Jdrama Reviews!
Merry Christmas, everyone! Even though I'm a couple days late. I was at my folks home for Christmas and their internet is really slow. Besides, I had plans with them to be together and to go see the new Star Wars movie. Which was really good, by the way. I hope your holiday was well enjoyable, too.
I did get into a couple more dramas. One was easy enough for me to find since I had been waiting all year for it. :)
I think if I didn't find this drama somewhere, I would have retaliated, or rioted, or something. Something was going to burn to the ground otherwise. I was so excited that Sho was in another drama after so many years! Why has it been so long? Because he's been busy with his two other careers: Arashi and News Zero. I just love watching him act. Okay, so I'm a little biased, and I'll get to the drama.
The beginning had a bit of a slow start to it, but I feel that most school dramas do. The plot is a bit refreshing with Sho as a business man and is transferred to a school that isn't doing well as far as numbers as its' principal. The first episode has a lot of firsts. Sho has to get used to the school, as well as the staff and the students, and they all have to get used to him. It doesn't happen in one episode though. Each episode had a different plot with it's own set of problems, and Sho and the social studies teacher (Yu Aoi) are both tackling them and helping the students along. Sometimes it was a problem with an individual and other times there were problems within the school as a whole. Sho in unable to completely shake off his business way of thinking. He begins to change and make plans the way an office worker would. These plans do work with some tweaking and cooperation with the other staff. Soon, the staff begins to understand his methods and begin to use them in their teaching. One of the most effective ways is "active learning", which was something I wish I had more during my school days. Basically the teacher who present the lesson and the students who understood it could help teach the others who couldn't. There was a lot of movement and talking. I wondered if that kind of teaching would be effective in every subject.
There seemed to be a little bit of every theme in this school genre drama. A little bit of slice of life, a little bit of romance, and a whole lot of school related. Sho's character was so much like Sho. After all these years I had wondered which of his roles was like Sho the most and we finally found one! Sometimes I wondered if I was watching Sho or Narumi-san. I liked the choice of Tabe Mikako as his girlfriend. It was like a Yamada Taro Monigami reunion. Also Aoi Yu was there too when she was with Sho in the Honey & Clover movie. It was like back tracking to 2007 or something. Too bad Nino didn't make an appearance. I also liked seeing YosiYosi Arakawa in this drama. He's one of my favorite Japanese actors. He seems to get the best roles. The vice principal was also a favorite of mine. His style of acting was very comical! I could tell Sho was trying to hold back his laughter a few times when he was with him.
If you like school dramas and/or Sho-kun I do recommend this drama. It has other little themes within the main theme of whatever episode you're watching.
I rated this drama 8 out of 10.
I chose this one because I needed another Arashi drama. Or another Nino drama. Maybe another Nino drama because I haven't finished all of his stuff yet. He seems to have a lot of older shows. The plot for this one interested me. Two high school lovebirds go to a Chinese restaurant and get a very strange fortune cookie prediction. "If you stay close to him, he will become great and the two of you will be together for a long time. However, when the two of you drift apart, a horrible thing will happen!" Just as the fortune predicited, Nino's girlfriend Chiyomi (Fukada Kyoko) is struck by a magical curse that shrinks her down to 16 cm on the very day Nino decides to break up with her. The two of them try to figure things out and Chiyomi ends up living with Minami at his house. Things get amusing when he tries to keep her a secret, but soon the secret spills out.
In the beginning, it seemed to be a light-hearted, low-quality, comical-acting drama. It did indeed have the early 2000s feel from a typical Japanese drama. That's what I wanted because I wanted something I wasn't going to emotionally invest myself in too much. Mostly because I was really busy with real life and knew I wasn't going to watch an episode a day, like I usually do. I knew I was going to fall behind. And I did. However, towards the end, it started to take it's own personality and it ended in a way I didn't expect. I still don't know if I like the ending or if I hate it. Usually when a problem comes about in a show, the characters try to take the entire episode or the entire season to solve it and they do or they create another problem on top of the first one, and then you get a second season. Not saying that Minami and Chiyomi didn't try to figure out their problem. They faced a lot of obsticals that kept them from getting their answer. They were...unnecessary obsticals if you ask me. I think some things could have been different. This drama seemed to go in circles around the main answer in how to return Chiyomi back to normal. On top of that, there was no need for the ridiculous triangle. Man, talk about a manipulative bI***. If she had more character development, then I would have more respect for her. I'm not sure how that qualifies entertaining. The ending wasn't predictable, and I still don't know how I feel about it.
Would I recommend it? Eh...if you really like Nino and want to watch all of his dramas, then do it just to knock it off your to-watch list like I did.
I gave this drama a 7 out of 10.
My next drama will definitely be season 2 of 99.9! I'm also finally watching Nodame Cantabile. I didn't really know what it was about until someone else told me about it. I was going to add more to this entry, but I have a lot of days off coming up, so I think that's when I'm going to sit down and rant write about my Christmas and how I felt my 2017 went and how I hope 2018 will be. If you're interested...
