Shinzanmono 1 [subbed], Sunao ni Narenakute 2&3
Thoughts and a recent recap. It's nice to be on active drama watch again though.
Shinzanmono 1 (subbed)
Many of my guesses were right, but a lot of fine details are kind of missed when I watch it raw, so I'm basically sitting through this subbed from now on. Apart from that, my stand is somewhat the same--hasn't been mind-bogglingly awesome yet, but I rather enjoy having Abe Hiroshi onscreen. Plus, Meisa and the rest of the cast is luff. ♥ (And the SP geek in me compels the mentioning of Ruka in this episode. She plays an extra, a shopkeep, but in the same scene as both Meisa and Junpei and I thought this was adorable. Remember Akai Ito? Where she played Junpei's character as a little boy?)
As a side note, it seems the second time around watching this has made me feel that the family was so charming. On the surface it's a typical let's-not-be-nuclear side family--a girl raised by her grandparents, and who has particular closeness to her grandmother as a surrogate mother--but I don't know what came over me. I just really took a liking to them. I've always preferred that Anne focused on her modeling career (because unlike other young model-dash-talents, she's actually got genuine mode as a supermodel, and she'd be staying out of her very-famous father's territory if she did) but this is just a one episode guesting that I enjoyed. The grandma was lovely, so not the staple feeble grandmother often found in these things. And the grandfather was adorable, how he was so demure in comparison and he had the cutest smile ever. ♥ And this is irrelevant, but I thought they had pretty names too. Anne's character was called Naho and the grandfather was Fumitaka.
Okay, I'll stop my useless gushing now.
Sunao ni Narenakute 2&3
It's a good thing this only shows once a week. S'all I'm sayin'.
And so the stories develop!
The problems just keep on piling, and things take their usual course of, 'wtf are you serious' bizarreness. Today I will talk about Haru and Nakaji (hey, I'm learning their drama names! This means this drama is staying on the watching).
Haru, Juri's character, is neither likable nor dislikable... she's regular person, so far, whose main interest is just being an adult. She wants her proper job, her happy family, her good friends... and her love life. So far, reality has been disappointing: she's failed the test, so she can only be a part-time teacher, her family has some kind of artificial peace going on, and her friends are essentially a makeshift group of people she gets along with on Twitter. Still, she sees some potential in Nakaji, Eita's character, and from the get-go it's clear that they click. They 'get' each other, enjoy being with each other, and have this ability and willingness to share dreams with each other--which in drama-land is a very big sign that a person is your soul mate.
It's not all rainbows and butterflies, however, because though Haru (so far) seems like the most stable one out of the lot, life is failing her. She's often put down at work. Her brother is pushing drugs successfully under the guise that he's rehabilitating (by the way, I made a mistake in my last post when I assumed Nakamura Yuichi was playing Juri's creepy student. He's actually playing Juri's creepy brother--if that's much better...). And did I mention, her friends are all messed up? But worst of all is Nakaji, who in another lifetime would be perfect for her. He doesn't lie to her, he likes her for her, and he's ideally her one support system.
Unfortunately, Nakaji has issues of his own. And they come in the form of Kiriko.
Another unstable person.
Well, clearly the idea is that they've become attached because they met when they were both at a vulnerable point, and because they have matching tattoos of love there's no way they can ever be separated. Even though Kiriko ended up marrying someone else anyway. As Haru quickly picks up, Kiriko is someone who wanted to have her cake and eat it too--she got married to get the good life, and she still goes to Nakaji for her emotional and carnal desires.
What's she's not so quick about picking up is that Kiriko isn't above playing tricks to keep Nakaji at her hip. And I do mean the morbid kind, where she'll physically hurt herself and say Haru did it.
Nakaji's character so far is difficult. It feels a little like the writer also hasn't decided what he's really like yet. He has some strange, vague notions about everything that make it hard to understand what he's really thinking. So sometimes I feel like I can't really put out judgement yet, apart from noticing that he's like a manga stock--everyone wants a piece of him. But anyway. For now, it's perfectly reasonable for him to believe Kiriko (he's known her longer) all the while having that famous Gut Feeling that tells him otherwise (it's only episode 3, after all).
The thing is (and this goes for Haru too), there's no allure. I don't find myself wanting to know what they're thinking, I just want them to get on with it. Or to at least be more forthright. But I guess that's the point of the drama--the fact that they can't face things. Only with A Lot of Issues.
