Just started watching the new series TAKE FIVE, an intriguing mystery/crime drama featuring an All-Star cast including Karasawa Toshiaki, Matsuyuki Yasuko, Matsuzaki Tori, and Inagaki Goro, surrounding the exploits of a legendary Crime Team called “Take Five” and the Police Inspector who vows to take them down!
Karasawa Toshiaki as Homura Masayoshi
Matsuyuki Yasuko as Sasahara Rui
Matsuzaka Tori as Niimi Haruto
Inagaki Goro as Iwatsuki Kai
The story begins where it ends, with Toshiaki Karasawa on the rooftop of a large corporation building fleeing the scene of a robbery, and as the security police arrive, we see an unconscious Yasuko Matsuyuki laying on the ground in front of him. As the cornered Karasawa leaps off the roof to his seeming death, two questions pop into our minds: Who ARE these people and HOW did they get into this situation? To find out, we rewind two weeks back…
Karasawa is a psychology instructor by the name of Homura Masayoshi, and when we meet up with him it is clear that although he once must have been a jewel thief or some sort, he has long since retired and gone straight. That is until a mysterious old vagabond woman finds him and shows him the picture of a priceless Da Vinci painting that for reasons unknown to us, he has some connection to. She then informs him that this painting is currently stored in the secure vaults of the Touto Bank, itself currently fighting claims of mismanagement. Would this be enough to bring the criminal out of seclusion?
Meanwhile, we meet Sasahara Rui, a tough-as-nails inspector who has only one rule, those that steal must be punished. "All theives are Evil" is her idiom, and when we first see her in action, she easily takes down a weapon-holding young man, letting us know right away that this is NOT a gal to be trifled with! Her job is about to become more challenging as she gets put in charge of the crimes committed by the just-out-of-retirement Homura and his newly reorganized team TAKE FIVE.
Along with these two fantastic actors, we also have Matsuzaka Tori as a rascally associate burglar of Homura’s named Haruto as well as Inagaki Goro as a particularly shady detective with the Police Theft Division named Iwatsuki Kai who seems to have an agenda of his own. Although everyone seems to be off doing their own thing, their fates (and pasts) have more in common than they’d think…
You know how the movie Back to the Future had this really incredible thing where everybody was somehow connected by destiny, and it’s only as the tale unfold you see how they’re all bound together- well, Take Five is JUST like that- SO interesting to watch as the story plays out and you find out how everyone is connected! Can't wait to see what happens next!
PS: Watching Karasawa in action trying to break into the building, as the jazz music played, I thought to myself, "Hey, this song sounds kind of like Dave Brubeck." Then I facepalmed, for of course, it was "Take Five"!! Interesting version sung by JUJU in the drama, as well!
PPS: Was also pretty interesting to hear JYP K-pop group 2PM providing the ending theme song! PPPS: And then there's Sasahara Rui's little sister to talk about, more on her in the following post... Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
Oooh, One more thing I've just GOT to mention regarding TAKE FIVE is the fact that though she's got only a secondary role in this drama, the actress playing Yasuko Matsuyuki's little sister Sae is SUCH a CUTIE, I just HAD to look her up and see if I could find out anything more about her!
Well, I soon found out that this pretty young actress's name was Eda Yuka and it seems (like so many others before her), that her roots are from the ever-lasting Kamen Rider Pantheon (with Yuka guest starring as Sayaka Mibu in the Kamen Rider Fourze series), but aside from that, I didn't find much more... After searching all the usual Japanese drama sites and only coming up with the drama Runaways, I had to come to the conclusion that she was jsut starting her acting career and so not much info would be out there... Happily enough, I DID come across this wonderful pictorial online Yuka did, showing just how BEAUTIFUL n SEXY she is! Hope to see more of her in this drama! (And Hey, more pictorials like this wouldn't hurt either, LOL)
Yeeeeeppppp, Like I mentioned just a few days ago, the stars were really lining up when those sweet and sexy Dal Shabet girls were born, as not even one week after cheering for Kaeun, we get to celebrate the birthday of Miss Yang Jung Yoon, my Dal Shabet bias JIYUL!
Seems a great time of the year to be getting into Dal Shabet as so many of the groups' members have been born around this season! Today we say Happy Birthday to Dal Shabet's most athletic member, the cool-rapper with the killer abs, Kaeun!
Whooohooo~! As you can see, my CD Japan package came in today, and so for the very first time, a DIGITAL DVD enters my Nishida Hikaru Collection!!! So excited! Not only do I get to FINALLY see the clips from her first two video collections in crisp digital form, but also the later clips which would have filled her third video collection, if they had ever made one, that is!
