Himitsu no Hanazono, or MYSTERIOUS HANAZONO, or the Secret Flower Garden, yes, it's about manga
Let's just be upfront here. The only linking theme between Sungkyunkwan Scandal and Himitsu no Hanazono is the cute middle-aged men:
(note the drab colors of this screencap vs. any Korean drama. This is true-to-life.)
In fact, the closest thing to a male lead:
Wataru KATAOKA, is very much of the same type as this one I posted about before:
Wataru's not making his sad-puppy face above, but I swear, it's a dead ringer.
...You know, I like how I don't even apologize for all this f-list effing anymore XD Esp. since fabricalchemist confessed that she didn't know how I did all the images when I don't do HTML. (that's not how the conversation really went, but I'm just outing myself as a Rich Text Editor user before anyone else's illusions are shattered.)
himitsu no hanazono is easily translated to make sense, but as this post's title reveals, it actually has quite a bit of nuance.
Here is our heroine:
she gets to be the oblivious klutz! can you tell?
But actually, the first episode establishes her as a hard-working, competent editor for a fashion magazine. Unfortunately, it goes under, for which her boss blames herself,
and as her last act of boss-ness, gets this hard-working little chickie a job in a new department of the publisher.
At this point, I thought this actress's tenure in this show was probably done, which is a shame, because Maya Miki's beautiful and plays mature women with grace, all severe strong types in my J-Drama experience. I was happily wrong, which we may or may not get back to.
(note: I'm taking most of these screencaps from darkeyedwolf who wrote a HILARIOUS show overview, and happens to have uploaded all the good pictures to Photobucket, so I decided to fail with grace and just USE THEM ALL. Not really.)
Turns out this new position is far outside poor little Tsukiyama-chan's experience: the MANGA DEPARTMENT. [swelling notes of doom]
This turns out to be a classy example of the forcefully airheaded boss-lady's way of operating. (I see we got back to her rather quickly. 0_0;)
And she is given the task of overseeing a famous (eccentric, of course) girl's comic writer. Enter the Shojo Manga tropes...no wait, they were with us all along.
Because "Yuriko HANAZONO" is actually four brothers, mostly middle-age except the 18 year old Hinata.
Of course, she's been basically thrown to the wolves. Four men who are kind of solitary because of some secret they need to keep hidden, and work from home can't pass up a chance with a young, serious woman on their hands.
Since this show is more classy than we deserve, only two brothers really fall for her, and the second triangle is formed by the lovably tenacious and spastic...
BOSS LADY!
She thinks Yuriko HANAZONO stole her fiancé, but is finally thinking about moving on...with Manager/Playboy Brother Satoshi.
This is about 23x more interesting of a secondary-character plotline than I have seen in a drama, because this character could have been SO annoying but you just want to watch this woman do whatever it is she's doing.
She was part of an all-female drama troupe in her 20s(?), and played male lead characters. She's got the goods, she brings a certain presence to whatever she's doing.
Apparently, today's post was GiRl-cRuSh Conf<3ssions time? Heh.
It's all good, though. And I really enjoy stories centering around some kind of creative work, despite their usual sweeping grandeurs of inaccuracy. Of course, you have to be inaccurate to make them any fun...
(note the drab colors of this screencap vs. any Korean drama. This is true-to-life.)
In fact, the closest thing to a male lead:
Wataru KATAOKA, is very much of the same type as this one I posted about before:
Wataru's not making his sad-puppy face above, but I swear, it's a dead ringer.
...You know, I like how I don't even apologize for all this f-list effing anymore XD Esp. since fabricalchemist confessed that she didn't know how I did all the images when I don't do HTML. (that's not how the conversation really went, but I'm just outing myself as a Rich Text Editor user before anyone else's illusions are shattered.)
himitsu no hanazono is easily translated to make sense, but as this post's title reveals, it actually has quite a bit of nuance.
Here is our heroine:
she gets to be the oblivious klutz! can you tell?
But actually, the first episode establishes her as a hard-working, competent editor for a fashion magazine. Unfortunately, it goes under, for which her boss blames herself,
and as her last act of boss-ness, gets this hard-working little chickie a job in a new department of the publisher.
At this point, I thought this actress's tenure in this show was probably done, which is a shame, because Maya Miki's beautiful and plays mature women with grace, all severe strong types in my J-Drama experience. I was happily wrong, which we may or may not get back to.
(note: I'm taking most of these screencaps from darkeyedwolf who wrote a HILARIOUS show overview, and happens to have uploaded all the good pictures to Photobucket, so I decided to fail with grace and just USE THEM ALL. Not really.)
Turns out this new position is far outside poor little Tsukiyama-chan's experience: the MANGA DEPARTMENT. [swelling notes of doom]
This turns out to be a classy example of the forcefully airheaded boss-lady's way of operating. (I see we got back to her rather quickly. 0_0;)
And she is given the task of overseeing a famous (eccentric, of course) girl's comic writer. Enter the Shojo Manga tropes...no wait, they were with us all along.
Because "Yuriko HANAZONO" is actually four brothers, mostly middle-age except the 18 year old Hinata.
Of course, she's been basically thrown to the wolves. Four men who are kind of solitary because of some secret they need to keep hidden, and work from home can't pass up a chance with a young, serious woman on their hands.
Since this show is more classy than we deserve, only two brothers really fall for her, and the second triangle is formed by the lovably tenacious and spastic...
BOSS LADY!
She thinks Yuriko HANAZONO stole her fiancé, but is finally thinking about moving on...with Manager/Playboy Brother Satoshi.
This is about 23x more interesting of a secondary-character plotline than I have seen in a drama, because this character could have been SO annoying but you just want to watch this woman do whatever it is she's doing.
She was part of an all-female drama troupe in her 20s(?), and played male lead characters. She's got the goods, she brings a certain presence to whatever she's doing.
Apparently, today's post was GiRl-cRuSh Conf<3ssions time? Heh.
It's all good, though. And I really enjoy stories centering around some kind of creative work, despite their usual sweeping grandeurs of inaccuracy. Of course, you have to be inaccurate to make them any fun...