Crush Of The Day: Rio Uchida

Nusumareta Kao must be the most uneven and jarring crime series ever with scenes jumping from zany and funny antics to bone-crunching flesh-searing violence. As such, I really don’t know what to make of it. However, there’s one thing that keeps me coming back and that’s the wonderful character of Kanae Ando, played by the super-duper charismatic Rio Uchida!!!

Oh my GOSH, from the first episode Ando’s positive attitude, amazing knack for details and a warm, disarming smile, she instantly became my favorite character!

Ando starts out working as a patrolwoman working from a town police box, when she happens to see a man walking into a pachinko parlor. Having a keen memory, Ando immediately recognizes the man from the “wanted” posters in her bulletin boards.

She goes in to tag the man, but her arrest is interrupted by two detectives, Takamasa Shirato (Hiroshi Tamaki) and Ryohei Tani (Keita Machida) who had been following the man for some time and make the arrest themselves!

Come to find out they are part of a specialized team whose expertise is memorizing huge books of wanted photos and then walking the streets, scanning faces and waiting patiently til a “familiar” face turns up, where they make their arrest.

Recognizing her raw talent in memorizing and recognizing faces, Kanae is transferred to the department where she learns the ropes of her new career as a “Most Wanted” crimebuster! Seems Ando is a natural talent and is soon making a casebook of wanted mugshots of her very own!!!

I’d already fallen in love with Ando as a patrolwoman in her ill-fitting cop outfit, but HOLY HELL, when she joins the team and her job is to blend in with the people on the streets, she steps out in some of the sexiest and prettiest outfits out there!!! WHOAAAAA

Her job is to walk the streets and call for backup whenever she sees someone of interest.... 

 Which leads her to getting hit on by cabaret agents everywhere, HAHAHA

 

A bemused Ando chuckes as Shirato steps in!

 Walkin' the streets

ARGH so, so darn FETCHIN’!!! She is  SUCH. A. CUTIE!

Really, Rio is a joy to watch here- she is always so peppy, shining, and girly, but DAMN, when it comes time to taking down the bad guys with severe attitudes, she can KICK BUTTS as firecely as any Tsubasa Honda character!!!

 LOL, look at the guys' faces!

She's such a bright character, I was kind of shocked to realize that Rio is the same actress in the Rin Takanashi drama “Koi ga Heta demo Ikitemasu"  who played the horrible and weaselly Rikako Sakurai, that awful girl who steals Kaho Tuschimura’s boyfriend “just because she can”… OH how I HATED her in that one!!!

But I should have known she was really a sweetie since the first time I actually saw her was in "Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu" in a bit part as a cute career woman asking Gen Hoshino and Ryohei Otani if they wanted to go suck up some drinks after work with her! LOL!

Oh, and one more plus for Nusumareta Kao: Some of you may recall my passion(obsession?) for seeing pretty girls eating, and HOLY HECK does Ando pile it in!!! easily HALF of her screentime is showing the beauty taking equally breathtaking bites of doughnuts, cheesburgers, gyoza, etc and I have to screencap ‘em all!

 ...and even when duty calls, Ando tries to finish her food before leaving! LOL

"Come on, let's GO!" 

Looking over the Asianwiki stats, looks like Nusumareta Kao is only five episodes long, no wonder they're barreling through the mysteries and backstories at such a rapid pace. I'll watch this one through to the end, I just hope they leave enough space for my Rio Uchida goodness! Because between all the murder and mayhem, Nusumareta Kao is the best showcase for Rio's talents I've yet seen!

