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feeling: ^U^ and ToT and >_< all at once
listening to: Chemistry - Kimi o Sagashiteta ~The Wedding Song~
WARNING: if you don't wanna hear me ramble about a Japanese comedy/drama series, or if you don't wanna see major spoilers for Wedding Planner, then read NOT this very long post :P
Toru and Kanako finally got marrieeeed~~~ :D *weep*
...Ok. :P Several weeks ago, some may remember my post here about watching the Japanese music/variety show Hey Hey Hey! for the first time, where Gackt was the main guest and such? Well, on that same night I also watched the show that precedes that show every Sunday night, a Japanese dramedy thing called Wedding Planner. Like Hey!^3, this show is in Japanese and not subtitled. But I watched it anyway, and was able to follow the main ideas fairly well. It's about this group of people called Sweet Bridal who do the planning and arranging and background work behind weddings... and of course, it focuses on relationships within the group AND totally outside the group, i.e. the couples who have their weddings planned by Sweet Bridal. So anyway, the next week I watched it again, and after a couple weeks I saw an episode that just... would've made me cry if I hadn't lost my ability to shed tears (as it seemed) a few years ago. T_T It was about this client of Sweet Bridal's who wanted her real mother, whom she hadn't seen since she was a child, to come to her wedding. She had a pearl necklace that her mother had given to her ages ago and asked her to wear at her wedding, and she planned to wear it and wanted her mother to see it. But her mother, who actually did love her daughter and wanted the wedding to be perfect for her (she even hired herself into Sweet Bridal to help her without her knowing), continually acted cold toward her daughter. Finally they had a huge fight that left lots of sadness and guilt and the like. Then the wedding day comes, and it looks like Mom's not gonna show up... but then, there she is. At first the bride wants nothing to do with her, and she doesn't wear the pearl necklace during her wedding. But then someone in Sweet Bridal convinces her that her mother does love her, so she goes out to the reception, wearing the necklace, and makes a big touching speech to her mother, after which they run to each other and embrace and cry etc. while the whole audience watches. While, of course, the main theme *points to title at top of post* plays as it does in every episode when something touching and weepy happens. It was too sweet. Aaaand that was the ep that got me hooked.
The next week's ep had pretty much the same effect, except it was not only sweet and weepy but adorable, because the character in the spotlight was this absolutely adorable little kid, Taku. See, Taku had a crush on this girl Haruka, and he wanted to marry her. (aww~ ^u^) But his mom, Kanako, didn't want him near her for fear that she'd lose him, because he was all she had since her husband left years ago. So Taku was all upset because everyone, literally, seemed to be against his and Haruka's relationship (except maybe Toru, but... anyway). Even Misaki, a Sweet Bridal member who lives with Taku and his mom and is like a sister to him, tells him there's no way. Then in the end Taku found out that Haruka was leaving town, and he had to kinda stand at a distance and watch as she got into the car with her parents and pulled away. But then Misaki, who feels bad for discouraging Taku, jumps out in front of the car and it stops. Haruka gets out and Taku catches up to her, and Misaki goes over and makes them join hands and close their eyes and make their silent vows, sorta conducting a little mini-wedding for them. She even has Jun (he gets mentioned later) park this huge van in front of the kids, and he opens the back doors to reveal this hige floral display which acts as a backdrop to their little ceremony. And of course, the main theme plays throughout. Then the ceremony ends and Haruka gets in the car again and rides away, while Taku runs after the car shouting "We'll meet again!" and such. Taku is such a doll~ *squee*
Anyway... so at that point I decided that this wasn't your average soap opera, and I started watching it faithfully every week.
The next 3 or 4 episodes got me more and more interested, mainly because of Taku and the growing relationship/tension between his mom Kanako and a guy she works with, Toru. See, at first Kanako and Toru hated each other, but Taku immediately took a liking to Toru early on, so they spent more time together and inadvertently grew on each other. Well, then Taku's daddy, who left him and Kanako years ago, came back to town with his new girl, and wanted to take Taku to live with him, claiming he wanted to take some stress off Kanako. This storyline took several episodes to develop, all the while with Kanako being mean to Toru every time he tried to be nice to her, which made me just want to wring her neck >~< ...and tonight's ep was the climax: when Kanako tearfully decided to send Taku off with his daddy after all, Taku got mad at her and climbed to the roof of a tall building, scaring everyone to death. Toru was the one who went up after him and talked to him about his mama's decision, and made him understand. And Taku asked Toru to become his new papa. (all together now: awwww~) And yes, Kanako watched all this from the ground. Anywho, later, Taku was just about to get into his father's car to leave town, while Kanako watched sadly from a little way away... until Toru jumped out and stopped him. Taku and his dad watched as Toru turned and made this long speech I couldn't understant to Kanako, who had had a new respect for him since the whole rooftop thing with her son. Well, finally Toru tells Kanako that he loves her and wants to marry her. At which point my exact words were "About bloody time, Toru!" 9u9 Anywho... it was quiet for a while, and I thought Kanako would blow him off, again. But instead... she accepted.
