Drama Of The 10 Dark Ladies

6 Dueling Ladies (With Another 3 Still to Come....)

Hahaha, over halfway through the comedy drama “Kuroi 10-Nin No Onna”and I’m just DYING with laughter! MAN, how freaking AWESOMELY zany this show is! This tale of Riko Narumi as Kumi, one of 9 women in philandering playboy Kaze’s lovelife, just gets wackier and wackier with each episode! Though the drama may have started out as a reguar romcom, by episode 6 with each of the women in Kaze’s life trying to undermine and sabotage each other, the show has reached near Bugs Bunny/Wile E. Coyote proportions!

Soooo much fun, and that’s in no small part to the awesome actresses whch make up the 9 Lovers, well, at least the ones we have so far been introduced to…

Riko Narumi as the befuddled Sweet Girl Kumi…

Miki Mizuno as Kayo, the self-appointed “Den Mother” of the lovers group

Hitomi Sato as the bitter and conniving Miwa…

Aya Hirayama as the cool and stoic Yume….

Megumi as the svelte and sexy Natsuki..

and WOW, special mention MUST be made of Reina Trendl’s insanely adorable turn as Shino Aiba, she is SUCH a sweetie in this one, soooo cute and cuddly and SO hilarious when she decides to fight back agaisnt all these bullying “Babas” (Old Hags) around her! 

And wrapping it all up we gotta include Eichiiro Funakoshi as Kaze, the man whose silver tongue and dapper style has honey-talked all 9 of these women into becoming willing participants in his ongoing melodrama! This is one true “master of the Speak”!

Aw MAN, such a GREAT drama, Kuroi 10-nin Na Onna has even surpassed Jimi Ni Sugoi Koetsu Gal Kono Etsuko and We Got Married as a Job as my NUMBER ONE MUST SEE drama every week!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

2NE1 Are Done

Sigh, I'm sure you've all heard the news by now, but it seems 2NE1 are just the latest in an ever-growing list of "Second Generation Hallyu Wave" forerunners that have called it quits.
 Not that this is really shocking news to most, ever since Minzy announced her departure it really looked slim that they could continue on as they had before.
What a shame, such a great group!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Riko Narumi and The 9 Lovers

Riko Narumi as Kumi

Kumi Kanda is having a bit of a problem with her love life! Things started off fine when she was first being wooed by Kaze Matsukichi,(Funakoshi Eiichiro) a successful TV producer working in the building where she worked as a receptionist, and despite his older age, they soon hit it off and spent a wonderful 5 months together.

Eiichiro Funakoshi as Kaze

But it all came crashing down around her when Kumi found that Kaze, her so-called perfect guy, was a MARRIED MAN! It’s at this point that one would normally break it off, but as Kumi explains to the audience, she is the type who will continue on with a relationship even if it means having an affair because she feels her love is too strong, and thus is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Her friends Honoka (Yuriko Nitta) and Ayano (Hinako Sano) are quite frank about the situation Kumi’s gotten herself into, telling her she should forget the louse and move on. but she simply can’t. Despite their misgivings, these are friend that are always at her side, at least as close as you can get via cute and enthusiastic text messaging!

Hinako Sano as Ayano

Yuriko Nitta as Honoka

Then, out of the blue, Kumi gets a phone call from a mysterious woman who Kumi believes is Kaze’s wife. She wants to meet up, and Kumi spends the night in dread of what will happen. Will the wife sue her? Yell at her?  Or, in true drama fashion, throw a glass of water in her face? But when she meets up with her, Kumi is surprised to find an attractive and stylish woman named Kayo who is only friendly and cordial to her. 

Miki Mizuno as Kayo

Kumi bursts out in tears and begs the woman to forgive her for having an affair with her husband, and promises to never again go near Kaze, to which the amused woman states that not only is she NOT Kaze’s wife…but she’s another one of his lovers, just like Kumi!

 Kumi explodes with a “Ya Gotta be Kiddin’ Me!” and from there the two begin to argue, with Kayo saying she has years of relationship time with Kaze as opposed to Kumi’s 5 months, and Kumi retorts back that Kayo is just an old hag!

It’s then that another woman enters the picture and begins arguing with the mature Kayo-san. Her name is Miwa Yagami (Hitomi Sato), and after the two cool down and resume a more civilized tone, Kumi is stunned to find that THIS woman is a lover of Kaze’s, too!Kumi is FURTHER shocked when the two seasoned women casually tell her that besides the two of THEM, Kumi is actually the 9TH of Kaze’s lovers! 

