A Riveting Murder Mystery in Snow White

Inoue Mao in The Snow White Murder Case

  Just finished watching the movie The Snow White Murder Case (Shirayuki hime Satsujin Jiken), and what an awesome film it was!
A true Murder Mystery proper, this movie tells the tale of two women, one shy and homely and the other beautiful and dazzling. They’ve worked together for the company that manufactures a popular “Snow White” Beauty Soap, and when the beautiful girl, Miki Noriko (played by pretty Nanao) is discovered dead, having been stabbed multiple times, killed and set ablaze, the case is dubbed the “Snow White” Murder by the press.

Inoue Mao and Nanao

Nanao as the beautiful Miki Noriko

Inoue Mao as the plain Shirono Miki

   The main suspect in the case is the aforementioned homely girl, Shirono Miki (played brilliantly by Mao Inoue) and as told to up-and-coming junior TV News reporter Akahoshi (Go Ayano) by his friend Risako (Renbutsu Misako, in probably her quirkiest role yet) who was actually an employee of the company when the crime went down, Shirono Miki had many reasons to want Miki Noriko dead, including belittling her and even stealing her boyfriend!

Go Ayano and Renbutsu Misako

 But as Akahoshi begins investigating the case, things aren’t always what they seem. Like the House of Rashomon, everyone involved with the case has their own “take” of what REALLY went on in the days and months leading up to the murder, til he is no longer sure of who is guilty or innocent. But his constant tweeting of his “discoveries” to the masses seeks to implicate Shirono, and soon the internet has created a witchhunt which even Akahoshi might not be able to stop!
 I was thoroughly entertained throughout this whole movie, and my GOSH was it stylishly directed! Every shot was done with a very artistic point of view, and the opening overhead scene of the beautiful Miki Noriko laying dying on the forest floor as her slowing pulse sends spurts of blood trickling out of her gaping wounds is an artistic masterpiece worthy of Hitchcock himself!

A Haunting Death Scene

 And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how chock-full of beautiful girls there are in this movie! Besides the aforementioned Inoue Mao, Renbutsu Misako, and Nanao, we’ve also got appearances by other fetching actresses, including Tanimura Mitsuki, Ono Erena, and the always scene-stealing Shihori Kanjiya! Ah yes, a flick DEFINITELY worth watching!!!

Renbutsu Misako as Kano Risako

Tanimura Mitsuki as Minori

Ono Erena as "Mi-Chan"

Tomboyish Shihori Kanjiya playing Shut-In Yuko

BTW, it always amazes me how much personality Mao Inoue exudes in her roles. No matter what she does, you always tend to find yourself liking her character, even it that character is the main subject of a brutal murder! What an actress!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

J-Drama Clichés: Those Bullying Arm-Crossing Girls

Futatsu No Spica

You want a drama with trios of girls running around a school bullying all the weaker girls beneath them? You got it! J-Dramas are positively lousy with trios (or, occasionally, quartets, but never more than quintets) of girls running the hallways, all of them dramatically crossing their arms in a superior way to make the oppressed feel even more helpless!

Hana Yori Dango 

Cat Street

Deep Love

Yasuko To Kenji

No, seriously, what’s up with all that arm-crossing? Tends to look quite wonky after a awhile, and if there’s one thing that Hana Kimi did well was take this oft-used cliché and turn it into one of the most hilarious spoofs with poor Mayuko Iwasa and her group of cohorts (with a young Mirei Kiritani, no less) getting the short end of the stick in every situation, AHAHAHA! 

Hana Kimi

Notes On Kohaku Uta Gassen 2011

Kohaku Uta Gassen 2011: Inoue Mao and Arashi

This was the first time I was able to download the Kohaku right after it aired in Japan since entering the internet age…in the past years I’ve had to wait for the local station to air it or watch it streaming online, and you know what the quality is like that way! So this time it was an absolute treat to watch the program right away, and in brilliant, crisp ts. quality! (thanks to terahata via jpopsuki!)

