"The Hot Spot" Entertains, "Brush Up Life" Endures!

 Still enjoying the wildly fun and entertaining Bakarhyhm sci-fi comedy THE HOT SPOT, about a woman who discovers that the senior clerk at the Hot Springs Hotel she works at is actually an alien!

HOTSPOT stars Mikako Ichikawa and Akihiro Kakuta as the respective woman and alien, but as far as the secondary cast goes, almost all of them are Bakaryhthm regulars: Kaho and Haruka Kinami are support characters, and with Sakura Ando appearing in episode 8, all three principle cast actresses of his awesome drama BRUSH UP LIFE have shown their faces here!

And that’s not ALL! Along with Sakura Ando, Haruka Kinami and Kaho we also had Mirai Shida, Toru Nomaguchi, Kayo Noro and Naoki Tanaka show up, ALL from Brush Up Life, and with two more episodes to go, who know WHO'S next?

Aw man, HOT SPOT has been so much fun, it's sad to realize it's going to be ending next week!

Sadly, the Apple+ sci-fi show SEVERANCE is ALSO set to end next week as well...what will I watch next????

Random Jennie in Hawaii

Huh, just saw an old picture of BLACKPINK Jennie scampering about the Leahi area on Kilauea Avenue where I do my afternoon walk- AS ALWAYS, I gotta ask- where was I during this shoot?

Ironically enough, the googlemaps capture of this area was taken in 2019, almost exactly as the time Jennie did her shoot, so the area looked almost exactly the same! They even still had that Coldwell Banker sign up!

Going online, I found that not only Jennie, but all four members of Blackpink Lisa,  Rose and Jisoo had taken photos there, and I decided to go down to Leahi and take new photos of the places they posed in to show just what the area looks like today! Some stuff has changed including a complete repavement of the road and LOTS of the trees and shrubbery cut back, but I think you can still recognize the place....

Jennie

Same spot today:

Lisa

Same spot today:

Rose

Same spot today:

Jisoo

Same spot today:

Looks like BLACKPINK really WAS "in my area" that day!

Too bad I missed them!

I've mentioned before, but this hilltop at Leahi and the area below it is fairly popular with celebs- Little further down the road is the place which i wrote about recently where Yuno Ohara passed by my Intermediate School...

...guess it's just a pleasing place for photo shoots!

Sequel Pet Peeves

 
Kekkon Dekinai Otoko told the tale of a man who is utterly a bachelor-for-life who somehow despite the odds ends up finding a woman whom he can truly love, and the show ends with the two being a couple. When they made a sequel,  faced with dealing with the happy ending of season one, the writers simply said, “Eh, it didn’t work out for him, so they broke up and he’s a self confirmed bachelor again!!!”

MAN, I cannot STAND when shows do this. They do not realize that it’s not just the struggles of the bachelor throughout the show that made it good, but the fact that the story had a real, conclusive (and optimistic) ending. To say “the hell with it” and scrap the ending to once again have him be single so he can go through the same stuff all over is MADDENING!

The wonderful drama “Ore Wa Hanashi was Nagai” told the story of a hopeless guy who just can’t get a real job living with his mother who, through the chance interventions of people in his life, finally takes the reins of his life and by the show’s end, makes his way to his first ever job.

It was a perfect end to a highly enjoyable show, and so when they announced a new SPECIAL SEQUEL to the series, I was naturally apprehensive, and, sure enough, just reading the synopsis had me GROANING out loud: 

“The story set in a five years later, follows Kishibe Mitsuru, who has resolved to return to work after a long NEET life but gives up after two months, as he once again begins the path to independence.”

WHY? WHY do they always DO this??? Is it THAT hard to come up with a new compelling story to follow the original series without RUINING what made the first series special in the FIRST place??

I mean, as Ore  No Hanashi wa Nagai was one of my ALL-TIEM favorite dramas, I suppose I'll HAVE top see it at SOME TIME, but even if it ends up being OK, they will still have tampered with the original ending and made it less than what it was.

Quentin Tarantino perhaps said it best when talking about that completely superfluous and totally unnecessary 4th installment of the otherwise perfect TOY STORY trilogy:

Well Put!!!

Your Monthly Keiko For March 2025

It's Keiko for March and she's looking as FINE as ever! What is our dear Keitan up to THIS month?

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On My J-Drama Wishlist:

Anata wo Ubatta Sono Hi kara

Keiko stars in a drama slightly reminiscent of Youkami no Semi, as a mother who loses a child to food poisoning and extracts revenge on the seemingly uncaring delicatessen president (Nao Omori)  responsible- by kidnapping their 3 year old child for herself.

Begins airing in April, can't wait to see it!!!

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Last month we mentioned how Keiko had become the model for jewelry brand MIKIMOTO, and a few days ago Keitan's hubby DAIGO uploaded photos of himself proudly posing on front of the HUGE window mural of her in front of the store!

Pics from DAIGO's twitter 

Can't BLAME the guy as I would be proud, too!!!