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wStuff You Don't Wanna Know But Are Reading Anyway |
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I dunno how you found this, but alas, here you are. So enjoy the frightening fruits of my troubled little brain.
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wTuesday, May 26, 2009 |
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feeling: ...
listening to: Road of Major - Shin'ai Naru Anata e...
I'm stuck. That about sums it up. So, here are three more drama reviews before I give up for the night.
Love Shuffle
Honestly, I only decided to watch this one because Daigo (a.k.a. Daigo Stardust, a.k.a. that guy who kissed Miyavi *cough*) plays a lead role, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. The premise is a bit confusing at first, or seems like it could lead to a lot of confusion: there are four romantically linked couples, totaling eight main characters. Each one is experiencing some kind of dissatisfaction in their respective relationship, so all eight of them agree to participate in a game they call Love Shuffle, in which they basically switch partners each week. In the end, they might finally see the charm in the person they were originally paired with, or they might find that they were fated to be with someone else.
Sound confusing yet? Four men and four women leads to several possible outcomes and several weeks of switching partners back and forth... all in the course of 10 episodes. But it's pulled off very well; it's got just enough of both realism and drama to make it intriguing, and the plot twists mold together slowly, gradually, rather than springing at you out of nowhere. It's a little more grown up than a lot of the popular dramas out there, with less intensity and more subtlety, but fun and engaging. The cast was amazing too; popular names like Tamaki Hiroshi, Matsuda Shota, and Daigo were probably its biggest draws, but all eight of the leads were very well-played. And on a random note, I was illogically giddy over this drama's idea of playing little blooper reels during the end credits of each episode. Ingenious and adorable.
Proposal Daisakusen
I put off watching this one for a long time, but when I kept seeing so many mixed reviews about it, some full of acclamation and others condemning it as one of the worst dramas in modern history, I couldn't resist anymore. >> And you know... I'm kinda torn. Technically speaking it wasn't that good. But it was cute. And fun. And addictive. Darn it.
The plot itself could be a turn-off for many: Iwase Ken and Yoshida Rei have been best friends since 3rd grade, and it didn't take long at all before Ken fell in love with Rei. But all through school and even college, he never told her, and so at the start of the drama he finds himself standing in the reception hall as a guest at Rei's wedding, kicking himself for letting her slip away. Then all of a sudden, a fairy (yes, a fairy) appears and sends him back in time to replay some of the key moments in Ken and Rei's past, giving him a chance to start over and win her heart.
Sounds silly, and it kind of is. It's also very predictable as each episode follows the exact same pattern: he starts at the wedding, watching a slideshow chronicling Rei's past, sees a picture that he's in with her but where she looks angry or sad, feels a pang of regret, goes back in time to that moment, fights to fix it, returns to the present to see whether the slideshow picture has changed, and then the next picture comes up and it starts all over. But at the same time, somehow, it's an interesting twist on the typical flashback method of storytelling... and yeah, for all the angst, it's still a cute story of love and friendship.
Technical details... good acting for the most part, except, ironically, for the main character. >> Iwase Ken is played by Yamashita Tomohisa, and yeah... I understand now why his "haters" have given him the nickname Dead Fish. He was good as Akira in Nobuta o Produce, but in ProDai... he's totally flat. Even when he's laughing his head off or crying his eyes out, it's like he has zero emotion. Kinda creepy. The other characters make up for it though, and there are some great side stories. Oh, and one thing this drama does have going for it is a brilliant soundtrack. The BGMs, the insert song by an Okinawan rock band, and oh, the main theme by the legendary Kuwata Keisuke... absolute love.
Nodame Cantabile
God, this drama was so massively hyped. All the rave reviews and fangirling and fanboying and geez. The synopses I saw never did much for me - serious classical music student Chiaki Shinichi crosses paths with the crazy-slob-but-piano-prodigy Noda Megumi (a.k.a. Nodame) and hijinks ensue - so I put it off for a long time. But after seeing dozens of reviews saying it was one of the best dramas ever and one of the funniest things ever made, I finally gave it a look. And uh... I ended up kinda torn.
Overall? It's fun, yes. And definitely original. Well, ok, the "odd couple" premise of two exact opposites who end up falling for each other isn't original at all, but the presentation was original, and the musical academy setting and common thread of classical music made it more interesting (if you can get into classical music). And I can see why it was acclaimed as a comedy, but yeah... the biggest elements in its comedic repertoire didn't really amuse me at all. The famous German(?) composer with the idiotic accent, Chiaki's habit of comically beating on Nodame, and the flaming gay timpanist with an afro the size of an Omni-kin ball just kind of rubbed me the wrong way, I guess. That kid who was obsessed with Nanba in Hama Kimi was a much better gay stalkery character. ¬.¬
Anyway... maybe it was just me, because apparently everyone else found all those things absolutely hilarious, but yeah. It wasn't a bad drama though, not by a long shot. The classical music theme was really unique, Nodame's almost-creepy goofiness was actually really cute, and Mine Ryutaro (played by Eita!) was just plain awesome. ♥ Oh, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue has been stuck in my head ever since I started on the first episode a couple weeks ago. orz
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 5/26/2009 01:34:00 AM
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wThursday, May 21, 2009 |
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feeling: sore
listening to: manzai insanity
Heard kind of a sad story tonight. Would be more effective to relate if I had caught all the details, but still sad.