Nana Mizuki

Just about everyone looked and sounded great here, and I was thrilled to see some of my favorite singles from the past year being performed here like “Flying GET” by AKB48, “Miageta Ryusei” by TOKIO, and the ultra peppy POP MASTER by genki Nana Mizuki (reminding me a bit of Hiroko Moriguchi here). Of course I was stoked to see AAA making their well-deserved second appearance, doing the thumpin’ song CALL (though I wished they coulda done flip side single “Lights” instead) and it make me smile to see how happy they were to be there!

AAA

Drooled over the sexy ‘n’ leggy performances of K-Pop sensations KARA strutting their stuff in their “2011 Medley” and Shojo Jidai doing “Genie”…

KARA

Shoujo Jidai

Got teary eyed over the wonderfully heartfelt performances of Arashi doing “Furusato (where the single thought going through my head was WHAT! Sho plays PIANO?) followed by the always somber Ayaka Hirahara. Was excited to see my old favorite Matsutoya Yumi (seeing her coming down the stairs during the opening ceremony made me giddy with anticipation!!) here performing  her classic “Haru Yo Koi” live...

Arashi "Furusato"

Yumi Matsutoya "Haru Yo, Koi"

 ...But for me the absolute highlight just HAD to be the double-pronged Natsu-Matsuri flavored celebration of song by Ayako Fuji and Hosokawa Takashi- 

Ayako Fuji

Takashi Hosokawa

WOW these two just came out FULL FORCE and showed everyone what the Year-End festival was all about, so bright, happy and FUN! And DAMN! Is Ayako Fuji getting just prettier and PRETTIER with age? She looked so DAMN FINE!

Like last time, they set up as hosts of the show ARASHI as the White Team captains, and this time for the Red Team leader, they got adorable and perky Mao Inoue to take the reins. So cute watching her naively working her way through the show, and her reaction to the contest results just brought tears to my eyes, she was SO emotional! And hella pretty, to boot!

Part Two: Those Hilarious Flubs!

When You're dealing with a tightly run LIVE telecast, things are BOUND to go awry, and what would the Kohaku be without those inevitable mis-steps and bloopers? Ya Gotta Laugh, and my two favorite flubs this year are:

1. The Stagehand in the background trying to take the table prop 

away during Natsuko Godai's performance

2. The Fathead walking in front of Mao Inoue while she

 delivers her eulogy about the Japan Disaster

Ahahah, too funny! Aw, whatever, it was a grand old show, and I can't wait to see what they accomplish next year!

PS: OK, one more thing...

My, Didn't Kyoka Suzuki look positively stunning, regal and refined that night? Whoa!

Crush Of The Day: Inoue Mao

Inoue Mao

Yes, in a move that everyone must surely have predicted, Inoue Mao is today’s Crush Of The Day. Whodathunkit? Ah well, predictable or not, my gushing over cutie Mao-chan cannot be contained and must be said!

Inoue Mao as Fukunaga Mio

The first time I thought to myself, “Huh! Mao Inoue’s pretty cute!” was when she made her appearance on Himitsu No Arashi Chan’s VIP ROOM (See? That corner really was da bomb!) where she was on to talk story with the boys, reflect on her role with Matsujun in Hana Yori Dango, and promote her new movie “Tengoku de Kimi ni Aetara” with Nino.

Mao on Himitsu No Arashi-Chan's VIP ROOM

This revelation about Mao Inoue’s cuteness was a surprise for me because up until that point, she really had had no special effect on me. Though I had friends who really, really loved her, she seemed like nothing more than a capable young actress. Of course, I knew that if I saw her in the right drama playing the right character, my opinion could change just like that, and that’s where FIRST KISS comes in!

I had just begun watching a couple of OK but rather mundane dramas, and while both of them weren’t bad, I began to lament the fact that it had been a WHILE since I’d been blown away watching the first episode of a new drama, and decided I was going to keep watching new dramas til I found one that really moved me.

Flipping through my binder of Dramas (conveniently burned onto DVD discs an filed away nicely), I came across FIRST KISS and, feeling a positive vibe from it, decided to give it a chance and check it out…. WHAT A JACKPOT THAT TURNED OUT TO BE!! 

