Ok so this has taken me sometime to get around to, my third and final post about the little bits of Japanese pop culture I know, because lets face it it would be very hard to get through all the movies and tv dramas that have been released when I’ve really only started following them in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, my laptop once again had some down time, but I have finally received the part I needed after a couple of weeks so now its time to get on with it and finish this up!
JAPANESE DRAMA! To start with I should mention out of all things “pop culture”, drama has probably been one of my least watched things. It’s not that I don’t like them as such, but its been a matter of finding the right ones that I would like, getting a hold of them to watch and then actually finding the time to watch them considering each series will generally run for something like 9 or so hours once you’ve watched the 11 or so episodes they usually have in the series. Eventually I do pretty much always manage to get a hold of the series I mainly hear of through word of mouth, though now adays forums seem to be the place to look if you ever want to hear of a good drama besides those that people always seem to know like “Hana-Kimi” (花ざかりの君たちへ) or other such popular ones that usually are adaptations of a popular manga just like “Flowers over boys” (花より男子, though read 花より団子) or whatever it is called, which I actually have so far successfully refused to watch (and shout out to Elain; thats 2 seasons I’ve successfully refused to watch)…None the less, lets just get on with the list before I end up delaying this post even more :)
1. Buzzer Beat (ブザー・ビート) – A sports drama based around basketball, probably why its a dead give away that I could not NOT choose this as my favourite drama. Not to mention 北川景子 (Keiko Kitagawa) playing the lead female role, its practically win-win. I’ll try explain it a little; its based around Naoki played by “Yamapi” (Yamashita Tomohisa [山下智久]) who is a rising star or something along those lines in the basketball team of a Japanese company. There are a couple of female music students who get caught up with the team through a player leaving their phone behind on a bus. Then their is a new player joining the team due to their recent poor performance/lack of success, which causes problems and cheating etc. It’s really not so easy to explain, but a very good drama to watch so I’ll leave it at that and hope you watch it!
2. Pride (ポライド) – Though I have only seen a few of his drama’s, this is my favourite of Takuya Kimura’s that I have watched thus far. An excellent story of gaming with love, and aspiring to improve. Everything is probably a little typical as far as dramas go, but still its made very good probably just because Kimura is in it. All based around hockey, and the hockey team Kimura is playing in whom have a change of coach due to their previous coach (his idol pretty much) falling ill. All in all, very watchable (y)
3. Hanazakari no Kimitachi e/(花ざかりの君たちへ)/Hana-Kimi – with out giving too much away, the story of a girl who dresses up as a guy to go to an all boys school to try inspire the person who had inspired her with his jump (and a certain incident, but thats spoilers so I won’t go there just incase…). Its the first drama I ever watched, but still probably one the best. A very entertaining show, pretty funny as well. Though I must add its probably a little too “fan girly” for my liking, which is why its not at #1.
4. Hero – Yet another Takuya Kimura drama. It seems to be the trend that if you are always safe in terms of quality with a drama starring Takuya Kimura. This is probably the most famous out of all the drama’s he has starred in, there was also a movie as a sort of ‘follow-on’ from the series. In this drama Takuya plays the role of Kuryu Kohei, a young public prosecutor who gets tranferred to the Tokyo division. He is not the type to follow standard procedure, so from that stems a string of events which are impacting on the entire ‘team’ at the Tokyo division in the end, as his brilliance and ideals prove to be quite something. I think there is a certain appeal behind this drama because it is not so strictly following any sort of love story, as it focuses more on the main plot rather than going through multiple series of side plots (such as a cheating husband (one of the prosecutors) and Kohei and his working patner’s subtely growing bond).
I’m just going to leave it at a “top 4″, both because I have not really watched enough to make a long list (i.e. the others I have watched I don’t feel are worthy of a mention/were total rubbish), and because this post has just taken too long to be put out and I don’t want to delay it any further! And a reminder, if you want any of these shows/bands/movies i’ve mentioned in my last few posts just give me a yell and I’ll be more than happy to chase up a download link for you, just don’t want to go posting them on here that’s all. Anyway, soon to come as uni is starting up again is some posts about my journey once again with some new exciting opportunities arrising for me.
じゃ、ピース！Peace.
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