J-Drama Clichés: Parents Day

In every drama featuring a small child going to school, there will eventually be the episode where the child has some event at school for which they’d like the parent to attend, but for whatever reason the parent has some important business or obligation to perform that day. 

Though the parent assures the child that they will do their best to make it to the event, inevitably they run behind time/lose track of time. so for most of the school event, the child sits there in class with this forlorn look on his/her face. But all is never lost, for NO MATTER WHAT, the parent will ALWAYS show up just before the child’s turn, making the child suddenly burst into smiles as he/she proudly performs his/her thing!

At Home Dad

Natsu no Koi wa Nijiiro ni Kagayaku

Otomen

A variation of this cliché is the track and field day event and the excursion trip day, as both involve the parent showing up a the last moment, but none showcase this chiche's awesome unoriginality than when it's presented like the above scenarios! Hahaha, they look like the same episodes with different actors' faces glued over the older ones, LOL 

Meisa Kuroki's CD "Unlocked" is Here!

Akanishi Jin takes the edge off of what shold have been a banner event at my house, the arrival of Meisa Kuroki’s second album proper, UNLOCKED!

Tracks:

Hit the Road 3:49

Shake it Off 4:13

Wired Life 4:41

One More Drama 4:00

Take Me Away 4:28

Flash Light 4:05

Woman's Worth 4:18

Breeze Out 4:04

LAST CODE 4:48

Happy to be Me 4:47

PARADE 4:14

S.O.S - -Watashi Sagasanai de Kudasai- 4:08

UPGRADE U! 3:42

Aimai de Zeitaku na Yokubou  4:46

 Well. after listening to the album a few times, it’s clear that Meisa is (or at least, was) going in a very different direction than what her debut EP suggested, moving farther and farther away from those hip-hop/R&B beginnings and spiraling more into that techno “Perfume” style, several of these, and in fact, some of the tracks like “Parade” and “Woman’s Worth” sound like they could have been written for that synth-fused trio.  Luckily, songs like  “SOS -Watashi Sagasanai de Kudasai-”, “Upgrade You”, and “Flashlight”, have catchy and peppy vibes that I really love, and the album closer “Aimai de Zeitaku na Yokubou “ is a sweet, rare ballad!

The CD comes with a bonus DVD featuring the videos for her four songs with additional “Making Of” vids for each. Initially, out of the four singles that came off of the album, I really liked “One More Drama” and “Wired Life”, but didn’t take to “Woman’s Worth/Breeze Out” so much, but MAN, after watching the videos, I REALLY like ‘em! Nothing like Meisa slithering around in leather to really get you INTO a song, and in “Woman’s Worth”, we get to see her  in possibly the most girlishly cutesy-cutesy outfits ever, she looked so darn CUTE!

Wrapping up this nice first pressing CD package is a glossy 20 page booklet chock full of the scans you see featured on this blog entry. Drooling over how frickin’ fine Meisa’s looking here has me getting irritated all over again at Akanishi, not only has his “intervening” cancelled any possible events and promotions she’d had planned for Unlocked, there’s also that underlying jealousy one must have knowing that Jin is tapping that fine-ass beauty, besides! Grrr….

Promotional Poster

Like all my latest CD Japan new releases, my Meisa Kuroki CD came with a beautiful promotional poster of the album, a promotional item that in light of her recent events Meisa may end up using to wallpaper her nursery! I keed, I keed, but really, why O why, on the eve of such an important step for her career, couldn’t Akanishi just  keep “the mouse in the house”? LOL

Ah well, who knows how long (if ever) it'll be before we see Meisa get back on track with her singing and recording career after taking this unexpected "time out" to be with the former A in KAT-TUN...We'll have to just wait and see!

The Imploding Gastric Inevitable

Making those screencaps of Tabe Mikako eating Okonomiyake in the previous post reminded me of one of my often-neglected other sites, the Zinkognito Tabemashyou: Cute Girls In Japanese Dramas Eating page. Did I say a blog devoted to nothing but screencaps of actressses chowing down? Yes, you heard right.WHY I have a site like that is a good question...

