How long would it take you to finish a 550 page book? For me, at least 2 weeks. I had begun to worry that my brain was turning to mush seeing how slowly I read these days. Heck, I've been reading the 200-page Into the Wild for over a month now and I'm still not finished it (albeit it's pretty dull ( Read more... )

Forget those "Introduction to Japanese Culture" videos with the no-life high school kids studying 24/7. The reality is that many Japanese high schoolers watch just as much TV as we do, so many Japanese shows are about this demographic. My first jdrama was about high school, and since then, school dramas and I have had a pretty good relationship ( Read more... )

Inoue Mao is the greatest young actress in Japan right now. Sadly, she's not the best at choosing good scripts . . her next role is in a drama called "First Kiss," where she plays a terminally ill girl IN LOVE. This script is just too creative for our universe. =/

That aside, I was SHOCKED when I was browsing Craigslist and found this post:

( Read more... )

On one hand, the more good shows I watch, the more I think, "Hey, that other drama I liked wasn't actually so great." On the other, more bad shows make shows I didn't like seem better. Does this ever happen to you, even with movies, music, pizza, etc.? Anyway, in short, I've re-scored and moved around a bunch of stuff this time around. :)

( My updated drama rankings @ 30 )

My harddrive is clogged with jdramas which I've stopped watching in favor of movies. And? The change hasn't changed the fact that my harddrive is still clogged with jdramas. So, much to the chagrin of half my f-list, I'm going back to watching jdramas to keep my harddrive alive and unclogged, starting with one that starkodama recommended to me many, many ( Read more... )

I was timing this one for Christmas Eve, but then Kimutaku cut-in and screwed up my viewing schedule. :P

Last Christmas
October - December 2004
jdorama page

Story: Last Christmas, sportswear exec Kenji (pb. ODA YUJI of Odoru Daisousasen fame) gave his fiancee his heart, but an undisclosed time later, she gave it away. This year, to save himself ( Read more... )

SMAP's Kimutaku is the Superstar of Superstars in Japan. Whenever he stars in a TV show, monster ratings are guaranteed -- not big, MONSTER -- partly because he has rare crossover appeal with not only girls, but guys, kids, seniors, all ages. I've also heard he has the God-given abilities to change modern pop culture with his style, disrupt radio ( Read more... )

The Great -
I'm finally caught up on Livejournal! . . but that's an awful opening sentence, so . .Dark and stormy describes last week in BC. It's funny, just a few weeks ago I was thinking "how come Vancouver never gets hurricanes?," and BAM, we get what reporters describe as "record-breaking hurricane-level winds." The winds were so powerful ( Read more... )

Baseball is one of my least favourite sports, maybe because I could never figure out all the rules. So hey, why not watch a couple baseball dramas and maybe learn a bit more about the sport? Two come to mind:

1. Kisarazu Cat's Eye: This series constantly shows up on Top 10 lists, gets oodles of recommendations at d-addicts, and had a spin-off ( Read more... )

Recently, I've been friend-shopping the jdrama interest list because my f-list sorely needs more jdrama fans. Well so far, errr . . not so good. Nearly every jdrama fan on LJ falls in either two categories: lots of pretty boys with some visual kei, or lots of visual kei with some pretty boys. Both those groups scare me and I don't think we'd get ( Read more... )