Some Vampiric Tomfoolery with Mitsuki Takahata in "Unknown"

Can’t say I’ve really been able to get into the latest drama from the otherwise wonderful Mitsuki Takahata along with Kei Tanaka, telling the tale of a clueless man dating a sassy girl who just HAPPENS to be a VAMPIRE… Sounds great on paper and there are quite a few good actors and actresses involved here, but like so many other drama this season, the writing and direction is such a MESS! Very slapdash and wonky pacing wildly pinballing back and forth, this feels more like an SNL skit gone mad than a real drama…

Mitsuki Takahata is Kokoro Yamihara, a scandal rag paparazzi journalist who, along with partner Kagami (Keita Machida) , shacks up outside celebrity residences to snap them in the act of wrongdoing~ a dirty job to be sure but one that needs to be done!

Toramatsu Asada on the other hand, is a neighborhood policeman, loved and relied on by his community, though he DOES appear a little absent minded in the head, but everyone, including his superior (Shinya Kote) expect good things for him!

Somehow, this sordid woman journalist and this good hearted cop KEEP brushing paths, whether it's when Asada's interrupting and RUINING Kokoro’s carefully planned stakeouts, citing her for loitering when she is JUST about to nab a naughty celebrity doing the deed…

Or when he drunkenly turns up on Kokoro’s doorstep (seems her place is his old residence which he accidentally returns to when drunk)…

Guess these scenes are supposed to be funny,  but for me it’s more irritating than anything. Watching a virtual stranger trying to drunkenly force his way into a woman's house and having the neighbors (who think it’s just a lover’s quarrel) joining in to MAKE her let him in…ehhhh, that’s not funny.

Eventually all these chance encounters leads to romance between the two, and I have to state for the record, I never felt any chemistry between these two at ALL, and though you’re supposed to believe that these two are madly in love and should be happily married (at least all the support characters say so over and over), I don’t buy it.

Even the parts with Kokoro and her family- with Kumiko Aso as her Mother (?) and Kotaro Yoshida as Kokoro’s eccentric Father (determined to dress as “Dracula-ish” as possible), disappoints.  With this cast, it should be a laugh RIOT, but the comedy just falls flat for me.

IN ANY CASE, like MANY of the other dramas this season, I guess I will keep tuning in to see if this show gets any better. There's supposed to be a storyline where you find out Asada is a killer or something, maybe that can develop into a real story. Crossing fingers with this one.....

The SEXY Side of Fuka Koshiba in “Nami Yo Kiite Kuru”

You can always count on actress Fuka Koshiba to bring us the most energetic, excitable, and altogether ECCENTRIC characters to life, and here we have her latest with the spazzy, loudmouthed and outspoken Minare Koda! We have ALL the traits and quirks we’ve come to love and expect from Fuka; the goggled looks, the explosive diatribes and the confused reactions to things, but one facet we’re seeing for the first time is how voluptuous and CURVY she can be! 

MAN, through ALL the years of loving her, I never realized she had the stuff, LOL!

And, to be frank, it’s a good thing too- with a story THIS haphazard, off kilter and “all-over-the-place”, it’s mostly FUKA that I will be tuning In for!

“Namiyo Kiite Kuru~ Wave, Listen To Me!” follows the story of a manic food preparer/waitress named Minare who works at a specialty Curry Shop. As we tune in, she has recently been scammed and dumped by her boyfriend and has been going OFF on a vitriolic RANT to a hapless bystander who happens to be sitting next to her at a bar.

She tells her story of how she was tricked by a parental sob story into giving over 500 her hard earned cash, only to have him disappear immediately thereafter. She talks about how everyone from her ex-boyfriend’s region isn’t to be trusted and furthermore tells him how she’d like to KILL him if she gets a chance! 

The madder she gets, the drunker she gets, and she doesn’t come out of her inebriated haze until she wakes up the next morning, with only a VAGUE recollection of all that happened the night before!

With a hungover head, she gets to the Curry Restaurant late, and the owner heatedly tells her “Three times Late and you’re OUT!” Owner Takarada (Mizuki Nishimura) remarks that this is her SECOND offense and is THIS close to termination, but she shrugs him off noncholantly! 

Truthfully, Minare has a quite cavalier attitude towards this job, and it's usually up to her co-worker and best friend (of sorts) Chuya Nakahara (Ryota Katayose) to smooth things over with their seething boss!

Things go back to normal, or so it seems. But during the lunch hour, Minare is stunned during serving to hear her OWN VOICE on the radio program being played in the restaurant, an exact word-for-word replay of her angry rant the night before!!!

How could this happen??? Little did Minare know that the gentleman sitting next to her in the bar the previous evening was a man named Mato Kanetsugu (Kazuki Kitamura) , a radio program Director who has been starving for new and exciting content for his radio shows, and, upon hearing Minare getting wound up, secretly recorded her entire drunken outburst to play on his show!

In a fit of panic and RAGE, Minare vaguely remembers the man and, digging out a business card he gave her the night before, ANGRILY makes a bee-line to the radio station with plans of shutting him down!

When she gets there, she makes a splendid scene, yelling at receptionists and getting held back by the guards! She makes quite an entrance, all of which is recorded and later uploaded to social media!

When Minare DOES finally burst in on Kanetsugu, she vents her anger at him and demands he cease the recording at once! He demurs, but tells her that he can’t have a show without content. He tells her if she wants the recording yanke, SHE must fill it up with her own talking!

Without any choice, Minare takes up the mike, and once she is live on air, gives a gushing retraction to her earlier argument, saying that it was her that was in the wrong for falling for such a guy and she did not mean to condemn every person from his region (LOL) She sums up that it is she who will be learning a lesson, and leaves it at that!

When Minare returns to the restaurant, she finds that she is set to be fired for her sudden departure from her job (during lunch rush no less!). Chuya boldly tells Minare that if she needs, she can move in with him, a sort of confession to her, but she won’t have any of it! “The relationship between us is like curry- smooth and silky” she says, not wanting to complicate things, though he’s clearly crazy about her!

The next day, her still-angry boss tells Minare she has two weeks to find a new job before he gives her the boot. But that evening, who should come in but the entire radio program writers and staff!  

Aya Hirano,Koichi Mantaro, Nanoka Hara,Manami Igarashi

They tell her that both her recorded rant AND her clumsy rebuttal have been huge hits for the station oht in ratings and social media buzz. They tell her that they think she may have what it takes to become a REAL radio personality..and offer her JOB as a broadcaster!!!  

Minare has NO IDEA if she is cut out for such stuff, but with the grace of God (and lots of help from Kanetsugu and his gang), she aims for becoming the next big name in broadcasting!

OK, despite how linear I’ve described this show, Nami Yo Kiite Kuru is VERY uneven and has a tendency to go off on surreal (and VERY wacky) tangents, most of which are confusing and, to be honest, kind of boring. In fact, I found that I liked everything about this drama EXCEPT the actual radio broadcasting parts, a real problem since that’s what the show is BASED around!

Still, like I said, the sheer FUKA goodness is terrific and I’ll certainly stick around to see what develops! Stranger shows have gone on to become faves, is all I’m sayin’….