From her First Video collection, we have
1. Fifteen
2. Nice Catch!
3. Oh My God!! Da Ne~
4. Tokimeite
5. Ikkiterutte Subarashi
6. Kagayaki! Kudasai
And then from her Second Video collection, we have,
7. Namida Tomaranai
8. Kitto Aiga Aru
9. Jinsei Kaechyau Natsu Kamone
10. C’Mon3
11. Go! Paradise*
12. Watashi No No.1
And then her later releases, including a few I’d never even seen before:
13. Melody
14. Aa Honto Yannachyau
15. Love Is Changing
16. Dan Dan Musume
17. Pure
18. As Pure As
19. Sorairo
And then we come to a handful of Live Clips from Hikaru’s Video Concerts:
Pun Pun Pun (from Manatsu No Surprise Concert 1990)
Koi Wa Shiroi T-Shirt and
Kokoro Dake Sobani Iru~Here In My Heart
(from Manatsu Jouzu LADY vol. 2 Concert 1992)
Burning Tonight and
Jinsei Kaechyau Natsu Kamone
(from Live Two-Four 1996 Concert)
And one extra bonus that was so cool that I didn’t even know about was that Hikaru herself doing VIDEO COMMENTARY along with a few other people from the MANASEPRO team about the clips as they played! It’s times like this that I REALLY wish I understood Japanese better! Had to watch the clips mostly guessing what they were talking about, oooh, subs would have been SO NICE! Still, a very nice bonus!
After watching the video (twice!), I just HAD to dig up all my Hikaru Goods, and decided to take pics of 'em all! In celebration of the this awesome Nishiida Hikaru DVD release, I present my entire Nishida Hikaru Collection along with its new addition!
First up, my Nishida Hikaru 3cm Singles Collection…
Then Albums, EPs and Maxi-Singles…
Hikaru Photobooks and Magazines:
And my Hikaru Videos including the *new* DVD Collection!!!
Just about the only thing I wish they could have included were the commercial inserts that were in the original two video clip collections because those were just as fun to watch as the videos themselves! But I’l still pleased as punch here- So NICE to see my favorite Pony Canyon Idol girls in DVD format! Now if only RIBBON can FINALLY get a DVD treatment of their own, I will be SET!
* This Single was a song Hikaru sang with a group called Sweet Beat Soul, MAN, whatever happened to these guys? They accompanied Hikaru on a couple of her later concerts and they were SOOOO GOOD! The guy and girl had such beautiful voices, they really gave the concerts an added PUNCH! Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
Browsing around online one night, I came across an article headline that read: “Dal Shabet’s Jiyul injured early on in Idol Olympics”. I went, “Huh! Dal Shabet appeared on an earlier episode of that Idol Olympic show I watched last year! Clicking onto the article ink, I was stunned to see screenshots of the aforementioned track race and realize it was the exact same episode I’d seen before when I was obsessed with After School! WHAT! DAL SHABET was one of the groups participating at THAT TIME? I HAD to dig up my copy and watch it again, and yep, sure enough, not only were my beloved gals THERE, athletic member Kaeun was the one who actually WON the 100 Meter Running Challenge! I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN that they were there!
Holy CRAP! While I remembered not only the race (as you can see in my earlier post, at the time it was all about the Afterschool girls Eyoung, JooYeon and THEIR member named Kaeun ) but also the fact that super-athlete Bora of SISTAR, who was predicted to win, was beat out by another girl. COMPLETELY BLEW MY MIND to realize it was Dal Shabet’s KAEUN! Clearly, at the time I watched this, Dal Shabet were "just another group" to me", now I LOVE all of them so MUCH! I had to sit down and watch this show ALL OVER AGAIN!
And while it was heartbreaking re-watching the race and seeing Jiyul falling and hurting herself (I didn’t remember this mishap at ALL for some reason), it was THRILLING seeing the 2012 Idol Olympics through new eyes as I saw all the Dal Shabet girls participating in the events!
Just looking at the crowd and recognizing pretty Serri standing there for the first time was exciting for me, woulda been great if they’d aired the powerwalk event (which seems like Dal Shabet won but Kaeun got disqualified!) and it was fun watching Subin in the vaulting event (though she got out first!).
Special Heartwarming bonus when Kaeun won her Gold Medal for the Running Race and sweetie pie Woohee is seen proudly backhugging her big sister as she’s interviewed! Additionally, was pretty relieving seeing my darling Jiyul smiling at the podium behind Kaeun. I was SO worried about her after she limped off the racetrack favoring her injured elbow.
Funnt to think that the first time I watched this show back in July of last year I hardly knew any of the groups, now when I watch it, the show is FILLED with groups and artists I LOVE! I was equally surprised to see HelloVenus running in the rookie race! The announcer even states that the rookies you see running today may one day become the artists you love, a statement that has never been truer!
