Namiyo Kiite Kuru おわり

One from a few seasons back, Nami yo Kiite Kuru was always on my back burner and has FINALLY wrapped up, to GLORIOUS appeal! Gotta say, for a show that started out nutty (and, admittedly, sometimes irritating) as hell, I have to say how much this drama grew on me until the point where I just LOVE it to death!  Funny how a show can hit one way and then end up being one of your favorite shows of the season!!

 Fuka Koshiba excels as radio personality Minare and the individual episode stories are fun, but I think it's the development of Minare’s friendship/partnership with the AD Mizuho (played by Hara Nanoka) that really sold me on the show. Initially starting out as mere associates at the radio station, when Mizuho gets promoted to becoming Minare’s program director, they become really like partners in crime, so fun and rascally with each other!

The two have such distinct personalities: with Mizuho the soft spoken and thoughtful one and Minare the loudmouthed, brash fly-off-the-handle type they play quite well off each other, and as the show went along, Minare and Mizuho became almost like equal co-stars as they investigated each new topic for their night program, getting into all KINDS of shenanigans in the process!!!

Such a joy watching them interact each episode, and despite any differences they have, you can tell they really adore each other and it always puts a smile on my face when they unabashedly assert their love for each other!

A perfect example: Mato (Kazuki Kitamura) tells Minare she has to attend attitude meetings if she wants to keep the show afloat, to which she threatens to just axe the show. But Mizuho cries out against the news, to which Minare pleads her love for her no matter what!

LOLOL

In another one, they're going over a potential story, and Minare is shocked to find Mizuho becoming more and more devilish with her plans to nab a good story no matter the cost.

"I'm the rotten one...you're supposed to be the sweet one!" Minare cries as she hugs Mizuho, scared that she is turning into Mato as she becomes more responsible for her programs!

Such a FUN and SWEET pairing! It’s for this that when the drama inevitably ended, I was achingly missing them and wanting to drop in on them again! Such is the mark of great characters!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

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’….