Well, it all started when I was watching an episode of BOSS, and Toda Erika (she’s just the cutest thang!) was eating what I thought was an Anpan. It turned out to be a Dorayaki, but that’s beside the point. The point is: she looked so kawaii eating it, I just HAD to screencap the scene and post it up!

Months later and I’m watching Papa To Musume No Nanokan, and I’m presented with this glorious scene of Aragaki Yui eating an anpan. Or at least, what looked like an anpan, and in any case, I screencapped that one too, and by the time I saw Ryoko Kuninaka eating an andagi in Churaan, knew that this habit of screencapping cute Japanese actresses eating was taking a life of its own!

I started making a point to  screencap  the scene ANY TIME I saw a pretty girl eating in a drama, though I tried not to screencap the same actress twice, or least not in the same drama. Though I guess I’ve broken that rule over time, but what the hey.

Anyways, a few months ago, I begin starting up an account over at the website Posterous, and right away, I knew what I wanted to do with this particular blog: SHOWCASE MY COLLECTION OF CUTE GIRLS IN JAPANESE DRAMAS EATING STUFF! A couple of quick clicks and I had it:

Zinkognito Tabemashyou!

Diving in, it seemed like there was an overabundance of pics to capture, so many that I began to HONE my craft: Did I want the girls with their mouths closed, munching or wide open and about to bite? Did I want to include sipping drinks or licking Ice Cream ? In the end, I simply adhered to this: Whatever made the picture the funniest without getting too HEN was the one I would go with! Oh and strictly DRAMAS only. No Movies, Variety Shows, etc. Like the moniker says...

For awhile things were going quite smoothly and I was able to put up a new picture at least every few days. But then I began noticing that not only were they starting to become harder to come across, the ones that I WAS getting were usually of the same girls, mostly the aforementioned Toda Erika, and, for some reason, Fukada Kyoko. So most of those I’ve saved for some time down the road so that there won’t be a glut of only the same faces getting stuffed.

Sad to say, it’s been quite a while since I’ve found any new caps to post up. Most of the dramas I've watched recently haven’t featured anyone eating, and when they have, the food consumption has been taking place off-camera or obscured, making me frustrated to no end! Take for example an episode of SHINZANMONO. In this one scene, Kuroki Meisa is supposed to be eating this cream puff, but they offered up no clear shots of her actually eating it-in fact, I’d even wager that that tricky Meisa didn’t even really eat one and rather just put it to her mouth for the shot. So after a brief struggle, this was all a managed to snap. Call this a fail:

I’d love to end this blog entry by saying that I finally came across a whole bunch of new captures to put up, but no soap. As the dramas I've been watching have become fewer and fewer, so have my chances of coming across any worthy scenes. I’ve simply GOT to find time to watch more dramas than I’ve been lately. In fact, since my j-drama watching resurrection in early 2009, my viewing has been at an all time low! Perhaps once I get back into the swing of things, the scenes will come! Til then, the search goes on…

PS: No, you don’t have to email me dramas or scenes where there’s someone eating: part of the fun of this hobby (heh, is that what this is?) is the hunting and tracking myself. When I’ve finally gotten that perfect screencap, it’s like bagging a Deer on my first Hunt! Worthy of mounting and placing above the mantle, or at LEAST online!

Smap Bistro with Rie Miyazawa

After watching that amazing Smap Bistro Kiss History, I just couldn’t resist sharing one of my very favorite episodes from that show, the one with pretty Rie Miyazawa. This Bistro was the very first Smap Bistro I ever saw, indeed, the very first SMAPxSMAP I ever saw, and I was so entertained that I became a fan of the show ever since!

From the moment she first arrives at the Smap Bistro, you can feel the presence this girl has. As she playfully comes in chiming “bing-bong, bing bong!” emulating the Bistro doorbell, you remember at once that this is the girl who was once known as Japan’s Sweetheart back in her idol days, and you just smile with her sunny charisma! Love how she squeals with laughter when Nakai fans her in the face!

