Semi Annual Drama Review 2013
Time flies so fast and we're in the middle of 2013 now. My review gets more condense as times goes by too. From long detail review, to seasonal, quarterly and now semi annually. Well, we can always blame it to the work, stress level and too many things to watch. So, now, I've done my Arafes selection, caught up on some episodes, watched some old drama, lamented why NEWS didn't open their concert to international fans (again), I'm finally ready to list down what I've been watching for the past 6 months (excluding those old ones and varieties). So, we first will classify the drama by season as always, and then by which ones I love, managed to watch the whole thing, and off course, dumping bin.
Winter 2013
As usual, winter season is the season where I practically have almost nothing to watch. Always following the least amount of drama because the most common drama theme for this season are the gloomy and stressful ones. But for this season, maybe I'm too engross watching one and ignoring the rest of other 'possible good drama haha. So off course we start with:
Last Hope ~ Off course, this is the only drama that I practically watched this season. The reason? Well, it's the beloved Aiba-chan drama with the lovely OST, Calling by Arashi (productive boyband is productive), but on top of that the story is interesting, gets you want to know more despite the lack of subs around, ridiculously difficult medical terms, and the long discussions over the best possible treatment for the patient. It's definitely not the cheery drama, well, look at the poster, the boy trying very hard to look serious (no?) and put his best effort to act as pretty doctor with slightly twisted personality despite his pretty smile. And off course this pretty doctor is well supported by a strong cast team, ranging from pretty cute doctor, older ikemen doctor, to the oji-san doctor who only has his mind on research and cloning his deceased son. And off course, not to left out, each episode is accompanied with the unique deserts made specially for the drama. For full drama caps (yeah, this shows how much I love this drama LOL), click here and enjoy the prettiness and very detailed OP scenes. The only downside for this drama is that the drama is so detailed in their medical cases & terminology that I think people who loves medical drama (example: me!), are in medical field profession will appreciate this drama more than common audience.
Share House no Koibito ~ No, it's not because I'm an Aiba-Asami shipper. I swear! It's just happen that I like the theme of this drama, and it is an enjoyable drama despite of the low rating that leads to the 'rumour' (we just love the gossip over the boye, eh?). Well, I can't say I adore Asami's acting, but I love both Oizumi and Tanihara's so this drama is in my list. And off course having the cute-transforming-to-ikemen Nakajima Yuto helps a lot in ensuring that I'm watching this drama. The story itself is revolving of having house mates, just that the house mates are rather peculiar characters, between the extra cheery, extra nice guy who's claiming to be an alien including singing the love song in the weirdest language and the literally weird, selfish guy who gradually open up to people and turn out that he's not that a jackass. Then, the play house situation is getting complicated with all the emotion etc and off course, being the alien added extra spice. I still don't understand why this drama rating is so low because the overall drama is not boring to watch, rather slow in the beginning, yes, but not boring. Well, don't let the rating be your guide in picking your drama, just go for what you think you'll watch ne?
Dinner ~ I almost dropped this drama because well, I thought it's just another food drama and not that many ikemen too. I like Yusuke Santamaria, though. What makes me ended up finishing this drama then? Well, I'd think this drama is almost like a reminder of how you have to be innovative to strive for the better taste and off course maintain the quality that of professional chef and the more pressure you have if you're a 3 star Michelin restaurant. However, you must not forget that good food is also accompanied with good service, good company, and only then accompany with fantastic food, you'll have happy and returning customers. Acting wise? I think I like this drama because the cast team works well together, they have the good chemistry and the characters are enjoyable to watch, despite them having different personalities, even the annoying, loud and obnoxious personality. And this bunch of chefs are lead by the head chef who cares more about being told that his cooking is good than being told I love you. A fun drama to watch overall, but make sure that you've eaten or are eating something when you watch this drama, else... you know what comes next, and don't tell me that you've not be warned.
And now we have the SPs and yes, I watched LOTS of SPs this time...
