'Kurosagi,' series comments continued
I wrote so many notes in my paper journal while I was on the airplane, so I will try to sum them up here as I continue and finish my review.
| Part 1|
From a purely shallow perspective, YamaPi is HOT in Kurosagi - the haircut (he looks soooo good with the dark, dark hair), the clothes, the walk...it is such an improvement on the adorkable Akira in Nobuta wo Produce who was loveable but had no sex appeal whatsoever (to me at least). The role and the format of Kurosagi is nice in that it allows the actor to be a chameleon and the episodes can be quite dynamic - it can also be quite formulaic. The things that prevent the drama from becoming boring in the the formulaic episodic approach are the arc elements that progress from one episode to the next: the slow exposition of the relationship between Kurosaki and the old man Katsuragi and the evolving relationship between Kurosaki and Tsurara.
As the series progresses we learn that Kurosaki is not the only one whose life has been destroyed because of Katsuragi - the young woman who stays with him as his assistant was directly affected by Katsuragi's poisonous influence as he led to her family's demise. As the policeman Kashima later says, the children of men who were ruined by Katsuragi seem to congregate around him for reasons that are not entirely clear.
In Kurosaki's case, he wants to use the old man in any way that he can to accomplish his mission. He realizes that this can only continue as long as the old man is still interested in him, and that as soon as the old man is bored, his source will dry up and he will be left on his own. For a young man who has cut himself off from all human connection and relationships, his relationship with Katsuragi is one of the most vital connections he has with being alive, because at this point in his life, his only reason for living is to take revenge and destroy swindlers. Without that, he has nothing, and without Katsuragi, he would be really stuck. Sure, he might find other sources, but he knows that Katsuragi is really the best and most direct route to gain satisfaction in the destruction of Shirosagi. Until Kurosaki meets Tsurara, Katsuragi is the most important living person in Kursosaki's life. He likes to think that he is only using Katsuragi for his own purposes and that as soon as Katsuragi is no longer useful to him, that he will kill him (as he has apparently threatened, according to Katsuragi) but Katsuragi knows that will never happen because Kurosaki needs him too much, and Katsuragi allows Kurosaki only so much rope to carry out his swindles - everything Kurosaki accomplishes is at Katsuragi's sufferance. Katsuragi is more powerful than Kurosaki or anyone else can imagine, and Katsuragi's interest in Kurosaki seems to be rather random - "Humans are interesting" he says at one point by way of explanation for why he keeps Kurosaki close to him. Kurosaki is safe only as long as Katsuragi continues to find him interesting.
From a production standpoint, the direction of the drama is wonderful - I love how it is edited, I love the music, and I love Yamapi's acting.
Pi's face is even more subtle than his Akira in Nobuta wo Produce, and he emotes so beautifully and heartbreakingly. He possesses a rather unearthly beauty - I could endlessly stare at him angsting because he does it so perfectly. I'm so impressed with his acting - he has created a character every bit as idiosyncratic and loveable as Akira (Nobuta wo Produce), but in a thoroughly grown-up way. His mannerisms are lovely - I find it amazing that he can be so suave and confident while on the grift, but as soon as he stops acting, he's just a guy who loves his cat, is clumsy and continually bumps into, trips over and drops things and has an untidy apartment - he is refreshingly normal. Dark, but normal. ;) His deadpan is fantastic for all that it tells us about him - that he is essentially dead inside - completely emotionally stunted. He has thrown his considerable intelligence into mastering whatever is required for the grift, and he has nothing else left for managing the rest of his life - probably because he doesn't think he needs to.
One one hand he is a guy who is emotionally trapped at fourteen, and his reaction to meeting his old friend Satoshi (played by fellows NewS bandmate, Koyama) in episode two is proof that he isn't entirely cut off from his emotions. Satoshi's frank display of emotion when he first discovers Kurosaki (he cries) is probably very shocking for Kurosaki. Satoshi is able to evoke memories in Kurosaki that he'd probably thought were long dead and buried, and finally, in Satoshi, Kurosaki has a living link with his past.
Satoshi and Kurosaki meet for the first time in six years (above) and Kurosaki remembers Satoshi from school (below)
Aren't their smiles lovely?
The pic on the right is the closest Kurosaki comes to smiling...
So when he finds out from Katsuragi that his childhood friend is also a swindler, this kills whatever hope in their friendship and shared past that may have bloomed for Kurosaki. (it also underlines how perverse Katsuragi is that he would force Kurosaki to choose to target Satoshi and his sister - he wants to see how far Kurosaki's vengeance will take him - if he is capable of destroying even a childhood friend)
He is horrified to find out that Satoshi is a marriage swindler.
Kurosaki and Satoshi have their final confrontation as Satoshi is being taken by the police. Satoshi wants to know why Kurosaki destroyed him. Kurosaki tells him it was because he did not want him to become a swindler. He would rather destroy his old friend than see him continue as the thing that he hates more than anything else in the world.