Rie’s food of choice for this visit is Cabbage, something that any capable cook can spin into a great variety of dishes, and soon enough, the chefs are on their way! For this challenge, the teams are KimuTaku and Goro against Tsuyoshi and Shingo, while Nakai as host interviews Rie and keeps her entertained as the meal is being prepared.

Just listening to Rie talk and you already get a sense of the kind of person she is. Her entire manner of speaking seems very precise and clipped, like someone talking quite properly at a fancy event (though she does manage to get some decidedly silly and girlish things snuck in!) and even her arm and hand gestures seem very expressive and theatrical! When Rie remarks, “something smells really good!” Nakai invites her down to the kitchen area where she can see how her food is being prepared and have a chat with the guys. 

Watching Rie interacting with them, you realize how fragile and slight her frame is (and given her oft-discussed weight issues of the past, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise), but the sylph-like shape is quite becoming on her, making her look even more elegant and feminine, somehow. Soon the chatter is over and the dishes are ready!

First to serve Rie is the Takuya/Goro pair featuring a yummy looking Cabbage Pot-Au-Feu dish. Watching Rie eat, I’m once again blown away by how elegant and classy this girl is! The way she cuts her food, delicately arranges it on her fork and dabs a bit of the sauce on it…Man, what a refined lady she is. Look at the way she breaks up the pastry over the fish…Gads, some parts where they show her cutting her food looks done by a stand-in professional!

 O note I had to mention is that back in these old days, whenever the guest said Takuya’s team’s food was “Oishii!” it would hilariously cut to Shingo making a pained/silly face, and this became a running gag that always cracked me up! This episode with Rie was one of the very first times he made such a face (back then even Tsuyoshi got into it!), but it wouldn’t be the last! Sadly, he’d continue this gag til it turned into a tedious, unfunny fiasco where he’d come out awkwardly dressed as the guest (to the stunned guest’s alarm) when the guest says Oishii. But I digress…

Next up is Tsuyoshi and Shingo’s turn serving up a dish of Cabbage Consommé Soup. The Hominess of their flavors comes through, and Shingo spends most of the time hiding behind Tsuyoshi and/or picking on him as she praises the meal!  One thing I really thought was cute was at the end of her meal where she picks up the holly leaves that were part of the dish’s decoration, and decides to tie it around her hair like a fashionable wreath! Now that their guest has finished eating, it’s the guys’ turn to dig in, and as they do in every Bistro, they chow down like manners were a thing of the past, especially Nakai, LOL!

Then when everything is cleared away, it’s time for Rie to choose which meal she preferred more: The Kimura/Inagaki pair or the Kusanagai/Katori pair! In the end, hominess wins over classiness, and it’s Shingo and Tsuyoshi who win!

As per the rules, the guest is asked to give a kiss to the two chefs who made the winning dish, but Rie is so pretty and elegant that the boys feel funny about getting a kiss from her. Instead, Shingo says he’d be proud to have her kiss his wrist, to which she complies (and then remarking it’s “salty”, LOL). Tsuyoshi, however, says he’ll do it “American Style”, which to him meant waving his arms around like a fool. Luckily Rie gets him to stand still long enough to give him one of those side to side kisses, though everyone makes fun of him afterwards!

Ahhh, a great classic episode of SMAP Bistro!

Smap Bistro Kiss History

  Back in the days before they were inviting huge superstar American guests like Cameron Diaz and Nicolas Cage, the SMAP BISTRO corner on the long-running variety show SMAP X SMAP was a humble little niche where the boys would team up into pairs to cook for a special female guest, the idea being that they would be like cooking for their date, and the woman would reward the pair that made  dish she liked best by kissing the cooks on the cheek for their hard work!