Cheap Flight ~ To be honest, I almost didn't recognize Takeuchi Yuko in the picture. She looks so different from her Strawberry Night image and I got used to it already. And in deed, she played a totally different character here. Off course next is we have Mukai Osamu, off course, and in here, his character is rather annoying and asking us to smack him for bullying Miharu. In here we see the conflict of what makes up a low cost carrier (LCC) airline. We have Miharu, who's so used to in being the high flyer airlines where service and customer wish are priority, having the culture shock of being LCC stewardess where she cannot even help customer to lift up the luggage to the upper cabin space because it's 'extra service' in LCC. And we also meet the other stewardesses who with various reasons ended up in the team and with people so many different backgrounds pulling themselves to become a team.
Rich Man Poor Woman in New York ~ If you love the drama, off course, you'll watch the SP too. We continue what we're left of from the drama. The production team knows that we're very curious to how this odd couple continue their long distance relationship and will they end up together, and yes, we're very curious and we have the answer. So, Hyuga is still having relationship with Makoto and where's the proposal? Instead of all the romantic moments, we have the most unbearable boyfriend in real life situation whereby: 1. He has weird taste in furniture, resulting with a house with minimal furniture and because of that you as the girlfriend have to sleep in a sleeping bag 2. He doesn't like his kitchen to be dirty, which means kitchen is not for cooking in his dictionary 3. He must use brown towel in his bathroom, same shape and everything. And off course, he has the most peculiarly obnoxious personality. So, can you manage to stay in the relationship when your partner has all those traits? Yes, if you're in a drama and you're Natsui Makoto. Off course you have all the cuteness and definitely a happy end because well, this is the sequel of a Getsu9 and Hyuga Toru can be very kakkoii and gentleman when the drama tells him to be. Must watch? Off course.
Kindaichi Shonen no Jikenbo Hong Kong Kowloon Zaiho Satsujin Jiken ~ Oh the long title. Every now and then, we have Kindaichi special with Johnny's boy as the Kindaichi. We had Matsujun, Domoto Tsuyoshi before and now we have Yamada Ryosuke as one. So, tradition continues and this time they take it another notch and using Hong Kong as location. They even get Eric Tsang to be part of the cast. How cool was that. The story? Well, typical Kindaichi mystery solving case with who's the killer and everybody's a suspect at one point. I like Yamada's acting in Risou no Musuko and can't say that I dislike him here either. It's a so so drama to me but from entertainment perspective, this drama offer some laughter and a bit of brain exercise. This drama sort of reminds me that the target audience is fans, not general public, just that Kindaichi manga is that famous that the drama franchise is almost guaranteed to be recognized.
Ataru SP ~ Last year I excitedly watched the drama so this SP is a given and to note that there'll be a movie this year as well, adds up to the excitement. Ataru, again is back in Tokyo and solving the crime indirectly by just appearing out of nowhere as usual. And we get to know more about Ataru's family, including his little brother. Still miffed with the Kisumai tagging wherever SMAP is the main lead, but Nakai's acting made up for it. And for the SP and next to movie, we have Madoka, Ataru's equal but apparently has fallen to the dark side. I didn't recognize Horikita Maki as Madoka until my friend pointed out that it's Maki because he loves his cute girls as much as I like ikemen in my drama.
Legal High ~ Who's missing this cheesy poster of crazy and obnoxious lawyer with his partner, the righteous morning drama heroinne rookie lawer? Me! Me! And we have the answer, we're getting second season (yey!) and a special this year! This time the case is on bullying because it's the hot topic in Japan for the past couple of months, and as a result we'll see that Spring 2013 season is all about bullying when we have a school setting. So, we have the client of a boy as a victim of bullying and our fave Komikado sensei will fight to the end to get compensation for his client. We'll get into the trial proceeding and see how each team of lawyers trying their best to diss out the opponent's witnesses and evidences. We'll be reminded on how we're so taken into the drama with this SP. Still love Sakai Masato as Mikado sensei here. Full of LOL moments and some cynical points on what happens with the current situation of both education system and how the current school is run. Definitely worth to check this one out, and if you haven't watched the drama, do watch it, I still vote it as 2012 best drama!
Not yet watch: Akuma Seishu SP ~ This is the SP to give hype to the movie Akuma no Kyouten where Itou Hideaki is almost naked at his own home most of the scene with cleverly covered on sensitive parts while making bloody massacre on the school festival. This SP is the prequel to the movie. I haven't watched this because I need to prepare my brain for such a stressful and twisted episode (only watch part of it and part of the movies too).
