Lalala... packing, what packing?
Heavenly Forest (Tada Kimi wo Aishiteiru)
This movie was okay. The male actor (who plays Chiaki in Nodame) is hot and adorkable. The female lead is convincingly fresh and cute. The "mysterious disease" was kind of bizarre, and I don't know why she wouldn't want to see him when she was dying. She would still "live on inside of him" in his memory even if he knew she was dead. Or she could have pretended to be well and gone to see him one last time. Seemed kind of lame that she didn't.
Yes, the end made me cry. The film did that well. I just, I don't know. I didn't feel satisfied with this story. It seemed somehow unfinished.
Formula 17
This movie was just so much fun! So hot and charming and FUNNY.
A naive country boy virgin gets introduced to the city life in Taipei and its gay scene. He falls in love with the number one playboy. They kind of remind me of Brian and Justin, the early years, only not as snarky and more adorable. The story is kind of set up like a fairytale: the beast-man who's under a curse and has lost his heart, the innocent virgin who will restore it to him.
Also this movie made me aware that the only people living in Taipei are awesome gay men. GOOD TO KNOW.
Sekai no Chuushin de Ai wo Sakebu
Well I didn't really like this drama. It won a lot of awards, and is kind of famous, but I just couldn't really get into it. I actually feel like watching it was a waste of my time.
I liked the main teenage couple. Their relationship was very cute and sweet, and it was very touching how they dealt with her illness. The whole thing about him sending in a letter about how his girlfriend gets leukemia before she actually gets leukemia, a weird kind of prediction, seemed way too impossible and literary. Like God was punishing him for lying by actually making his lie come true. It seems too pat for me to maintain my suspension of disbelief. I thought the "future post" thing was poignant and good. I did feel the angst when all these things conspired to keep them apart. And he was a convincing stupid but adorable teenage boy. Sometimes too embarrassingly so.
The future Sakutaro changed actors from the teenage one, and it was jarring sometimes going between the two. I liked the new Aki and her son fine, but I never was really given an opportunity to bond with them. I didn't root for them. The parts of their story I was shown were always focused on their relationship with Sakutaro, but I didn't really feel anything special about them. Despite the good acting jobs from the mother and son, I kind of felt like they could be *any* mother and son. Just kind of a sop on the part of the writers. "Give him a new wife and kid, new family, because that's what healing and becoming a real human is supposed to be about." So that was a big part of his healing process that didn't really jibe with me.
I liked how he worked himself to exhaustion and woke up crying every morning and kept her ashes in his pocket like a cilice.
The Juliet on the radio thing was again a little too literary a coincidence to believe.
The part of this drama I didn't like was the part about her death and making sense of it. And since the whole drama was basically a self-indulgent fantasy about giving meaning to death, dealing with grief and moving on, then it was kind of pointless for me.
Her sickness and death were so *nice*. It was all just so *nice*, it kind of pissed me off. There was no injustice like in Ningen Shikkaku, no one to blame. Bad things just sometimes happen to good people for no reason, but this story was so extreme in both respects, that it felt unreal.
The acting was good all around on the whole. The cinematography was good too in places. The writing was pretty good. The main thrust of the story, the part about Sakutaro's healing process, just didn't come together emotionally for me.
Niji wo Kakeru Ouhi
Okada Junichi really does well playing the noble, intense type in this drama special. Yay tragic exiled prince! He was speaking Korean! I don't know how good his accent was, but he was acting in Korean very well--as opposed to his male attendant there.
The female lead was also a really good actress.
The ending was kind of abrupt, but their love story was just so sweet and *cute*. It was nice to watch.
Neverland
JE boys get molested! And have angst! Tsubasa is pretty but can't act! There's not much good acting here, but the script is also pretty lame so maybe that's at fault.
Right now I'm somewhere in the middle (who can tell with those HK VCDs), and the only storyline that's captivating me is Yoda and his molesting stepmom who's dying. ::rereads that:: LOL. But Yoda (Miyake Ken from V6) has a seriously bizarre way of talking. I still can't get used to it. Ken's from Tokyo, so I don't think it's a regional accent. I haven't gotten into V6 yet, but I read that he's known to have a high-pitched voice. Here however, it's very low. He does a pretty good job acting here, too.
Koki was GREAT in this. Nerd!gay!cameraotaku!heartcondition!Koki is SO MUCH FUN. He has a giant boycrush on Tsubasa, stalks him with his camera, and tries to break him and his gf up. And then the randomly evil dude hears the lies Koki tells to the gf and threatens to tell Tsubasa if Koki doesn't do what he says. And then he rapes Koki! JFIEOA;JFIEAOJF OH JE DRAMAS. The bad thing is he gets away with it. Koki kills himself and the evil dude just kind of leaves the dorm. Grrrr. But the scene right before Koki died, with the fried tofu, that seriously made me cry. Good job, Koki! When you compare the Koki in this drama to the "tough gangsta rap" Koki image he now tries to convey (or even the fancy/sexy Koki image he tried before he gave up and left that to Jin and Kame) it's just really funny to watch.