Much like the much-missed Arashi VIP Room, which also used to feature exclusively female guests, complete with a hug for the Arashi member they want as their boyfriend, the idea of only women guests and having them-gasp- have to KISS the guys DOES seem a bit erm..chauvinistic?, espeacially in these times, but back then it really seemed like such a sweet show. And my GOSH, did it introduce me to a whole BEVY of BEAUTIFUL women, and with the carefree set-up of the show, you got to see them relaxed and chatty with host Nakai, always coming away from the show like you've seen the guest's "real" personality!

The formula of the show went liek this: a special guest is introduced and asked what her favorite food/ingredient is. Once they've related that bit of information, Nakai (who acts as host for the show) calls down to his two teams for an order based around it. While the two teams go into a flurry of prepping and cooking, Nakai interviews the guest about her history and also her upcoming events. In a little while, he escorts the guest down to the kitchen where she can see her meal being prepared, and chat with the boys at the same time, Then they go back up to the table until the food is ready and then she takes turns eating from team one's dishes and then team two's. When she is done, the boys wolf down the rest of the meal and when everyone is rested, she gives her judgement of which team she liked most.
Then comes the highlight of the show, and that's the fun and often hilarious kissing segment as she rewards her chefs!

Naturally, giving a kiss to a member of SMAP  as well as receiving a kiss from some beautiful or well-established actress can be nerve-wracking for all involved, so you're almost guaranteed some kind of entertaining scene developing! And keeping with this train of thinking, the producers of the show thought it'd be great to edit together all of the past teams wins starting from Bistro #27 on down. Sometimes the rewards are quick and precise, but sometimes, things get SOO OMOSHIROII!!

Some Highlights I found Hilarious:

Takako Matsu. Goro wanted to win this one SO MUCH, that when he, he ripped up paper into confetti and threw it about!

Hitomi  Takahashi looked particularly luscious here, and I completely understood when, after getting a nice big smack on the cheek, Kimura leaned over to Nakai’s shoulder and sobbed with overwhelming pleasure, LOL!

Reiko Takashima was a favorite of Kimutaku’s and he wanted the camera to get his kiss from her just right. Sadly, when the kiss finally came, Nakai, jokester that he is, stuck his head right in the way, AHAHAHA!!!

Child actresss Yumi Adachi, who was extremely popular back in those days, came on, but as she was but a waif at the time, the announcer correctly labeled her win as a “No-Count” 

When Mieko Harada gives Goro his kiss, he says exactly what I would have said: "Ureshiiii!"

The Rie Miyazawa episode is a favorite of mine, and I’ll have to get that complete one up if I can. Rie is so pretty and elegant, that the boys feel funny about getting a kiss from her. Instead, Shingo says he’d be proud to have her kiss his wrist, to which she complies. Tsuyoshi, however, says he’ll do it “American Style”, which to him meant waving his arms around like a fool. Luckily Rie gets him to stand still long enough to give him one of those side to side kisses, though everyone makes fun of him afterwards!

Naomi Zaizen is a fave actress of mine, so I certainly don’t blame Kimura for jokingly trying to time it so when she kisses him she’ll accidentally kiss him on the lips! When his ploy fails, he hilariously gestures “Shimatta!”

With the advent of more and more “mainstream” guests and superstars, the boys have pretty much eliminated both the theme of female guests as well as the fun Kiss Reward system, and while it’s thrilling to see a Michael Jackson or Jude Law appearing on the show, MY heart harkens back to the days when it was just pure, sweet FUN!

Satomi, Revisited

As I near the end of the medical drama BULL DOCTOR which I've been watching on and off again for a while now, I just had to mention how pretty Satomi Ishihara is in this show... So beautiful and delicately feminine that she sometimes looks like she's made out of Pressed Sugar! Though Satomi's already been featured as one of my "Crushes Of The Day" awhile ago, watching this show has got me rediscovering my love thang for her!

Crush Of The Day: Takimoto Miori

Takimoto Miori as Chie in Hungry!