Spring 2013
And now we've come to Spring 2013 season where suddenly I have a sudden influx of drama to follow of watch. Love the variety given and my choices may not be the majority favorite, but this is because of my requirement of having ikemen in the drama LOL. The only situation where there's no ikemen in the drama is when I really like the drama based on the story and plot.
Doubles - Futari no Keiji ~ Lots of detective drama in this season and this is one of them. What's so apealing about this drama? Well, look at the poster, 2 big hunky ikemen detectives, half naked over the shower scene on every single episode... yeah this will definitely motivate lots of fangirls, and me included. But what's even more compelling? These 2 hunkies emphatize with the victims, which is why grandmas love this 2 guys. As always, when it comes to police themed drama in J-drama, we always have the annoying scene of who'll be responsible for xxx, the blaming game, office politics especially if the higher ups are involve in some criminal cases, the red tapes, etc. But I think this is again what makes the rebel become compelling to the audience. If you're looking for hardcore detective crime solving drama, I don't think this will satisfy you as the cases are not that very complicated and difficult. The focus here is more on how both detectives while use empathy, they also use logic to solve cases. I look at it as some sort of propaganda on behalf of Japanese police to give them better image.
Kasuka na Kanojo ~ I'll admit that I'm quite bias about this drama because of all the cuteness. Akane and Kamiyama chemistry are just cute, they're for each other despite Akane being a ghost, a naggy ghost in fact. Again, school drama means bullying and we have a fair share of this throughout the 11 long episodes, including the twist of who's bullying and being bullied. Kisumai tagging is still annoying, but at least he's playing the similarly annoying character and to top it off we also have the AKB48 tagging here. The students can be easily identified as Johnny's paradise (I like the chibi Aiba-look alike juniors though). Apart from the cuteness and reminders of how much school and education systems differ from say 1 or 2 decades ago, and this includes the horror of monster parents and how to deal with them, this drama offer you some angst as well. Off course, we have the super cool vice principal who can bite back all those ridiculous complains of those monster parents and that's a plus. Again, to remind us that as parents we also have to do our part in educating our children of what's good and bad, family values etc, things that will equip the children to go further than just maths, chemistry and social sciences. Apart for the very fun OST, JOY by SMAP, I like how they promote the song and drama in SMAPxSMAP. They do various kinds of different performance and choreographs, skits, and even the Oishii corner in Bistro SMAP.
Last Cinderella ~ We have the lovely Shinohara Ryoko playing as the unconventional heroinne as the late 30s lady who behaves like oji-san. Not really searching for love, suddenly a much younger partner appears in her life, too good to be true. In deed, to good to be true because the boy approached her for different reason, but this is drama yo! This boy soon drew to the heroinne's persona and what do you know, he's head over heels! Yey for the drama! On the other hand, we have the good friend, 40+ ikemen (one of my favorite ikemen, Fujiki Naohito) who never realizes of his own feelings until it's too late. Only for this drama I'm really thorn on which couple to ship and I've decided that for this time I'll be in rabu rabu mode not the realistic mode and go for the younger boy. After all if you watch the drama, you'll root for the boy. He does make the effort to change. If you're following lots of drama this season, this can be a fresh change in the midst of police and human drama.
Mayonaka no Panya-san ~Lovely fresh breads and Tackey is a recipe for a drama that I'd definitely follow. I even bother to make the caps (see here), but stopped because I saw subs and lately I have little time to do what I like LOL. I'd think this drama is slightly under-rated. The story is not as light as you might think and there are lots of questions and past to be revealed throughout the drama. And meanwhile you have the pleasing looking breads that you can smell from your living room LOL... And totally recommend this drama for the cuteness of papa (Kurebayashi) and mama (Hiroki).
Sennyu Tantei Tokage ~ Matsuda Shota has a new drama... Yey! Last year he's all in taiga drama, which I have no interest on, unless it's Okada (2014 taiga LOL). So this year he's back in the regular drama as undercover detective. Being a detective, it means that he can use whatever means to solve the case that the police cannot solve by themselves. There're lots of twists in this drama, especially after Epi 5, while it's a it slow on the first 2 episodes. Lots of familiar faces in this drama. Acting wise, not really as special, but I enjoy watching this drama because it's not at all heavy, though they try to present it as dark past on the incident 2 years ago from Tokage's part.