PS: Looking over some of Rio's earlier work, she was quite a lovely cheesecakey type model...

and HEY, Rio was a Kamen Rider Girl...because OF COURSE she was a Kamen Rider girl! As a rule, ALL new up and coming actresses I love seem to have come from Masked Rider High School, Rio specifically from Kamen Rider Drive [2014]!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Favorite J-Pop Albums: ZARD: Today Is Another Day

When I first got into J-pop in late 1995, Zard’s 6th album “Forever You” was their latest record, and the single from it “Anata Wo Kanjiteitai” was the first song I ever heard from them. But it was their albums “Oh My Love” and “Yureru Omoi” that became the first albums I got into from them and subsequently bought because a co-worker made cassette copies of his CDs for me. Indeed, even today when I listen to Oh My Love I remember the feelings of wonder and excitement of getting into this mysterious new genre of JAPANESE music!

Eventually I would really get into ZARD and become an obsessive super-fan who had to have all their Albums and Singles. I liked all of their albums immensely, but this weekend when I was out doing my errands, I popped “Today Is Another Day” into my car deck, and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by how much MEMORIES and SENTIMENTALITY was PACKED into each precious song!

From its opening track of the California Girls” tinged “My Friend” to “Sayonara wa Ima mo Kono Mune ni Imasu” and her FIELD OF VIEW penned hits “Kimi Ga Itakara” and “Totsuzen”, I was instantly taken back to the days of excitedly perusing the J-pop CD racks at Tower Records and skimming through the latest CD Data and JUNON Magazines!

I had no idea how much that album was the background soundtrack to my J-pop obsesssed life at the time, and by the time it got to the sweet, sweet “Kokoro wo Hiraite”and the perfect “Today is Another Day”, I was a bundle of sentimental mush…

As the album closed with its “Strawberry Fields Forever” mellotron flavored “Mitsumete Itai ne”, I realized why the album was so significant to me: It was the first ZARD album that was released when I was already J-pop and Zard fan. It was the first one I waited for impatiently for its release date, it was the one I grabbed upon release, and it was the one I played over and over and OVER again learning all the songs!

Funny, when I became a fan of ZARD, ALL their albums were faves, but taking a listen to it with fresh ears, I can hear how this one really stands out! I still cite “Oh My Love” as a huge fave and their masterpiece “Hold Me” is still probably my number one fave album from them, but damn, when it comes to sentimental feelings, “Today Is Another Day” can’t be touched!

As I’m embedding the videos here I’m listening to the songs and Kokoro wo Hiraite is once again making me misty-eyed and transporting me back to those happy early days of J-pop love!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

The Return of Takako Tokiwa in "The Good Wife"

Following in the footsteps of shows like BONES, COLD CASE and SUITS comes the TBS Japanese version of the CBS Lawyer drama THE GOOD WIFE, with Takako Tokiwa starring in the titular role that actress Julianne Margulies originated…

Takako plays Kyoko Hasumi, a once successful lawyer who gave up her career to get married and have raise her two kids. But when her prosecutor husband Soichiro (Toshiaki Karasawa) is accused of taking bribes (as well as infidelity) and is jailed, Kyoko must dust off her badge and go back to work to support her family.

Because of a connection to an old friend, fellow lawyer Masahiro Tada (Kotaro Koizumi), she is taken on probation with a his law firm Kamiyama & Tada run by the stoic Yoshie Kamiyama (Chikako Kaku). 

Once there, Kyoko is immediately put on a case regarding slander against a client, and goes up against  the charismatic (Tatsuya Takeda) who insists his accusations is based on police info and intends to counter-sue. 

With the help of Tada and a crackerjack investigative team including Kotaro Asahi (Takumi Kitamura) and the awesome Michiru Madaoka (Kiko Mizuhara), they work to get to the bottom of things and bring the truth to light.

In the meantime Kyoko’s husband is having his own problems to deal with with a bunch of unscrupulous former colleagues determined to see that he is convicted of his alleged crimes. But he insists he is innocent and despite their interrogations, he holds out.

Seems like a decent enough drama to check in on every week, and I particularly love the dynamic between Takako Tokiwa and Kiko Mizuhara; when the two of them team up to investigate, it makes me wish the whole show was based around them!

Will be continuing on with this series!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com