A Private Banker, Banker For Money….

Can always count on Toshiaki Karasawa for an enthusiastic performance, so I was looking forward to his new drama PRIVATE BANKER, and at 2 episodes in, is as engaging as hoped!

Karasawa is Koichi Anno a self-professed Private Banker who, for the right amount of money, will step in and protect clients from losing their money due to mismanagement, shady back dealings, and flat out swindlers!

We meet a woman named Kumiko Iida (Honami Suzuki) who has just lost a huge fortune on a bad investment and is on the verge of ending it all- until Anno shows up, and declares there may be more to this case than mere bad investing….

With his trusty assistant Mikoshiba (Shohei Uesugi), Anno researches the case history and the sinister motives behind the culprits, sifting slowly over the facts, getting to know the players involved, and then using the extensive banking knowledge he has to get the optimum results!

Finally, with all the facts before them, the true motives behind the conmen is revealed, and togetehr, they decide on a plan of attack that can bring her back her investment… But when she sees him seemingly working both sides, Iida has to wonder- is this Anno truly a knight in shining armor …or does he have his own personal agenda behind helping her? Only by going through with the case and standing up for herself will Kumiko get back what is rightfully hers!

For good or bad, wherever Anno goes, he produces results!

A fun and entertaining drama with lots of familiar faces from the classic era of J-Dramas, especially Honami Suzuki who is winning brand new fans due to the NETFLIX airing of the classic 1991 TOKYO LOVE STORY!

With classics like GOOD LUCK, ODORU DAISOUSASEN, LONG VACATION and Tokyo Love Story, we may be seeing a whole new renaissance of J-drama popularity- it would be wonderful, and HEY, isn't it TIME?!

From Little Acorns...Amuro Namie and Super-Monkeys!

 Flipping through some old BOMB! magazines I'd recently acquired, I was tickled by this ad in the pages of a 1992 issue announcing the DEBUT of a brand new dance and song act called SUPER-MONKEYS and their first single Mister U.S.A./Koi no CUTE BEAT! 

Who could have ever guessed that that unassuming young girl in the center there would go on to become one of the most famous and influential artists  of all time in a short span!! But just by watching their promotions for Mister U.S.A., you can already see that singer Amuro Namie had that "Special Something" and was gonna be HUGE one day!,

Indeed, Namie Amuro lived up to that promise, releasing hit after HIT til she became the legendary icon that she is, giving us an incredible body of work that endures to this day and jsut FULL of classics!

Sadly, Namie Amuro called it quits in 2017, and, after an incredible final tour, performed her last show in September of 2018 and withdrew from the business....

Even more distressing for fans is the sudden disappearance of all Namie's music from all the  musical streaming platforms...thank goodness I always bought CDs and can still listen to them at my leisure! As some of you know, Namie was one of the first J-artists I fell in love with, and hold strong sentimental attachment to all her songs...

There'll never be another one like her!

Yuno Ohara Walks By My Old School

On my Diamond Head walks I always pass by my old school Kaimuki Intermediate which not only has changed its name to “Kaimuki Middle School” but judging by the words adorning the library, alumni no longer call themselves “Pioneers”  but call themselves ‘Voyagers” nowadays….Lots of other changes since I was a lad, with new structures, new sun-shielding coverings and big new gymnasium!  But the place still looks grassy and sunny and, attached to Leahi Field, makes for a pleasant walk!

Seems I wasn't the ONLY one who thought it was a picturesque place to shoot some photos, when I saw that the area out front where parents dropped their kids off in the morning:

...made an appearance in a photobook for Japanese actress /gravure model Yuno Ohara when she came to Hawaii! I was Skimming through scans of Yuno's shashinshuu when I saw this picture and recognized it as the very same sidewalk that I take my afternoon walks! “HEY, I'd know that Middle School fence anywhere!!"

This street is actually pretty popular for Japan Idol photo shoots as a few were taken for some other models witup he hill!

Close Encounters of the Baka Kind: Bakarhythm Returns with "The Hot Spot"

Akihiro Kakuta and Mikako Ichikawa in THE HOT SPOT

Been enjoying the new drama THE HOT SPOT, about a woman working at a Hot Springs hotel who finds out her co-worker is an extraterrestrial alien of vaguely superhuman strengths, and to whom she uses to make her hectic job easier! 

Mikako Ichikawa stars as Kiyomi Endo, a sensible single mother of one, who spends her days as a matter of routine: Get up, make breakfast for her daughter, bicycle to work, do her duties at the front desk of the hotel, go home at 6 and make dinner for her daughter who comes home from cram school at 8. 

At the front desk with co-workers Isomura and Sawada (Kaho and Maki Sakai).

Manager Okuda (Naoki Tanaka)

It's a complicated job, but somebody's got to do it!

This all changes one day when, bicycling home from work, she accidentally swerves in front of an oncoming truck-and is saved by the swift speed of her senior at the hotel, Takahashi (Akihiro Kakuta). Stunned by this sudden outburst of strength, she is further confused when he implores her to not breathe a word of the heroic deed to anyone. Why?

This secrecy really piques Kiyomi’s curiosity and the next day at work, she keeps at him until he finally confesses a most unbelievable statement: that he is an ALIEN born to a human father and alien mother!  He'd rather no one know about his secret and asks her to PLEASE keep it to herself!

"An ALIEN?"

"An Alien."

"..."

At first thinking him off his rocker, with a few demonstrations of his “powers”, she is convinced, and at once realizes that someone with his gifts is JUST the kind of thing she needs to help her in her busy day at work dealing with all the multitudes of problems the front desk receives! 

"With these powers, you can help me with my customer service problem!"

"You might be overestimating what I can do..."

Nonetheless, the dynamic duo gamely tackle the problems, and whaddaya know- they succeed! Takahashi's alien powers might JUST be the thing to keep the staff's sanity at the Onsen!

Scriptwritten by the mad mind of BAKARHYTHM, this is yet another FUN drama in the vein of his slightly sci-fi comedies like Suteki Na Sen TAXI and the excellent BRUSH UP LIFE, full of zany dialog, wacky scenarios, kooky and chatty best friends, and of course, true HEART at the base of it all! 

Kiyomi and friends Minami and Hazuki (Kami Hiraiwa and Anne Suzuki)

Skeptical friends being introduced to the "Alien"

On the case!

From the beginning, this was the SOLE drama I was looking forward to this season, and so far it has been everything I’ve hoped for!!! Can’t wait to see more!!!