Kurosaki is so dark - he is so cynical and he supposedly doesn't care about anything except vengeance and putting swindlers out of business. He exists solely on the trade level. He doesn't do anything for nothing. He's not a modern-day Robin Hood at all. There is nothing benevolent or generous about him. Kurosaki deals in information, pure and simple. He listens to people in trouble, not for their sake, but simply to further his mission. His fee for the information they "sell" him is usually the amount they were swindled of, and he makes it clear that he is simply paying them for the information they provide on the Shirosagi he has targeted. He wants it to be very clear that he is not helping them, the victims of the Shirosagi. He doesn't care about them as individuals - he's not happy for them when he succeeds in destroying the opponent - he is only happy that he did it and eliminated another bad guy.
I would say that all this is true until he meets Tsurara. He has made it this far for six years by cutting himself off from his humanity and from all other people. His detachment has allowed him to survive horrific emotional trauma and allowed his anger and hatred of Shirosagi to fuel his existence - he lives only to take them down.
I love Kurosaki's outfit here as he goes to meet Satoshi's sister, and Tsurara discovers that Kurosaki is her landlord and next-door neighbor.
The end of episode 2 is surprising and heartbreaking. I really love the conflict between Tsurara and Kurosaki. It wouldn't be the same without her nagging that runs throughout the drama - Kurosaki needs for her to keep bugging him. She represents his strongest link to humanity, to reminding him that there is more to life than vengeance. While I realize that some people find her annoying, I never did. I am glad that she doesn't back down off him - that she's confident in her convictions and that she cares enough about him to tell him over and over again that he needs to re-examine what it is he is doing.
Tsurara brings up his family and he can't help but flash back onto his own personal trauma with which he lives constantly. And we get this:
Isn't he gorgeous? Doesn't he just make you want to cuddle him and make it all better? :)
Clearly, Tsurara is surprised to find that he's not a cyborg - that he really does have feelings. But even that doesn't make her back down.
What does all this mean for Kurosaki? He realizes at the end of episode 2 that Tsurara is dangerous for him. He knows that she is getting to him (despite his best efforts to be indifferent), and he can't afford to have her around, reminding him of his humanity, pulling him back from the dangerous edge that he walks every day. So Kurosaki very nicely asks her to move out. And when she presses him further, his next words underline his desperation to avoid everything that she makes him feel: "Get out immediately."
Whoa. If that's doesn't show him wearing his feelings too plainly, I don't know what does.
More later...sorry it's taking me so long to finish reviewing the drama!
| Part 1|
From a purely shallow perspective, YamaPi is HOT in Kurosagi - the haircut (he looks soooo good with the dark, dark hair), the clothes, the walk...it is such an improvement on the adorkable Akira in Nobuta wo Produce who was loveable but had no sex appeal whatsoever (to me at least). The role and the format of Kurosagi is nice in that it allows the actor to be a chameleon and the episodes can be quite dynamic - it can also be quite formulaic. The things that prevent the drama from becoming boring in the the formulaic episodic approach are the arc elements that progress from one episode to the next: the slow exposition of the relationship between Kurosaki and the old man Katsuragi and the evolving relationship between Kurosaki and Tsurara.
As the series progresses we learn that Kurosaki is not the only one whose life has been destroyed because of Katsuragi - the young woman who stays with him as his assistant was directly affected by Katsuragi's poisonous influence as he led to her family's demise. As the policeman Kashima later says, the children of men who were ruined by Katsuragi seem to congregate around him for reasons that are not entirely clear.
In Kurosaki's case, he wants to use the old man in any way that he can to accomplish his mission. He realizes that this can only continue as long as the old man is still interested in him, and that as soon as the old man is bored, his source will dry up and he will be left on his own. For a young man who has cut himself off from all human connection and relationships, his relationship with Katsuragi is one of the most vital connections he has with being alive, because at this point in his life, his only reason for living is to take revenge and destroy swindlers. Without that, he has nothing, and without Katsuragi, he would be really stuck. Sure, he might find other sources, but he knows that Katsuragi is really the best and most direct route to gain satisfaction in the destruction of Shirosagi. Until Kurosaki meets Tsurara, Katsuragi is the most important living person in Kursosaki's life. He likes to think that he is only using Katsuragi for his own purposes and that as soon as Katsuragi is no longer useful to him, that he will kill him (as he has apparently threatened, according to Katsuragi) but Katsuragi knows that will never happen because Kurosaki needs him too much, and Katsuragi allows Kurosaki only so much rope to carry out his swindles - everything Kurosaki accomplishes is at Katsuragi's sufferance. Katsuragi is more powerful than Kurosaki or anyone else can imagine, and Katsuragi's interest in Kurosaki seems to be rather random - "Humans are interesting" he says at one point by way of explanation for why he keeps Kurosaki close to him. Kurosaki is safe only as long as Katsuragi continues to find him interesting.
