her lovers tomb and make sure he doesn't cause any trouble in the afterlife.
It turns out her lover was the man beheaded for the crime he didn't commit, and who also cast an eternal curse over the Emperor.
Doson got hold of that curse and wants to see it through to the bitter end.
He wants to become an immortal as well.
Doson enters the tomb, breaks the mold of the dead Prince, and unleashes the spirits of all the disgruntled, dead from an eerie graveyard, ordering them to destroy everyone within the city.

It's actually kind of pretty, watching the spirits float toward the palace -

But, this is what happens when one of the spirits enters a living body -



Seimei and Aone are running (or leaping, rather) toward the palace, wanting to rescue Minamoto before it's too late.
See, there were these two stars in the sky, and Aone realized that it meant Seimei and Minamoto are supposed to be together, and that if Minamoto dies, the world will somehow come to an end.

Anyway, Minamoto isn't happy, especially with Doson, whom he believes killed the woman of his desire.
Using a 'star' symbol Seimei drew for him and asked him to keep on his person, Minamoto affixes the star to the tip of an arrow, draws back his bow, and shoots the arrow right through Doson's head.

Alas - Doson is already immortal, having exchanged spirits with the late Prince, so the fatal shot proves to be anything but.



Doson pushes the arrow through his head, pulls it out of his mouth, and chucks it back at Minamoto, striking him in the heart.

OH NO!

Aone appears, and in a whisper-like voice, she begs Seimei to transfer her spirit to Minamoto.
She's tired after 130 years and wants a rest.

Seimei is in a quandry for a time -
does he sacrifice one friend for the sake of another?



Aone is persistent, so Seimei acquiesces and the transformation occurs rather ceremoniously, I might add.



Minamoto is alive again (yay!)

he uses a jingling necklace to snap Doson out of his hellish trance, summoning his inner spirit, the late Prince.

Doson turns into the late Prince -

Minamoto transfers back to Aone -

and the two stare at one another in silence for a time -

but, for an inexplicable reason, Doson stays as he is and butts in on the lover's reunion -



The prince tells Doson he's had enough and wants to go to eternity with his beloved Aone.
The two spirits ascend, hand in hand, in a bluish-white spiral, leaving Doson to curse his bad luck.

Seimei and his butterfly side-kick are amused






Doson isn't.
He's mad as hell now, and he blames everything on Seimei, so he challenges the fox-like Merlin to a duel.

Wire fu ensues at this point in the show, with Doson using his muscle and Seimei leaping here and there, everywhere, to avoid getting hit.

Seimei ends up at the wrong end of Doson's blade anyhow, though.



it's always a bit scary at the start, but everyone knows by now that the hero won't go out THAT quick, or that way, eh?

Seimei escapes that brush with death only to trip (maybe over the clear wire) and fall at Doson's feet.
Doson sneers as he plunges his sword into Seimei, but our tricky trickster turns into a paper doll.
This causes Doson's blade to embed into the cement ground (cement back in the day? I'm not sure - technicality I suppose)
where he is trapped in Seimei's star of spiritual good



Remember the arrow through the head?
Guess what happens to Doson in this spiritual star trap?




still, he doesn't explode or liquify or anything cool like that.
Instead, he set his neck against the sword blade and - yea - you got it - he grossly slides his way down to the ground, slitting his own throat.

yuck

Minamoto is happy, though!

so is the butterfly chick,

Minamoto and Seimei are living together at Seimei's place, and she is fluttering happily in the garden, pausing to smile when Minamoto begs Seimei not to turn her into a butterfly anymore.

THE END!

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