See you soon! *waves*
I did get into a couple more dramas. One was easy enough for me to find since I had been waiting all year for it. :)
I think if I didn't find this drama somewhere, I would have retaliated, or rioted, or something. Something was going to burn to the ground otherwise. I was so excited that Sho was in another drama after so many years! Why has it been so long? Because he's been busy with his two other careers: Arashi and News Zero. I just love watching him act. Okay, so I'm a little biased, and I'll get to the drama.
The beginning had a bit of a slow start to it, but I feel that most school dramas do. The plot is a bit refreshing with Sho as a business man and is transferred to a school that isn't doing well as far as numbers as its' principal. The first episode has a lot of firsts. Sho has to get used to the school, as well as the staff and the students, and they all have to get used to him. It doesn't happen in one episode though. Each episode had a different plot with it's own set of problems, and Sho and the social studies teacher (Yu Aoi) are both tackling them and helping the students along. Sometimes it was a problem with an individual and other times there were problems within the school as a whole. Sho in unable to completely shake off his business way of thinking. He begins to change and make plans the way an office worker would. These plans do work with some tweaking and cooperation with the other staff. Soon, the staff begins to understand his methods and begin to use them in their teaching. One of the most effective ways is "active learning", which was something I wish I had more during my school days. Basically the teacher who present the lesson and the students who understood it could help teach the others who couldn't. There was a lot of movement and talking. I wondered if that kind of teaching would be effective in every subject.
There seemed to be a little bit of every theme in this school genre drama. A little bit of slice of life, a little bit of romance, and a whole lot of school related. Sho's character was so much like Sho. After all these years I had wondered which of his roles was like Sho the most and we finally found one! Sometimes I wondered if I was watching Sho or Narumi-san. I liked the choice of Tabe Mikako as his girlfriend. It was like a Yamada Taro Monigami reunion. Also Aoi Yu was there too when she was with Sho in the Honey & Clover movie. It was like back tracking to 2007 or something. Too bad Nino didn't make an appearance. I also liked seeing YosiYosi Arakawa in this drama. He's one of my favorite Japanese actors. He seems to get the best roles. The vice principal was also a favorite of mine. His style of acting was very comical! I could tell Sho was trying to hold back his laughter a few times when he was with him.
If you like school dramas and/or Sho-kun I do recommend this drama. It has other little themes within the main theme of whatever episode you're watching.
I rated this drama 8 out of 10.
I chose this one because I needed another Arashi drama. Or another Nino drama. Maybe another Nino drama because I haven't finished all of his stuff yet. He seems to have a lot of older shows. The plot for this one interested me. Two high school lovebirds go to a Chinese restaurant and get a very strange fortune cookie prediction. "If you stay close to him, he will become great and the two of you will be together for a long time. However, when the two of you drift apart, a horrible thing will happen!" Just as the fortune predicited, Nino's girlfriend Chiyomi (Fukada Kyoko) is struck by a magical curse that shrinks her down to 16 cm on the very day Nino decides to break up with her. The two of them try to figure things out and Chiyomi ends up living with Minami at his house. Things get amusing when he tries to keep her a secret, but soon the secret spills out.
In the beginning, it seemed to be a light-hearted, low-quality, comical-acting drama. It did indeed have the early 2000s feel from a typical Japanese drama. That's what I wanted because I wanted something I wasn't going to emotionally invest myself in too much. Mostly because I was really busy with real life and knew I wasn't going to watch an episode a day, like I usually do. I knew I was going to fall behind. And I did. However, towards the end, it started to take it's own personality and it ended in a way I didn't expect. I still don't know if I like the ending or if I hate it. Usually when a problem comes about in a show, the characters try to take the entire episode or the entire season to solve it and they do or they create another problem on top of the first one, and then you get a second season. Not saying that Minami and Chiyomi didn't try to figure out their problem. They faced a lot of obsticals that kept them from getting their answer. They were...unnecessary obsticals if you ask me. I think some things could have been different. This drama seemed to go in circles around the main answer in how to return Chiyomi back to normal. On top of that, there was no need for the ridiculous triangle. Man, talk about a manipulative bI***. If she had more character development, then I would have more respect for her. I'm not sure how that qualifies entertaining. The ending wasn't predictable, and I still don't know how I feel about it.
Would I recommend it? Eh...if you really like Nino and want to watch all of his dramas, then do it just to knock it off your to-watch list like I did.
I gave this drama a 7 out of 10.
My next drama will definitely be season 2 of 99.9! I'm also finally watching Nodame Cantabile. I didn't really know what it was about until someone else told me about it. I was going to add more to this entry, but I have a lot of days off coming up, so I think that's when I'm going to sit down and rant write about my Christmas and how I felt my 2017 went and how I hope 2018 will be. If you're interested...
See you soon! *waves*