Crush Of The Day: Yoshitaka Yuriko

Or: A New Fave: Ashita No Kita Yoshio part II

A while ago my friend Car offhandedly mentioned to me that my current fave actress at the time, Ayase Haruka, had just been bumped out of the number one spot of beloved actresses in the popularity polls.

The “new Number One” as it were seemed to be a new actress I hadn’t heard of before. Her name was Yuriko Yoshitaka, and though she appeared in “Atsuhime” (a drama I’d watched and loved), It wasn’t until the drama “Love Shuffle” started that I really registered a face with the name!

Well…my first impressions of Yuriko at this point were OK at best. I mean, I liked her and she seemed pretty, but to be fair, the girl Yuriko was playing didn’t give her too much of an opportunity to shine, as her character Hayakawa was manic depressive and spent most of the show looking morose, being bored, and remaining utterly silent! 

But it wasn’t until I started watching Ashita No Kita Yoshio that I finally saw how dazzling she could be!

As Kita Yoshio makes his journey through his last days, he mentions that one of the things he wanted to do was see Yoimachi Shinobu, a j-pop idol/singer whom he’d met years ago and had been taken in by how sweet she was...

When he finally DOES meet up with her again, he is shocked by her change- she isn’t ANYTHING like the sweet innocent idol he’d met before, but rather, a high-maintenance, spoiled, and surly girl with a HUGE chip on her shoulder. It is only after she senses how good-natured and naïve he is that she opens up to him. And it is HERE that she fully lets loose on the CUTE-o-meter!

Ditsy and energetic, she proceeds to turn Yoshio’s life upside down by teasing him, lying to him, stealing his things, getting him into trouble, and then making it all better with a cuddle and a smile! She pretends to be in trouble to make him rush to her side, runs away from him if he even HINTS that she’s not important, and in one of the more exciting turns, calls up her manager and tells her she’s been KIDNAPPED when she’s on a trip with Yoshio! Then when Yoshio gets a call, before he can explain the situation, Shinobu steals the phone out of his hands, and with peals of giggles, runs away! This chick is just the sassiest and naughtiest troublemaker ever!

I’m watching all of this unfold, and I’m completely won over by Yoshitaka! It’s like, Oh My God, I get it, I get it, Oh My God, this girl is so damn frickin' adorable holy crap this girl is just oozing sexual energy, I get it now, holy CRAP! Etcetera, Etcetera…

Every night that Shinobu visits the befuddled Yoshio, she lets him give her a foot massage, coyly saying, “I’ll give you a treat, and let you do this for me”, in reality, though, It’s completely narcissistic. Deep inside, she is insecure and desperate to be loved, when she offers her feet for Yoshio to massage, on the surface she is doing him a favor, but during the massage, she constantly asks, “Are you happy that I let you do this?” showing how important it is for her to be appreciated by someone.

When she first proposes the foot massage, she sprawls out on the bed and brings out a tube of lipstick. She proceeds to draw lines across her calves- she tells him, “this is the line you can’t go above”, very saucy! Though he should be thrilled, he has other things on his mind, and doesn’t get into it. The massages become a ritual for them, however, and after a long, crazy trip together, she goes “all the way”, or at least metaphorically speaking, when she tells him he can mark the lines on her legs anywhere he wants, offering to mark it high, higher, highest…! DAMN!

Folks, I was completely unprepared for this onslaught of cute and sexy…Yuriko isn’t even pictured in the promotional pics for the show and I thought she’d be a minor character at best, little did I know she’d just about STEAL THE SHOW for me! Whenever she’s onscreen, she is so cute, I can barely stand it!

Up next for me on my Yuriko-watching schedule is the VERY interesting-looking Hiroshi Abe drama SHIROI HARU, and I can’t wait to see just what kind of character Yuriko comes up with next!