Take FIVE ~ Another police drama, or rather thieves drama. The focus here is on the 5 member group of thieves who steals in the name of love. The group is originally from 20 years ago whereby they failed on their last escapade and resulted in the death of a policeman. Since this is drama, the daughter of the deceased policeman continues her father's footstep and becomes a detective herself and chasing thieves is her job. One of the original member decided to revive the new Take FIVE team and started the new escapade. It's a fun drama to watch because they have lots of twists on who actually killed daddy 20 years ago with the side story of side thievery. You see a lower budgeted version of Italian Job (yeah, I only watch old Western movies) in this drama. As much as I'm a bit miffed that 2PM is the one singing OST, not SMAP, but I think the OST is fitting to the drama and it's a catchy song. Gimme gimme love...
Galileo 2 ~ It comes with the SP too, not only season 2. Fukuyama Masaharu is back as the henjin scientist Yukawa sensei, weird (just watch how he laughs at any not funny jokes and being amuse by himself) but still ikemen, hence his class, the boring class of science, is always full of female students. The partner this time is no longer the serious Utsumi, she's now Kishitani, the loud and oblivious to her surrounding character, which is more fun to watch, in my opinion. Galileo is always have the high rating because the case and science is interesting and complex, Fukuyama Masaharu is seriously popular in Japan, and it's Getsu9. I like to watch how Kishitani has to beg Yukawa sensei to help her by trying to be as persuasive as she can in presenting her case to get Yukawa sensei's interest and very often become subject of amusement of Yukawa sensei aka being bullied by Yukawa sensei.
Kazoku Game ~ And lastly, the drama that everybody watch except me. It's Sho's drama. I love the OST, Endless Game by Arashi. I know it's a good drama because I watched the first 2 episodes, but I haven't watched the rest of the episodes because the theme is very heavy. The level of bullying here is much more severe than the ones presented in Kasuka na Kanojo. And lately I need something light and entertaining and definitely less angst. But I do recommend this drama for appreciation of open discussion over family values, education systems, marital affairs and other possible discussion topics. Sho's acting? He's more hardcore here, no doubt, and we all need a DoS Sho-chan that we won't see in varieties. The 'ii nee' catch phrase is seriously creepy. And I will finish watching this drama, just not this near future.
Winter 2013
As usual, winter season is the season where I practically have almost nothing to watch. Always following the least amount of drama because the most common drama theme for this season are the gloomy and stressful ones. But for this season, maybe I'm too engross watching one and ignoring the rest of other 'possible good drama haha. So off course we start with:
Last Hope ~ Off course, this is the only drama that I practically watched this season. The reason? Well, it's the beloved Aiba-chan drama with the lovely OST, Calling by Arashi (productive boyband is productive), but on top of that the story is interesting, gets you want to know more despite the lack of subs around, ridiculously difficult medical terms, and the long discussions over the best possible treatment for the patient. It's definitely not the cheery drama, well, look at the poster, the boy trying very hard to look serious (no?) and put his best effort to act as pretty doctor with slightly twisted personality despite his pretty smile. And off course this pretty doctor is well supported by a strong cast team, ranging from pretty cute doctor, older ikemen doctor, to the oji-san doctor who only has his mind on research and cloning his deceased son. And off course, not to left out, each episode is accompanied with the unique deserts made specially for the drama. For full drama caps (yeah, this shows how much I love this drama LOL), click here and enjoy the prettiness and very detailed OP scenes. The only downside for this drama is that the drama is so detailed in their medical cases & terminology that I think people who loves medical drama (example: me!), are in medical field profession will appreciate this drama more than common audience.
