Stand Up!!

[callmecaito]

Four seventeen-year-old boys are shocked and horrified when they realize they are the only virgins left in their grade at school. In light of this, the four become determined to lose their virginity over their last summer break. On top of that, a girl they knew eleven years ago moves back into the neighborhood for the summer, except she's grown up into someone they didn't expect.

Okay, so the premise of the show is pretty, well, immature. It usually seems to me that, whenever you make sex the absolute crux of a story, especially a story pitched towards adolescents, well... let's just say the end result isn't usually compelling. And yet I went and got the first five episodes of this, mostly because Kazunari Ninomiya from Arashi is in it. Yeah, I'll watch just about anything if one of the boys from Arashi is in it. It's sad, but as I'm a hormonal young woman, I claim fangirliness as a prerogative. What? What are you looking at me like that for?

So yeah, I wasn't expecting much out of this show except for irreverant comedy, but even just the first episode left me very pleasantly surprised.

So, yes, there are definitely elements of campy humor in this series. That's to be expected when the premise of the show is zomg teenage virgin boys. And yet, after that initial impression, I'm happy to find that the dorama delves deeper into issues of adolescents - friendship, love, school, family, the hypocrisy of adults, complications of life, experience and failure. The main characters are likeable late bloomers who clumsily bumble through everyday life, struggling to catch up with their peers.

Our protagonists:

• Shohei Asai, played by Nino, is the narrator of the series. Serious and kind but otherwise inadequate in a lot of ways, Shohei is in love with one of his teachers at school. His character is such that he's really just waiting for love more than sex. His father runs the local pharmacy and is vice president of the neighborhood association.
• Kengo Iwasaki (alias Kenken), played by Yamapi, is pretty dweeby, very much an opposite to Yamapi's character in Nobuta wo Produce. He's obsessed with trains and reads all the time. His mother owns a 'love hotel' where the friends can all hang out. At the beginning, he's got a girlfriend who won't let him get any action.
• Hayato Udagawa (alias Udayan) is played by Hiroki Nariyima, who is, in my opinion, rather a hottie. But he's a virgin anyway. Why? Because he's a pervert who is actually kind of scared of girls.
• Kouji Enami is played by Oguri Shun, and he's a good athlete. In front of girls, he shows off a bit too much, making it appear as though he's so devoted to soccer he doesn't have any time for the ladies. Oh, Kou-kun, you so silly. His father is the president of the neighborhood association.
• Anne Suzuki plays Chie, a friend from eleven years ago. The boys all remember her being a bit of a princess, with pigtails and dresses and all the trappings of cuteness, but she's grown up into an awkward teenage girl in glasses and overalls, with all the trappings of being a huge dork.

The characters are what makes this series completely worth it. The casting is absolutely, utterly perfect - I can't imagine anyone else playing these particular roles. The storylines are sometimes ridiculous, but never cross the line into utter disbelievability. And a sense of awkwardness pervades the entire series at all times, endearing it even more to me. The little flashbacks to childhood are absolutely, positively adorable. I want to snuggle the kid versions of all the main characters. I'd even let mini-Udayan run around with my bra.

Only the first five episodes are out with fansubs right now that I could find, meaning I'm halfway through the series. Early on, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud hilarious moments, like the rumors going around about Shohei and his teacher Mochizuki at the beginning of the fourth episode, and trying to use a cell phone while wearing a helmet (I had to pause the show, because I was crying with laughter), and so on. However, the series is getting progressively more serious, as we follow the protagonists through some of the more painful moments of adolescence like heartbreak, family problems, moments of utter and complete humiliation.

The journey from innocence to experience is a difficult one, Stand Up!! makes no bones about it. But it looks at the whole issue with a fresh, fun, usually light-hearted manner, making the watcher genuinely feel for the characters as they try to balance their own desires with what their friends and family expect of them.