What if you found you could only have sex seven more times in your life? That’s the dilemma facing Mutsuki “Muu-chan” Tomoya in the comedy drama CUPID NO ITAZURA when he finds he’s afflicted with an illness that gives him just seven times left to “get it up” whereupon his equipment will cease to perform forever after!
Mutsuki (Takahashi Ryosuke) first becomes aware of his sickness when he’s “self gratifying” himself, and to his horror, a purple ball shoots out! He doesn’t know what to make of it, but when he goes to see a doctor, played by the cool and uber-sexy Kawashima Naomi (whom I had a MAD luv-on for back in THE CHEF), he finds that he is afflicted with a disease called RAINBOW BALLS and will shoot out six more different colored balls (hence the zany affliction’s name) til he shoots out a red one, and that will signify that it is THE END! AHAHAHAHAHA!!
Now, with a zany premise like that, you just KNOW you are in for a fun and WACKY comedy, but while there is surely enough of that here, this drama was SURPRISINGLY thoughtful and touching, and for me, I believe it all comes down to the AWESOME acting talents of actress Kitagawa Hiromi!
As Muu-chan’s best friend Kiryu Asami, she’s been his steadfast pal since childhood, and he knows he can rely on her whenever he’s in need of encouragement, consolation or companionship, but the rub is that she’s secretly been in love with him since they were in primary school together, and he’s only ever seen her as a friend. This is, of course, a tried and true j-drama storyline, but MAN, Kitagawa plays Asami SO believably and sweetly, she is INSTANTLY likeable and by the end of the first episode, you realize that SHE’S the character you care about the most, and find yourself TOTALLY ENGROSSED in finding out what happens next!!
The story begins with Asami encouraging Muu-chan to work up the courage to ask out a co-worker named Reiko thathe’s had a crush on for some time, but when he is successful and actually starts DATING the girl, Asami realizes that in her heart she’s always hoped SHE'D be the one by Mutsuki's side, and it is HEARTBREAKING to see her so sad and lonely at night while putting on a brave face and cheering Muu on during the day as he gets more and more intimate with Reiko.
But then the dreaded disease hits Muu-chan, and the stakes are changed entirely. Suddenly Asami realizes she can’t just sit aside and just HOPE that Muu’s relationship with Reiko won’t work out. Her dream has always been to be Tomoya's wife and one day bear his child, but with only a few more times left where he can have sex, if she doesn’t make some kind of move soon, he will use it all up on Reiko! Furthering the problem is the fact that Tomoya’s afraid Reiko will reject him is she finds ouf about his affliction- and the person he seeks advice and encouragement from is, of course, Asami!
So Asami is faced with the dilemma of working on making her dreams come true while at the same time being a loyal friend to Tomoya and helping him get through the illness and work things out with Reiko! Nonetheless, whenever Tomoya asks for her help, she freely gives it, and no matter what she may be harboring in her heart, shel always shows the utmost love and care towards his well being, and you think, “Ah, this is a true friend”.
So naturally watching Kitagawa go through all of these emotional scenes, after I few episodes, you guessed it, I found MYSELF magnetically attracted to Asami and her sweetness, and as the relationship (or lack thereof) built up between the two, I found MYSELF falling deeper and deeper in love with Asami, thinking, "The HECK with Tomoya, If he can't appreciate her, I'LL take her!" AHAHAHAHA!
Oh, and I have to say for the record, that when it comes to those lovey-dovey scenes that all good romantic dramas are wont to do, Kitagawa proves that she is definitely one of the top-notch kissers I’ve ever seen, strong and heartfelt, one of those that gives you goosebumps when you watch it!
Someone on a blog somewhere (probably d-addicts) asked if there was some kind of nihongo-realted reason why the actors and actresses in Japanese dramas always gave such half-assed kisses. While I didn’t quite agree with the reasons that were put forth on that thread, it did validate my OWN observation that for the most part, these “quick-peck” kisses were the norm for dramas, and so whenever I saw a drama where they actually seemed like they were “kissing” kissing, (if you know what I mean) I’d always think, “Hey, that looked like a For-Real Kiss!” And so it was for Hiromi Kitagawa, whom I give a BIG “Four Stars” for smooching!
After the drama was over, I just COULDN’T get pretty Hiromi out of my head, and moseyed on over to the almighty DRAMAWIKI site, where I was surprised to find that I’d actually seen Hiromi in a few dramas before, though none of them in orled that I readily remembered… dramas like Bengoshi No Kuzu, Star No Koi and even the chock-full-o-babes Mei-Chan No Shitsuji!
When I realized that Hiromi’s latest offering was a detective Crime drama called ZETTAI REIDO, my heart leapt up, for this was show that was currently being shared and subbed on the d-addicts site!!! Holy Crap! So now I’m slowly but surely trying to acquire episodes of the show, and when I finally get to sit down and watch the series, you can be sure I’ll be mentioning it here!
PS: Man, what’s the deal with Mei-Chan No Shitsuji??? Seems like recently, whenever I like an actress, (like, say, Mayuko Iwasa or Mitsuki Tanimura) when I check up on their acting credits, inevitably, MEI-CHAN will be listed on it, and I have to sit down and concentrate to try and remember which character she played!
PPS: Someday I’ll have to do a blog entry proper about Naomi Kawashima as well as her Shashinshuu extraordinaire WOMAN!