Bokura no Yuuki: Miman Toshi
Okay I've only watched three episodes. But I already know what *I* want to happen. I want Takeru and Yamato and Yuuri to form a three-way marriage and rule the children with their l33t benevolent leadership skillz.
Matsujun was so cute when he stole the gun just to get his new parents to become friends. Yuuri is obviously the right one to be the leader of the children of the town, and the two boys can be her lieutenants and give her more civic responsibility and hope. The show is obviously already trying to set up something between Yuuri and Yamato (he's such a player when he has that gf back home!), and Yamato and Takeru live and sleep in *very* close proximity. I really like Yuuri, and Yamato and Takeru are different enough from Koichi and Tsuyoshi irl to make them interesting and appealing in their own right.
I have to say the town is more destroyed than I think it would actually be in the, what, week? since the meteor fell. And who goes around X-taping all the windows in the town when people are falling ill?? There wasn't *actually* an earthquake or natural disaster. Where did all the bodies go? Why aren't the soldiers completely decked out in biohazard suits? Why do they even approach the children in any way at all? They should never come close enough to touch, and they frequently do with no real reason to. Also the way they were shooting at the boat runaways when they were just trying to swim to shore, and then the way they *didn't hit them*? That certainly strained my suspension of disbelief. Are they using blanks?
When Yamato was investigating the inside of a house, a fridge was open and the light inside it was on. That means there's still power right? Even if there's no water or phones. All the buildings are still standing, and if they have power, all the more reason not to congregate in the street like homeless people. Why is everyone so desperate for blankets and stuff when they *can't* have used up all the town's material resources? Just one house should have plenty of extra blankets and futons and stuff. Not to mention the wares in stores.
I find the premise of this drama kind of hilarious. ALIEN SPACE VIRUS. Hee. Of *course* the meteor would crash straight into Japan. 19 is a really random cutoff age, though. At least in Jeremiah it was puberty, which made more sense. I don't know, I don't think this will turn out to be a great drama, but I'd watch it just for the Domotos.
This drama is currently being subbed. The mistakes in the subtitles are really *annoying*, but I'm too lazy/timid to volunteer to be a part of the subbing group when my life is in flux like right now. Aaaah, packing. It was almost a relief to watch it raw when I got to episode three, because, like with Love Story's horrible subs, when the subs are bad I often have to watch something twice--once to realize that the subs are off and again to actually listen closely enough to the Japanese to translate it myself. More work for me! If I just watch things raw I'm already in a translating mindset. Not to say that these subs were as bad as pikawoo's Love Story subs! They were mostly good! It's just in some places I have no idea what the translators were listening to, because it obviously wasn't the dialogue being spoken. And when good subs turn bad unpredictably in places, I can't really relax and trust them, you know?
Ningen Shikkaku
I finally finished! Whew. I can see why it had higher ratings at the end than the beginning, because I kept watching too to see all the dramatic irony being finally revealed. When Makoto's dad went crazy killing people for revenge it was SO AWESOME, even though that's probably part of the eponymous "failure as a human."
But I don't know, with the ghostly anonymous hands pushing psycho photo club teacher to his death on the train tracks, it seems even our angelic Makoto has become an avenging spirit.
The female teacher's voiceovers reading Makoto's letters continue to make me sob uncontrollably. MAKOTO~!
Ruka, after being stopped from his suicide attempt, lapses into an unwakeable sleep and pretty much wastes away from his broken heart like a Victorian heroine, murmuring "Makoto" and crying in his slumber. <3 When he does wake up, he's lost all his memories and returned to a toddler-like state. His mother takes care of him, and once again his only friend is his pet mouse, whom he now calls Makoto. GOD MY HEART.
The special feature interviews with the cast were good, especially the Domotos' part. When Koichi was talking about the drool coming out when he was kissing Tsuyoshi, I just about died!
Hoshi ni Negai wo
This was a Disney made-for-TV-movie. And as such it was about everything you'd expect. I can't help but feel embarrassed for the real dude whose life story they're telling.
Tsuyoshi is really cute. He cries adorably. The end.
I've been getting really into the Kinki Kids lately, and I want to watch a good home drama to relieve myself of the angst of Ningen Shikkaku, the banality of Neverland, and the bleakness of Miman Toshi. So I want to watch a home drama with Tsuyoshi in it. Not so hard, right? He's done several. The one I really want is "Home Drama," which seems perfectly suited to my needs. But I can't find it anywhere! Wah! Why must you thwart me, internets!