Share House no Koibito ~ No, it's not because I'm an Aiba-Asami shipper. I swear! It's just happen that I like the theme of this drama, and it is an enjoyable drama despite of the low rating that leads to the 'rumour' (we just love the gossip over the boye, eh?). Well, I can't say I adore Asami's acting, but I love both Oizumi and Tanihara's so this drama is in my list. And off course having the cute-transforming-to-ikemen Nakajima Yuto helps a lot in ensuring that I'm watching this drama. The story itself is revolving of having house mates, just that the house mates are rather peculiar characters, between the extra cheery, extra nice guy who's claiming to be an alien including singing the love song in the weirdest language and the literally weird, selfish guy who gradually open up to people and turn out that he's not that a jackass. Then, the play house situation is getting complicated with all the emotion etc and off course, being the alien added extra spice. I still don't understand why this drama rating is so low because the overall drama is not boring to watch, rather slow in the beginning, yes, but not boring. Well, don't let the rating be your guide in picking your drama, just go for what you think you'll watch ne?
Dinner ~ I almost dropped this drama because well, I thought it's just another food drama and not that many ikemen too. I like Yusuke Santamaria, though. What makes me ended up finishing this drama then? Well, I'd think this drama is almost like a reminder of how you have to be innovative to strive for the better taste and off course maintain the quality that of professional chef and the more pressure you have if you're a 3 star Michelin restaurant. However, you must not forget that good food is also accompanied with good service, good company, and only then accompany with fantastic food, you'll have happy and returning customers. Acting wise? I think I like this drama because the cast team works well together, they have the good chemistry and the characters are enjoyable to watch, despite them having different personalities, even the annoying, loud and obnoxious personality. And this bunch of chefs are lead by the head chef who cares more about being told that his cooking is good than being told I love you. A fun drama to watch overall, but make sure that you've eaten or are eating something when you watch this drama, else... you know what comes next, and don't tell me that you've not be warned.
And now we have the SPs and yes, I watched LOTS of SPs this time...
Cheap Flight ~ To be honest, I almost didn't recognize Takeuchi Yuko in the picture. She looks so different from her Strawberry Night image and I got used to it already. And in deed, she played a totally different character here. Off course next is we have Mukai Osamu, off course, and in here, his character is rather annoying and asking us to smack him for bullying Miharu. In here we see the conflict of what makes up a low cost carrier (LCC) airline. We have Miharu, who's so used to in being the high flyer airlines where service and customer wish are priority, having the culture shock of being LCC stewardess where she cannot even help customer to lift up the luggage to the upper cabin space because it's 'extra service' in LCC. And we also meet the other stewardesses who with various reasons ended up in the team and with people so many different backgrounds pulling themselves to become a team.
Rich Man Poor Woman in New York ~ If you love the drama, off course, you'll watch the SP too. We continue what we're left of from the drama. The production team knows that we're very curious to how this odd couple continue their long distance relationship and will they end up together, and yes, we're very curious and we have the answer. So, Hyuga is still having relationship with Makoto and where's the proposal? Instead of all the romantic moments, we have the most unbearable boyfriend in real life situation whereby: 1. He has weird taste in furniture, resulting with a house with minimal furniture and because of that you as the girlfriend have to sleep in a sleeping bag 2. He doesn't like his kitchen to be dirty, which means kitchen is not for cooking in his dictionary 3. He must use brown towel in his bathroom, same shape and everything. And off course, he has the most peculiarly obnoxious personality. So, can you manage to stay in the relationship when your partner has all those traits? Yes, if you're in a drama and you're Natsui Makoto. Off course you have all the cuteness and definitely a happy end because well, this is the sequel of a Getsu9 and Hyuga Toru can be very kakkoii and gentleman when the drama tells him to be. Must watch? Off course.
Kindaichi Shonen no Jikenbo Hong Kong Kowloon Zaiho Satsujin Jiken ~ Oh the long title. Every now and then, we have Kindaichi special with Johnny's boy as the Kindaichi. We had Matsujun, Domoto Tsuyoshi before and now we have Yamada Ryosuke as one. So, tradition continues and this time they take it another notch and using Hong Kong as location. They even get Eric Tsang to be part of the cast. How cool was that. The story? Well, typical Kindaichi mystery solving case with who's the killer and everybody's a suspect at one point. I like Yamada's acting in Risou no Musuko and can't say that I dislike him here either. It's a so so drama to me but from entertainment perspective, this drama offer some laughter and a bit of brain exercise. This drama sort of reminds me that the target audience is fans, not general public, just that Kindaichi manga is that famous that the drama franchise is almost guaranteed to be recognized.