Hitomi Sato as Miwa

"I'm one of NINE LOVERS????"

Wrapping her head around this news is hard for Kumi, and even harder to comprehend is the way these other lovers of Kaze’s are not only friendly with each other, but seem to regard each other as part of a group…and want HER to join in!

As the show progresses, we get to know not only Kumi and the women, butevern MORE of Kaze's lovers, including a sassy young thing named Shino Aiba (Reina Trendl, absolutely adorable here) who is an actress hired for the company’s latest project, and by the show’s end, Kaze even looks to be making the move on the pretty scriptwriter Natsuki Koyama (Megumi, a big fave of mine since like forever)!

Reina Trendl as Shino

Megumi as Natsuki

Such is the situation of these women in this highly captivating and seriously snazzy drama "Kuroi 10-nin Na Onna (Ten Dark Women)", sooooo much FUN, MAN, it’s been such a long time since i’ve seen Riko Narumi in anything and its a joy to see her in such a spirited show, but really, EVREYONE is pulling their weight here, each and every character is so much fun to watch! Such a wacky and spastic storyline, this show reminds me of the classic "Noises Off" in its' sheer screwball style, can't remember the las time I was so entertained!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

"Career" Opportunities

Miori Takimoto and Hiroshi Tamaki in CAREER

Just started watching the highly entertaining detective drama “Career” starring Tamaki Hiroshi as a newly appointed Chief-of-Police named Kinshiro Toyama. Unlike what you might expect from a police chief, however, Kinshiro is a down to earth, “man of the people” who truly cares about the town and the people in it.

Perhaps, he says, it's because of his name (Kin Toyama), that he likens himself to Toyama No Kin-San , the legendary sakura-tatooed shogunate samurai, and like Kin-san, likes to dress down as a common person and do his detective work among the civilians. This works out because the average person, while not keen on cooperating with the forceful and intimidating police, are much more eager to share what they know to the kind and friendly Toyama. 
As you might expect, Toyama’s ways aren’t everyone else’s cup of tea, and he immediately finds himself butting heads with Minami Yozo (Takashima Masahiro), the head detective of the station. This is a by-the-book hard-as-nails character who feels Toyama’s soft spoken and out-of-the-box ways are a hindrance more than an advantage.

When Minami is assigning his team to work on a serious murder case, it grates him to hear the new chief of police asking them to focus on the town’s graffiti problem. Graffiti? There’s a murderer running around! But Toyama is convinced that everything in the town is linked together and the best way to deal with problems is where they start- with little things like graffiti.

On Minami’s team is a young girl detective named Misato Aikawa (Miori Takimoto) whom has not only met Toyama at an earlier crime scene, but has unwittingly tried to arrest him as well!

It seems she thought this man was obstructing her policework as they tackled a would-be terrorist, but she is in for the surprise of her life when she sees him at the station and finds that this guy is the station’s new Chief of Police!!!

 Because of her failure during an as-yet undisclosed case, Misato isn’t looked upon very favorably by her teammates, and it’s not surprising, when Toyama asks Head Detective Minami to spare some men for his graffiti project, that the person Minami gives him is Misato.

Poor Misato- she has so much to prove to redeem herself, but she feels she can’t show the head detective what she can do if she’s spending all her time cleaning off graffiti with Toyama each day! But as the two work together, she realizes what a caring and hard working man he is, how he connects with the townspeople, and HEY…it looks like the graffiti may even actually be important to solving the ongoing murder case after all!

At the end of the episode, when an undercover Toyama and Misato have brought in the perpetrators of the graffiti case, the perp’s father, a high-ranking politician, comes in and threatens Toyama, demanding him to bring in his chief of Police and he’ll have the accusations dropped, it’s here that Toyama performs his final Kin-san adage, dramatically whipping out his Chief of Police Badge JUST like Kin-san revealing his cherry-blossom tattooed arm, making the perp and his father buckle is disbelief:”This Shleppy guy is the CHIEF OF POLICE?!”  AHAHAHA! Too funny!

Really enjoying this drama, so entertaining, and with Tamaki Hiroshi as affable as ever and Miori Takimoto doing her best Juri Ueno, this show could be described as “Nodame Cantabile Meets Aibo”!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com