*glee*
Sooo, then Taku ran over to them, and Toru lifted him up and asked "Is it ok with you if I become your papa?" to which Taku eagerly replied "Yeah!" ^___^ Cue happy emotional smiley teary (well, teary for Kanako) moment between the 3 of them, while the show's main theme plays yet again as it does during these sappy parts in every ep. It's one of those songs that just makes you blubber like a baby when it plays behind happy scenes like that. Which it did in pretty much every single episode I saw, as I've mentioned. Sometimes it doubled as just plain sad, like the one with Mieko when the guy proposed to her on her hospital bed... *sniffle* Well, anyway. Then after the proposal scene, Toru, Kanako, Taku, and all their Sweet Bridal buddies are walking through this field talking, and Toru and Kanako are having some kind of little spat, as usual. Then everyone stops and looks off in the distance at a floral archway made of those big woody vines (or actual wood?) set up in the field, surrounded by... other wedding-y stuff. Kanako and Toru are clueless, so their buddies tell them "it's the wedding." Still clueless: "Huh? Whose wedding?" Not so clueless anymore, as one of the girl buddies holds up a wedding dress out of nowhere: "Yours!"
So they get married. ^u^
Yes, I know. It's a drama show, a sappy one at that, and I normally hate dramas and ridicule them at every chance I get. But this series is different, somehow... maybe because it has so many characters and so many things going on, none of which are your average "he loves her but she loves him and he loves somebody else" drama plots (that's always part of it, but there's always something genuinely meaningful behind it; like the ep with the estranged mother). See, I've only told, what, 3 stories here. There are lots of other characters, each with their own stories, some that take up just one ep and some that take up a few. There's more of a past to Toru and Kanako too, but I didn't put it here for my sanity's sake. Like... one other storyline that ran throughout the series and culminated in tonight's ep was that of Misaki and Jun. Earlier in the series, Jun proposed to Misaki, but she was already engaged to some other guy who genuinely loved her (mutual, twas)... but then the day of their wedding came, and... well, it didn't happen. Because her groom-to-be had a surprise visit from his still-caring ex, among other things. Misaki was upset, but then she decided she was ready to hook up with Jun, who still loved her. And in last week's episode, Misaki found out she was... carrying Jun's baby. And in tonight's episode, I thiiiink they had sort of a little pre-wedding thing of their own along with Kanako and Toru's wedding. Well... yeah. And then were was the arc of Kurumi and Shuhei, which took most of the series to resolve... sort of resolve... and lots of little individual stories that lasted an episode or two. Like the estranged mother one and the Taku/Haruka one.
Sooo, that explains the ^U^ and the ToT of my post heading above: after tonight's ep I'm so happy I'd weep if I were capable. What explains the >_<, then, you ask? Well, it's like this. I just got into this show a few weeks ago... and tonight's was so happy and weepy and awesome and got me even more hooked than the last 5 episodes individually did. The problem there: tonight's episode, only the 11th, was the last in the series.
T_____T
Noooo... and since I was watching it pretty much during its original run (i.e. it's a new series, which just aired on Japanese TV a couple months before it did on the channel I saw it on), it'll probably never repeat so I can actually see it again... and some new drama about nurses or something is on next Sunday's schedule *pounds head on desk*
But, at least I have pictures >:3
Takuuu! *squidge* uh... and Jun, too
Taku and Haruka's wedding piccy
Toru and Kanako pretending to like each other
Kurumi and Shuhei looking sad
Sweet Bridal heading toward Toru and Kanako's wedding... Misaki and Jun are on the far right... and see lil' Taku hiding back there? :D
"Huh? Whose wedding?"
aaaaand...
*kisses everybody*
And now... I'm done. Just about bedtime for meee.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 9/16/2002 02:20:00 AM
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