Tumbling
Title: タンブリング
Title (English): Tumbling
Format: Renzoku
Genre: Sports drama
Episodes: TBA
Broadcast network: TBS
Broadcast period: 2010-Apr-17 start
Air time: Saturday 20:00
Theme Song: Yume by Honey L Days
The new drama I'm watching at the moment is Tumbling, the most simplest way to explain it is High School Boys Gymnastics meets Crow's Zero (a movie about a High School full of delinquents).
The main character Wataru is a Yankee, what the Japanese call delinquents. Wataru is sort of the head of his school. His friends, Ryousuke & Nippori by his side, along with a few other yankee's. Later, Wataru is told by his homeroom teacher to join some club. He try-outs for many clubs but ends up getting kicked out of all of the ones he try's out for because of his violent behaviour. Wataru see's the new girl, Mari, whom he likes, is in the Girls Gymnastics Club. Wataru, Ryousuke, Nippori, & his homeroom teacher, Kashiwagi-sensei, see a boy, Hino, do a routine on the floor & Wataru see's Mari praise him, saying that Boys Gymnastics is just so cool. So naturally he needs to do it. Wataru straight out tells the captain of the Boys Gymnastics Club, Takanaka, to let him join. Takanaka gives Wataru a month, a trail period to see if he has what it takes.
The Boy's Gymnastics Club has a bad reputation, they don't have many members, only 5 members in the beginning, unlike the Girls Gymnastics Club whom have many members, maybe like 15 to 20. The Girls Gymnastics Club advisor constantly looks down on them, basically wants the club disband.
Takanaka, the Boy's Gymnastics Club Captain, dreams to compete in the nationals & everything but they've never had enough people to participate, as six people are needed. Tsuchiya, a 1st year & Takanaka's kohai, joins & they finally have enough to participate in competitions.
At the same time, Wataru wants to join the club, (only to impress a girl). Thru a lot of trouble & tribulations, a member of the Boy's Gymnastics Club drops out & Tsuchiya gets fracture in his wrist & can't compete. And now they're down 2 people & Hino won't compete with them as he enters competitions on his own. A soloist using the 2 hoops.
There is also a rival school, the Captain of their Boy's Gymnastics team, Tsurumi, always brings down Takanaka's spirits. They both used to in the same school & club when they were younger.
What'll happen? Will Wataru be able to join? Will they ever get to compete?
Just watch the drama!!
I really enjoy this drama, it has an interesting story line. Also the actor who plays Tsurumi is Hiroki from Lead, its kinda hard to see him as a bad ass & a bully, as he's my favorite from Lead but he does such a good job that I can't help but love him more and more.
Nishijima Takahiro who plays Hino, his character is the loner type, if I had to compare his character to an anime character I'd either say Sasuke from Naruto or Rukawa from Slam Dunk but more Sasuke as they both don't play well with others. But it's interesting to see him play Kino as I'm not use to him playing such a character but he does a good job.
Yamamoto Yusuke who plays Wataru, I'm really not used to him playing such a hard-ass yankee. He usually plays some soft-spoken character. For him to play such a different role, it sometimes doesn't work for me.
Now, onto the floor work, I gotta say the actors either trained really well or they picked actors that could already do some gymnastics, either way I was surprised when Hiroki, the actor who plays Tsurumi, just bused out doing flips. And Nishijima Takahiro who played Kino, his solo routine with the hoops, that was just awesome, I didn't know that he could do anything like that, it was great to watch.