Brief summer drama thoughts, a small picspam, random
My obsessive LJ organization strikes again:
oo1. I made a summer jdrama list (f-locked), just like the spring drama post I made before. It's so much easier to keep track of the dramas I want to watch when everything is in one nice, neat place.
oo2. I finally made a Picspam Index.
Makoto's laser stare.
Pretty Hotaru
Makoto unexpectedly kisses Hotaru when she falls asleep in a chair he designed.
Makoto's smouldering stare again.
Takano trying to be nice and failing miserably. Grrrr!
Random
- This morning on the train I nearly finished Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, having read somewhere into "The White Tomb." I never cried when Dumbledore died any of the times that I've read the book, but I always seem to get teary in the aftermath. Today, the tearjerker was Fleur fiercely proclaiming her devotion to Bill, and then McGonagall telling Remus that "Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world." *sob* I was hard-pressed not to outright burst into tears at that point, which would have been unfortunate considering I was on a crowded metro train. Why do I always forget to save such affecting passages for the privacy of home?
- I updated my fanfiction index with a Tatta Hitotsu no Koi fic I wrote for kitsune714's birthday - I realized after the fact that I didn't properly post the notice, so if you're interested (and if you haven't already seen it, obviously), you can check there.
- People can be so wonderful and generous. I have a turtle planter on my desk at work, and since my last plant died, it has been empty for several months. When I came in this morning, I discovered that someone had left me the sweetest little swedish ivy plant in my turtle, so my turtle is alive again! *so happy*
oo1. I made a summer jdrama list (f-locked), just like the spring drama post I made before. It's so much easier to keep track of the dramas I want to watch when everything is in one nice, neat place.
oo2. I finally made a Picspam Index.
- Hanazakari no Kimitachi e - This seems to be the season's most anticipated drama, so everyone knows the plot already: A Japanese teenager in the U.S. (Horikita Maki) sees a high school high jumper (Oguri Shun) compete and she is so moved by his talent that when he is injured and gives up the sport, she moves back to Japan and manages to disguise herself as a boy and enroll in the boys' school Sano attends in order to convince him to return to high jumping once more. Hijinks punctuated by meaningful moments ensue.
I like it. I've seen the first two episodes, and I consider it to be mostly-fluffy fun. I really like Horikita Maki and big surprise, I really like Ikuta Toma's performance as Nakatsu. He's easily my favorite male character thus far, and not really for the cute factor, but more because I just find him interesting and that goes much farther. Of course, I haven't read the manga nor have I seen any other dramatization of the manga, so I have no points of comparison - which may explain why I'm enjoying it thus far and why episode 2 made me laugh so uproariously. It's not especially deep, but for light summery fun, this works.
- Papa to Musume no Nanokakan - I also like it, although at first glance it's a bit creepy.
The plot: A somewhat estranged father (Tachi Hiroshi) and daughter (Aragaki Yui) switch bodies. I think it has a lot of potential considering the observations such a drama can make on the divide between both age and gender and everything associated with those two things, and I think the actors might be able to pull this off. I've only watched the first episode, and the ramifications of the body switch are already apparent: for example, Koume, now trapped in her father's body, insists that he bathes blindfolded so that he won't see her naked. But what this means for us as the viewer is that we see Koume in her father's body bathing her blindfolded teenaged body that houses her father. *shudders* I honestly don't know if that's worse than seeing her slightly-drunken mother cuddling up to Koume in bed at night and Koume worrying that her first time having sex might be with her mother!
But the meaningful moments balance against the bizarre and creepy as both Koume and her father, Kyoichiro, begin to understand things about each other and are forced to work together in order to hide their body switch from everyone.
Kato Shigeaki isn't in the first episode much, but what we see of him is pleasant enough. They can just go on filming him running in slow motion for the rest of the drama if they want. Yes. I would have no problems with that at all. ;)
- Hotaru no Hikari - One episode in, this is my favorite so far - it's the one that I wasn't idly distracted from, the one that left me longing for the next episode as soon as the credits began to roll. Why? Because I couldn't take my eyes of Ayase.
This office drama follows Amemiya Hotaru (Ayase Haruka) who is an efficient, exemplary office lady - but when she's at home, she's a bit of a slob who enjoys her personal time and space and makes the most of it. In her philosophy, her casual, laid-back lifestyle helps her to be the best employee she can be. But to others, she's considered a washed-up, unnatural twenty-something, because she's given up on making herself attractive outside of work and going out on group dates, etc. in order to attract a man.
Her peaceful life changes when two things happen. First, her boss, Takano Seiichi (Fujiki Naohito), moves in with her unexpectedly (his parents own the house she rents) which completely upsets her home life. AND she falls for a new guy at work, Teshima Makoto (Kato Kazuki). Suddenly she's living with a neat freak who wants to evict her and she begins to feel the stark difference between herself and all the girls who try hard to make themselves attractive to men.
I really love Ayase in this role - she's cute and bright and sunny, but when she's down, she looks like a kicked puppy with bruised eyes and I just want to hug her. I love her self-confidence and I hate to see it broken - and I want to smack Fujiki Naohito for some of the awful things he says to her.
In any case, I'm looking forward to the next episode. :)
Makoto's laser stare.
Pretty Hotaru
Makoto unexpectedly kisses Hotaru when she falls asleep in a chair he designed.
Makoto's smouldering stare again.
Takano trying to be nice and failing miserably. Grrrr!
Random
- This morning on the train I nearly finished Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, having read somewhere into "The White Tomb." I never cried when Dumbledore died any of the times that I've read the book, but I always seem to get teary in the aftermath. Today, the tearjerker was Fleur fiercely proclaiming her devotion to Bill, and then McGonagall telling Remus that "Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world." *sob* I was hard-pressed not to outright burst into tears at that point, which would have been unfortunate considering I was on a crowded metro train. Why do I always forget to save such affecting passages for the privacy of home?
- I updated my fanfiction index with a Tatta Hitotsu no Koi fic I wrote for kitsune714's birthday - I realized after the fact that I didn't properly post the notice, so if you're interested (and if you haven't already seen it, obviously), you can check there.
- People can be so wonderful and generous. I have a turtle planter on my desk at work, and since my last plant died, it has been empty for several months. When I came in this morning, I discovered that someone had left me the sweetest little swedish ivy plant in my turtle, so my turtle is alive again! *so happy*