Okay, Okay, I don’t really know if Shigechan was the one filling out these hilariously cute “guesses" at how to spell numbers (I see Reina and some other girl at the podium who could also be culprits), but when I saw this screencap up on a forum, I instantly smiled and thought “That’s Classic Sayumin!” Ya gotta love the guesswork that went on here- there IS a certain logic that if 10 is written TEN, then why couldn’t 100 be written TEEN and 1000 written TEEEN? And I love that Eight is spelled the way Kanjani Eight spells it in their EITO RANGER movies! Hahaha, Just Adorable!
Entering into the category of “Dramas It’s In My Best Interest to Watch Since My Friend Won’t Stop Talking About Them” is the recent K-drama Neoui Moksoriga Deulleo (I Hear Your Voice), and having just watched the first episode, I have to say that I can already see right away why she’s been RAVING ABOUT IT so much! A drama that seems at times a mixture of Family Melodrama, High School Comedy, Sci-Fi Paranormal AND Crime Mystery, the story of I Hear Your Voice concerns a High School student named Soo Ha who has the uncanny gift of ESP- when He’s looking into the eyes of someone, he can hear their thoughts, and the life of a young up-and-coming woman lawyer named Hye Sung who’s still struggling to make it.
At first you have no idea how the two might be connected, but as the story unfolds, you find the two have a dark past between them… Seems when was just a child, Soo Ha was involved in a car accident and witnessed his father being brutally murdered. The only witness to the crime was a young Hye Sung who, though threatened by the criminal that if she spoke of what she saw, she would be killed next, bravely took the stand to put the murderer away.
Fast forward to the present and we see that because of the incident, Hye Sung has become a lawyer working within the justice system, and Soo Ha, now a school student, has become a focused young man, who has spent his growing up years getting fit and sharp with fighting skills (as well as those aforementioned mind-reading powers) because of a promise he’d made to Hyesung all those years ago: to protect Hyesung from the criminal. But when they finally meet up again in the present day, things don't go quite the way he planned...
My friend Car has been just gushing about this drama for the past few weeks, and it eventually reached that point where I as better off just watching the show since she was telling me the whole story ANYWAY! Going online to check it out, I found the drama starred quite a few actors and actresses I'd known, including Lee Jong Suk in the role of Soo Ha and I was pleasantly surprised to see actress Lee Bo Young in the title role of Hyesung! This might be worth checking out, I thought, and cautiously downloaded the first episode.Well, that first episode just BLEW ME AWAY, the second episode just as good, and so now I’m in the process of getting the REST of them! So Far, So Good! Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
It’s been just about one month to the day since I opened my eyes to the wonder and charms of Dal Shabet, and with this third order of DS goodies, I can now proudly say I’ve pretty much got all of their official releases! Can’t believe I once thought I’d be satisfied with only their latest releases- once I fell in love with them, I knew I needed to have ALL the Dal Shabet albums, including their earlier stuff, and I'm sooooo glad I did, so many of the other songs on the albums are freaking awesome, songs like Hottie off the Supa Dupa Diva album and Just Stop from Pink Rocket are BIG faves now! Besides the aforementioned album Supa Dupa Diva, this latest (and, for the moment, final) shipment contained Dal Shabet’s mini-albums BLING BLING and Viki’s last album HIT U. The BLING BLING CD came with a card of Serri, and the HIT U CD came with a trading card of...Kaeun! Seeing as how the card I got for the Bang Bang Album ALSO was Kaeun, It seems I’m quite lucky when it comes to Dal Shabet’s most athletic member!
And as you can see in the pic, the other part of the order was to treat myself to my ever-growing love of uber cutie Jiyul- both she and Ayoung (and at some earlier point, Viki as well?) all made the covers of MAXIM KOREA, Holy Toledo, when I saw that sexy Jiyul on the cover, I was like I NEED THAT ISSUE LIKE NOW!!!!!! Haven't needed a MAXIM so much since my Catherine Zeta-Jones days! LOL. Maybe later I'll get the Ayoung one, too, as she's one of my favorite members too. Hell, I love ALL those girls!
Yep, I'm a Dal Shabet Maniac (can I sincerely call myself a DARLING now?), we'll see how long I can sustain this emotional attachment! Should have leveled off by now, but I keep finding new clips, interviews, and performances that show me new elements about them, making me LOVE them more and MORE!
PS: Besides the wonderful Ayoung/Jiyul pictorial, this issue ALSO came with a smoking hot photoshoot of SPICA's sexy Jiwon! How's THAT for a cool bonus?!