From a production standpoint, the direction of the drama is wonderful - I love how it is edited, I love the music, and I love Yamapi's acting.
Pi's face is even more subtle than his Akira in Nobuta wo Produce, and he emotes so beautifully and heartbreakingly. He possesses a rather unearthly beauty - I could endlessly stare at him angsting because he does it so perfectly. I'm so impressed with his acting - he has created a character every bit as idiosyncratic and loveable as Akira (Nobuta wo Produce), but in a thoroughly grown-up way. His mannerisms are lovely - I find it amazing that he can be so suave and confident while on the grift, but as soon as he stops acting, he's just a guy who loves his cat, is clumsy and continually bumps into, trips over and drops things and has an untidy apartment - he is refreshingly normal. Dark, but normal. ;) His deadpan is fantastic for all that it tells us about him - that he is essentially dead inside - completely emotionally stunted. He has thrown his considerable intelligence into mastering whatever is required for the grift, and he has nothing else left for managing the rest of his life - probably because he doesn't think he needs to.
One one hand he is a guy who is emotionally trapped at fourteen, and his reaction to meeting his old friend Satoshi (played by fellows NewS bandmate, Koyama) in episode two is proof that he isn't entirely cut off from his emotions. Satoshi's frank display of emotion when he first discovers Kurosaki (he cries) is probably very shocking for Kurosaki. Satoshi is able to evoke memories in Kurosaki that he'd probably thought were long dead and buried, and finally, in Satoshi, Kurosaki has a living link with his past.
Satoshi and Kurosaki meet for the first time in six years (above) and Kurosaki remembers Satoshi from school (below)
Aren't their smiles lovely?
The pic on the right is the closest Kurosaki comes to smiling...
So when he finds out from Katsuragi that his childhood friend is also a swindler, this kills whatever hope in their friendship and shared past that may have bloomed for Kurosaki. (it also underlines how perverse Katsuragi is that he would force Kurosaki to choose to target Satoshi and his sister - he wants to see how far Kurosaki's vengeance will take him - if he is capable of destroying even a childhood friend)
He is horrified to find out that Satoshi is a marriage swindler.
Kurosaki and Satoshi have their final confrontation as Satoshi is being taken by the police. Satoshi wants to know why Kurosaki destroyed him. Kurosaki tells him it was because he did not want him to become a swindler. He would rather destroy his old friend than see him continue as the thing that he hates more than anything else in the world.
Kurosaki is so dark - he is so cynical and he supposedly doesn't care about anything except vengeance and putting swindlers out of business. He exists solely on the trade level. He doesn't do anything for nothing. He's not a modern-day Robin Hood at all. There is nothing benevolent or generous about him. Kurosaki deals in information, pure and simple. He listens to people in trouble, not for their sake, but simply to further his mission. His fee for the information they "sell" him is usually the amount they were swindled of, and he makes it clear that he is simply paying them for the information they provide on the Shirosagi he has targeted. He wants it to be very clear that he is not helping them, the victims of the Shirosagi. He doesn't care about them as individuals - he's not happy for them when he succeeds in destroying the opponent - he is only happy that he did it and eliminated another bad guy.
I would say that all this is true until he meets Tsurara. He has made it this far for six years by cutting himself off from his humanity and from all other people. His detachment has allowed him to survive horrific emotional trauma and allowed his anger and hatred of Shirosagi to fuel his existence - he lives only to take them down.
I love Kurosaki's outfit here as he goes to meet Satoshi's sister, and Tsurara discovers that Kurosaki is her landlord and next-door neighbor.
The end of episode 2 is surprising and heartbreaking. I really love the conflict between Tsurara and Kurosaki. It wouldn't be the same without her nagging that runs throughout the drama - Kurosaki needs for her to keep bugging him. She represents his strongest link to humanity, to reminding him that there is more to life than vengeance. While I realize that some people find her annoying, I never did. I am glad that she doesn't back down off him - that she's confident in her convictions and that she cares enough about him to tell him over and over again that he needs to re-examine what it is he is doing.
Tsurara brings up his family and he can't help but flash back onto his own personal trauma with which he lives constantly. And we get this:
Isn't he gorgeous? Doesn't he just make you want to cuddle him and make it all better? :)
Clearly, Tsurara is surprised to find that he's not a cyborg - that he really does have feelings. But even that doesn't make her back down.
What does all this mean for Kurosaki? He realizes at the end of episode 2 that Tsurara is dangerous for him. He knows that she is getting to him (despite his best efforts to be indifferent), and he can't afford to have her around, reminding him of his humanity, pulling him back from the dangerous edge that he walks every day. So Kurosaki very nicely asks her to move out. And when she presses him further, his next words underline his desperation to avoid everything that she makes him feel: "Get out immediately."
Whoa. If that's doesn't show him wearing his feelings too plainly, I don't know what does.
More later...sorry it's taking me so long to finish reviewing the drama!