[/spoilers]
Next time I might try to talk about the other characters. But by then I may be distracted by other drama.
Shinzanmono 1 (subbed)
Many of my guesses were right, but a lot of fine details are kind of missed when I watch it raw, so I'm basically sitting through this subbed from now on. Apart from that, my stand is somewhat the same--hasn't been mind-bogglingly awesome yet, but I rather enjoy having Abe Hiroshi onscreen. Plus, Meisa and the rest of the cast is luff. ♥ (And the SP geek in me compels the mentioning of Ruka in this episode. She plays an extra, a shopkeep, but in the same scene as both Meisa and Junpei and I thought this was adorable. Remember Akai Ito? Where she played Junpei's character as a little boy?)
As a side note, it seems the second time around watching this has made me feel that the family was so charming. On the surface it's a typical let's-not-be-nuclear side family--a girl raised by her grandparents, and who has particular closeness to her grandmother as a surrogate mother--but I don't know what came over me. I just really took a liking to them. I've always preferred that Anne focused on her modeling career (because unlike other young model-dash-talents, she's actually got genuine mode as a supermodel, and she'd be staying out of her very-famous father's territory if she did) but this is just a one episode guesting that I enjoyed. The grandma was lovely, so not the staple feeble grandmother often found in these things. And the grandfather was adorable, how he was so demure in comparison and he had the cutest smile ever. ♥ And this is irrelevant, but I thought they had pretty names too. Anne's character was called Naho and the grandfather was Fumitaka.
Okay, I'll stop my useless gushing now.
Sunao ni Narenakute 2&3
It's a good thing this only shows once a week. S'all I'm sayin'.
And so the stories develop!
The problems just keep on piling, and things take their usual course of, 'wtf are you serious' bizarreness. Today I will talk about Haru and Nakaji (hey, I'm learning their drama names! This means this drama is staying on the watching).
Haru, Juri's character, is neither likable nor dislikable... she's regular person, so far, whose main interest is just being an adult. She wants her proper job, her happy family, her good friends... and her love life. So far, reality has been disappointing: she's failed the test, so she can only be a part-time teacher, her family has some kind of artificial peace going on, and her friends are essentially a makeshift group of people she gets along with on Twitter. Still, she sees some potential in Nakaji, Eita's character, and from the get-go it's clear that they click. They 'get' each other, enjoy being with each other, and have this ability and willingness to share dreams with each other--which in drama-land is a very big sign that a person is your soul mate.
It's not all rainbows and butterflies, however, because though Haru (so far) seems like the most stable one out of the lot, life is failing her. She's often put down at work. Her brother is pushing drugs successfully under the guise that he's rehabilitating (by the way, I made a mistake in my last post when I assumed Nakamura Yuichi was playing Juri's creepy student. He's actually playing Juri's creepy brother--if that's much better...). And did I mention, her friends are all messed up? But worst of all is Nakaji, who in another lifetime would be perfect for her. He doesn't lie to her, he likes her for her, and he's ideally her one support system.
Unfortunately, Nakaji has issues of his own. And they come in the form of Kiriko.
Another unstable person.
Well, clearly the idea is that they've become attached because they met when they were both at a vulnerable point, and because they have matching tattoos of love there's no way they can ever be separated. Even though Kiriko ended up marrying someone else anyway. As Haru quickly picks up, Kiriko is someone who wanted to have her cake and eat it too--she got married to get the good life, and she still goes to Nakaji for her emotional and carnal desires.
What's she's not so quick about picking up is that Kiriko isn't above playing tricks to keep Nakaji at her hip. And I do mean the morbid kind, where she'll physically hurt herself and say Haru did it.
Nakaji's character so far is difficult. It feels a little like the writer also hasn't decided what he's really like yet. He has some strange, vague notions about everything that make it hard to understand what he's really thinking. So sometimes I feel like I can't really put out judgement yet, apart from noticing that he's like a manga stock--everyone wants a piece of him. But anyway. For now, it's perfectly reasonable for him to believe Kiriko (he's known her longer) all the while having that famous Gut Feeling that tells him otherwise (it's only episode 3, after all).
The thing is (and this goes for Haru too), there's no allure. I don't find myself wanting to know what they're thinking, I just want them to get on with it. Or to at least be more forthright. But I guess that's the point of the drama--the fact that they can't face things. Only with A Lot of Issues.
[/spoilers]
Next time I might try to talk about the other characters. But by then I may be distracted by other drama.