Awwww, MAN, Episode 6 of “Hungry was sooo frickin’ GOOD!  After a few past episodes of pretty mediocre stories (especially 5’s double cliché of  1. Main Character suddenly having to take care of a young child for an extended time, and 2. Having that kid dislike gourmet food and only want junk food (well, it’s a food drama cliché, anyway), I’d thought the show had turnd into a “regular” show, but BOY with this past episode, it’s like they got back that writer who wrote the first two wonderful stories, and we’re HAPPILY BACK ON TRACK!

With best friend Nana (Yamashita Rio)

Cutie-Pie Miori Takimoto has been looking prettier and prettier as the episodes went by (no doubt a not-so-subtle move by director as the story moves her into a more “romantic” setting) and like the fool I am, I fell for it hook, line and sinker, and by the time this latest awesome episode ran, she was looking sooooo attractive, HECK, you add that to her already hyper-genki demeanor and sweet, adorable personality and you’ve got a character that I just HAD to fall in love with!

"Mushrooms!" thinks Chie as Taku (Shohei Muira) looks on

Fawning over Eisuke (Osamu Mukai) in the kitchen

Though this drama is really the story of failed rock musician Eisuke (Osamu Mukai) attempted to fulfil his mother’s wish of him becoming a full-fledged French Chef and take over the family restaurant, the storyline I’VE always been the most invested in is the growing relationship between and Miori’s character Chie. 

He’s so clueless about girls and their emotions, and she’s so spacey about interacting with guys that you’re just cracking up as they butt heads and and aggravate each other, wondereing just WHERE their relationship is going!

But Awww, Chie is so cute, you just want to pick her up and cuddle her, she’s like a little lost puppy most times, and her absolutely Shida- Mirai-ish befuddlement over confusing scenarios just KILLS me!

"????" thinks Chie...

Kuninaka Ryoko eating Orange Marmalade on Toast

Anju Suzuki Lookin' Fine in Riso No Musuko

Pretty Anju Suzuki in Riso No Musuko

Gosh, I’ve always loved lovely Anju Suzuki from the first time I saw her doing her regular gig hosting the classic MUSIC FAIR Music Show, and have thrilled to her cuteness in various dramas over the years like COACH, Koi No Vacance and Sommelier, but I still couldn’t have been prepared for what my eyes beheld checking out the new drama RISO NO MUSUKO, in the time since I saw her last, Anju’s turned into this sexy, luscious older lady (dare I call her a MILF?), and I was just on the edge of my seat taking in her gorgeous glory!

Anju Doing Her Music Station Gig back in the day 

...and as Mitsuko Kobayashi in Riso No Musuko

 Riso No Musuko tells the story of Yamada Ryosuke as a Daichi, a son completely devoted to his mother Umi, (played with devilish glee by pretty Kyoka Suzuki) who has her onw secret agenda for rasing him with care his whole life- she means for him to be a huge success in life and take lavish care of her in later years… When Umi gets a job at the cafeteria of a tough delinquent High School, Daichi drops out of his prestigious Academy to enroll at HER school so he can keep tabs on her! Along the way, he makes friends with a boy named Kobayashi Koji, whose mother turns out to be none other than Ms. Anju Suzuki herself!

Mother And Son:Nakajima Yuto and Anju 

As the prim and proper mother Kobayashi Mitsuko, Anju balances the perfect line between Sexy and Classy- while Koji’s mother seems to be wuite calm and meek, there’s this underlying menace to her eyes, and as we soon see, is able to bare her claws and attack at the smallest signs of jealousy! As Koji relates to Daichi one night,”You Don’t Know How Scary My Mom Can Be!” Anju’s portryal in nothingless than a ravenous feline cougar!

Meooowr! Baring Claws: Anju Suzuki and Yamada Ryosuke

Really enjoying this show so far- though I tend to stay away from ANY dramas involving High School and their cliché-ridden students, somehow, this show remind me a bit of the Shida Mirai.Yamada Yu Comedy SEIGI NO MIKATA (especially the fun soundtrack) and I find myself cracking up throughout the show! 

Re: Akanishi Jin and Meisa Kuroki...

Akanishi Jin and Meisa Kuroki To Wed, 2 Months Pregnant

Takimoto Miori eating Tomato Farci