Ataru SP ~ Last year I excitedly watched the drama so this SP is a given and to note that there'll be a movie this year as well, adds up to the excitement. Ataru, again is back in Tokyo and solving the crime indirectly by just appearing out of nowhere as usual. And we get to know more about Ataru's family, including his little brother. Still miffed with the Kisumai tagging wherever SMAP is the main lead, but Nakai's acting made up for it. And for the SP and next to movie, we have Madoka, Ataru's equal but apparently has fallen to the dark side. I didn't recognize Horikita Maki as Madoka until my friend pointed out that it's Maki because he loves his cute girls as much as I like ikemen in my drama.
Legal High ~ Who's missing this cheesy poster of crazy and obnoxious lawyer with his partner, the righteous morning drama heroinne rookie lawer? Me! Me! And we have the answer, we're getting second season (yey!) and a special this year! This time the case is on bullying because it's the hot topic in Japan for the past couple of months, and as a result we'll see that Spring 2013 season is all about bullying when we have a school setting. So, we have the client of a boy as a victim of bullying and our fave Komikado sensei will fight to the end to get compensation for his client. We'll get into the trial proceeding and see how each team of lawyers trying their best to diss out the opponent's witnesses and evidences. We'll be reminded on how we're so taken into the drama with this SP. Still love Sakai Masato as Mikado sensei here. Full of LOL moments and some cynical points on what happens with the current situation of both education system and how the current school is run. Definitely worth to check this one out, and if you haven't watched the drama, do watch it, I still vote it as 2012 best drama!
Not yet watch: Akuma Seishu SP ~ This is the SP to give hype to the movie Akuma no Kyouten where Itou Hideaki is almost naked at his own home most of the scene with cleverly covered on sensitive parts while making bloody massacre on the school festival. This SP is the prequel to the movie. I haven't watched this because I need to prepare my brain for such a stressful and twisted episode (only watch part of it and part of the movies too).
Spring 2013
And now we've come to Spring 2013 season where suddenly I have a sudden influx of drama to follow of watch. Love the variety given and my choices may not be the majority favorite, but this is because of my requirement of having ikemen in the drama LOL. The only situation where there's no ikemen in the drama is when I really like the drama based on the story and plot.
Doubles - Futari no Keiji ~ Lots of detective drama in this season and this is one of them. What's so apealing about this drama? Well, look at the poster, 2 big hunky ikemen detectives, half naked over the shower scene on every single episode... yeah this will definitely motivate lots of fangirls, and me included. But what's even more compelling? These 2 hunkies emphatize with the victims, which is why grandmas love this 2 guys. As always, when it comes to police themed drama in J-drama, we always have the annoying scene of who'll be responsible for xxx, the blaming game, office politics especially if the higher ups are involve in some criminal cases, the red tapes, etc. But I think this is again what makes the rebel become compelling to the audience. If you're looking for hardcore detective crime solving drama, I don't think this will satisfy you as the cases are not that very complicated and difficult. The focus here is more on how both detectives while use empathy, they also use logic to solve cases. I look at it as some sort of propaganda on behalf of Japanese police to give them better image.
Kasuka na Kanojo ~ I'll admit that I'm quite bias about this drama because of all the cuteness. Akane and Kamiyama chemistry are just cute, they're for each other despite Akane being a ghost, a naggy ghost in fact. Again, school drama means bullying and we have a fair share of this throughout the 11 long episodes, including the twist of who's bullying and being bullied. Kisumai tagging is still annoying, but at least he's playing the similarly annoying character and to top it off we also have the AKB48 tagging here. The students can be easily identified as Johnny's paradise (I like the chibi Aiba-look alike juniors though). Apart from the cuteness and reminders of how much school and education systems differ from say 1 or 2 decades ago, and this includes the horror of monster parents and how to deal with them, this drama offer you some angst as well. Off course, we have the super cool vice principal who can bite back all those ridiculous complains of those monster parents and that's a plus. Again, to remind us that as parents we also have to do our part in educating our children of what's good and bad, family values etc, things that will equip the children to go further than just maths, chemistry and social sciences. Apart for the very fun OST, JOY by SMAP, I like how they promote the song and drama in SMAPxSMAP. They do various kinds of different performance and choreographs, skits, and even the Oishii corner in Bistro SMAP.