So first, some background: my nephew's other grandma has cancer, and apparently it's advanced enough that some doctor(s?) have told her she might not survive the rest of this year. We all just found out about this... maybe a couple months ago. But sometime in the last week or two, Nephew went to church with his grandparents, and they were talking about someone who had passed away and the funeral was set for the next Tuesday. Well, a few days or so later, someone (I don't know who) was telling Nephew about some upcoming schedule/plan (I don't know what... see what I meant by not knowing much detail?), and his response was "I can't do that! Grandma will already be dead by then!"
He thought the funeral they were talking about was going to be his grandma's, and he spent who knows how long living with the idea in his head that she was going to die on Tuesday.
I felt so bad for the kid at that moment. It's all straightened out now, of course, but geez. What a weight for a 7 year old child of divorced parents to carry.
Anyway... I seem to have two new obsessions this week... a Japanese manzai duo called Kirin and the legendary Super Mario Bros. hack known as Cat Mario. Have spent the past couple days loading up on both - playing Cat Mario, watching it on Youtube (seriously, look it up. it's sadistic and hysterical and the guy narrating it is even more fun than the Mario Frustration guy.) and living with the BGMs stuck in my head... like right now. Ahem. And Kirin... unfortunately the only sources I have to download their appearances are all on Clubbox, so they're ridiculously slow in coming, but I've seen a few now and even begun acquainting myself with the M-1 Grand Prix (big annual manzai competition) for the sole purpose of seeing more of them. They are seriously the most adorable manzai team I have ever seen - and those who know much about manzai will know that's kind of a hard combination to come by. ¬_¬ And lord, Kawashima Akira's VOICE. sdkjaksdf. I die.
Er... yeah. I was trying to take a break from the computer and typing lately since my arm has been especially sore. So I will now return to watching M-1 Grand Prix 2001.
EDIT: And yeah, my Cat Mario@Youtube obsession has branched into a fangirlfest over the user who uploaded it. He is HILARIOUS and his accent is adorable.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 5/21/2009 12:35:00 AM
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wSaturday, May 02, 2009 |
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feeling: almost tired but not
listening to: nothing
I've been bouncing back and forth all night between eyes-falling-shut sleepy and twitchy-bouncy wide awake. It's the most annoying thing. So I came here to kill a little time and hopefully wear myself out enough to go to sleep.
Unfortunately, though, my life is boring and I don't really have anything to talk about.
The most noteworthy thing that I've actually physically done in recent weeks was go to the Dogwood Festival last weekend in Piketon, which is one of those little community fairs that hosts local church services on Sunday and has a little parade on one afternoon and primarily consists of a couple streets lined with 80% concession stands and 20% dealers of random stuff. Haven't been to anything like that since high school, I don't think. Salt Creek Valley Festival doesn't count. It's too puny. Anyway, yeah, came home with my shirt stained from a drippy strawberry daquiri and a sunburn.
My freaking Megaupload download is stuck. Great. *starts over*
Downloading a Korean drama called Coffee Prince, by the way. Thus far it has served to maintain my strange conviction that Korean entertainment is weird. Not bad, necessarily, just... weird. I've only seen a few movies and half a drama, yes, but all of it just comes across as weird to me. It's something about the atmosphere, the Koreans' choices of ambience... something like that... I don't know... But anyway, yeah, Coffee Prince. So far it totally reminds me of something that would become an overnight hit if it were a Japanese drama. Youth, life, romance, love triangles, a cute little coffee shop, and the potential to cast at least half a dozen hot popular young actors. Wouldn't be surprised if it's picked up by someone in Japan someday. It has some very similar story devices to Hana Kimi though, so they might give people another year or two to move on from that before bringing in a story with that kind of resemblance.
Also, I guess I should've written out my latest J-drama review the other night while its rough draft in my mind still sounded really cool in my head, even if it was 3 or 4 in the morning and I was already lying in bed. Now I can't remember what I was going to say. It was kinda slick, too. Darn.
Oh well, this blog needed a break from the constant onslaught of J-drama review babble anyway.
But on a final drama-related note, I am currently taking part in my first experience with subbing a J-drama. It's currently airing, and there are already like 3 other groups subbing it, but this team I've been on-and-off collaborating with since last fall expressed interest in subbing it too... and it's a series I was interested in since I first heard about it, so I volunteered to translate it. Thus far 2 episodes have aired, and I translated them both and sent them on to the timer/typesetters within a couple days of release, but they're apparently still hung up in those stages and the third episode comes out tomorrow and eh... so much for getting caught up with the other groups working on it week-to-week. Oh well, was mostly a "just for fun" deal anyway.
...But like I said, a break from the drama babbles.
Actually, I'm sleepy now and my stomach is doing odd things, so I guess it's probably a good idea to waddle back over to the bed.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 5/02/2009 03:32:00 AM
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