Last Cinderella ~ We have the lovely Shinohara Ryoko playing as the unconventional heroinne as the late 30s lady who behaves like oji-san. Not really searching for love, suddenly a much younger partner appears in her life, too good to be true. In deed, to good to be true because the boy approached her for different reason, but this is drama yo! This boy soon drew to the heroinne's persona and what do you know, he's head over heels! Yey for the drama! On the other hand, we have the good friend, 40+ ikemen (one of my favorite ikemen, Fujiki Naohito) who never realizes of his own feelings until it's too late. Only for this drama I'm really thorn on which couple to ship and I've decided that for this time I'll be in rabu rabu mode not the realistic mode and go for the younger boy. After all if you watch the drama, you'll root for the boy. He does make the effort to change. If you're following lots of drama this season, this can be a fresh change in the midst of police and human drama.
Mayonaka no Panya-san ~Lovely fresh breads and Tackey is a recipe for a drama that I'd definitely follow. I even bother to make the caps (see here), but stopped because I saw subs and lately I have little time to do what I like LOL. I'd think this drama is slightly under-rated. The story is not as light as you might think and there are lots of questions and past to be revealed throughout the drama. And meanwhile you have the pleasing looking breads that you can smell from your living room LOL... And totally recommend this drama for the cuteness of papa (Kurebayashi) and mama (Hiroki).
Sennyu Tantei Tokage ~ Matsuda Shota has a new drama... Yey! Last year he's all in taiga drama, which I have no interest on, unless it's Okada (2014 taiga LOL). So this year he's back in the regular drama as undercover detective. Being a detective, it means that he can use whatever means to solve the case that the police cannot solve by themselves. There're lots of twists in this drama, especially after Epi 5, while it's a it slow on the first 2 episodes. Lots of familiar faces in this drama. Acting wise, not really as special, but I enjoy watching this drama because it's not at all heavy, though they try to present it as dark past on the incident 2 years ago from Tokage's part.
Take FIVE ~ Another police drama, or rather thieves drama. The focus here is on the 5 member group of thieves who steals in the name of love. The group is originally from 20 years ago whereby they failed on their last escapade and resulted in the death of a policeman. Since this is drama, the daughter of the deceased policeman continues her father's footstep and becomes a detective herself and chasing thieves is her job. One of the original member decided to revive the new Take FIVE team and started the new escapade. It's a fun drama to watch because they have lots of twists on who actually killed daddy 20 years ago with the side story of side thievery. You see a lower budgeted version of Italian Job (yeah, I only watch old Western movies) in this drama. As much as I'm a bit miffed that 2PM is the one singing OST, not SMAP, but I think the OST is fitting to the drama and it's a catchy song. Gimme gimme love...
Galileo 2 ~ It comes with the SP too, not only season 2. Fukuyama Masaharu is back as the henjin scientist Yukawa sensei, weird (just watch how he laughs at any not funny jokes and being amuse by himself) but still ikemen, hence his class, the boring class of science, is always full of female students. The partner this time is no longer the serious Utsumi, she's now Kishitani, the loud and oblivious to her surrounding character, which is more fun to watch, in my opinion. Galileo is always have the high rating because the case and science is interesting and complex, Fukuyama Masaharu is seriously popular in Japan, and it's Getsu9. I like to watch how Kishitani has to beg Yukawa sensei to help her by trying to be as persuasive as she can in presenting her case to get Yukawa sensei's interest and very often become subject of amusement of Yukawa sensei aka being bullied by Yukawa sensei.
Kazoku Game ~ And lastly, the drama that everybody watch except me. It's Sho's drama. I love the OST, Endless Game by Arashi. I know it's a good drama because I watched the first 2 episodes, but I haven't watched the rest of the episodes because the theme is very heavy. The level of bullying here is much more severe than the ones presented in Kasuka na Kanojo. And lately I need something light and entertaining and definitely less angst. But I do recommend this drama for appreciation of open discussion over family values, education systems, marital affairs and other possible discussion topics. Sho's acting? He's more hardcore here, no doubt, and we all need a DoS Sho-chan that we won't see in varieties. The 'ii nee' catch phrase is seriously creepy. And I will finish watching this drama, just not this near future.