The story of Mio, a peppy young girl with a heart condition and Kano, her befuddled older brother who suddenly finds his rambunctious sister under his care as she returns home to Japan to spend the summer before going back to have a serious surgery, this bittersweet drama is just FILLED with awesome actors and every single one of them is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC in his or her role.

Hideaki Ito and Inoue Mao: Siblings

And as related in my earlier post, First Kiss TOTALLY sold me first from that very first episode. My heart was just completely stolen away Inoue Mao’s character Mio, and her sassiness and naughtiness just made me LOVE HER! She played Mio with SUCH girly ABANDON, like this was the role she was destined to play!

Besides her explosively genki demeanor, Mio’s attire is the icing on the cake: the most cute and feminine of outfits, and HECK, even her BRA STRAPS have hearts on them, and you KNOW that that’s a WINNER!

Its so funny how the perfect character can turn a casual knowledge of an actress into a full blown fan! To all those Hana Yori Dango fans out there, I could say “I Get It now!” but while she will be Makino Tsukushi to all of you, she will be eternally engrained in my heart as Fukunaga Mio!

Inoue Mao eating Pizza

Notes On "First Kiss"

 Years ago, my friends and I would wait every month for the next issue of our favorite comic. In between releases, we’d sit and talk about the issue we’d just read, discussing theories and favorite scenes... Somehow, this made the overall story even better! When they later published the entire series in one book, I told a friend (who was just starting to read it) that the best way to experience it was to read only one issue a dayt, to give some time to think about the story and to savor the time. He, of course, paid no heed to my advice, and barreled through the entire book in one night! Gah!

That was frustrating for me, but I’m beginning to know what he was going through because I’ve just finished watching the first episode of the 2007 Drama ”First Kiss”, and it is very, very, VERY good. So good that I’m wondering if there’s any WAY I’ll be able to watch this one day at a time and not try to finish it off in one go. Right Now I’m still brushing away tears from my eyes and am still feeling overwhelmed at how fricking SWEET this show is.

Ito Hideaki as Kano and Inoue Mao as Mio

First Kiss is the story of Mio, a peppy young girl with a heart condition and Kano, her befuddled older brother who suddenly finds his rambunctious sister under his care as she returns home to Japan to spend the summer before going back to have a serious surgery, this bittersweet drama is just FILLED with awesome actors and every single one of them is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC in his or her role.

Genki Girl! Mao Inoue as Mio

Hideaki Ito plays the Older Brother Kano, and we get the grasp of just how mixed up his life is as we meet the “characters” in his life: His two effeminate roommates (played with HILARIOUS zest by actors Abe Sadao and Gekidan Hitori) are spastic and fun, and when the three of them get into it, it’s like the Three Stooges come to life, SO FUNNY!!! 

Gekidan Hitori, Abe Sadao and Ito Hideaki

The three of them work under a flamboyant Photographer named Banba Dai, and he’s played completely over-the-top by larger-than-life Takenaka Naoto! If that wasn’t enough eccentric characters, we’ve also got naughty Wakana Saki as Kano’s sexy would-be girlfriend Haruna!

Mio tells off Banba: Takenaka Naoto and Inoue Mao

Sexy Wakana Sakai as Haruna

Besides the Medical dramatics and the Roommate slapstick side of FIRST KISS, the real underlying theme of the drama is the overwhelming love Kano has for his little sister, and vice versa. Whenever they show the siblings in flashback, and you see the young Kano piggybacking his sister, you can see how they have a strong, unspoken bond between them. 

There’s this one scene where Kano has just found out that his sister has only a 50% chance of surviving the operation, and on the way home, she asks to be piggybacked like they did when they were kids. As she laughs and teases him, you can see in his face how much she means to him. It’s scenes like THIS that get me all wishy-washy!

The drama also features two always gorgeous older actresses I love, with Natsuki Mari playing the elegant America-jin Mother and Matsuyuki Yasuko playing pretty Dr. Renko Takagi, the doctor in charge of Mio. Also along for the ride is Yuta Hiraoka as an insecure training doctor  (basically replaying his Godhand Teru Role, but without the godhand-power) tending to Mio who may or may not develop into her love interest.

Matsuyuki Tasuko as Dr. Takagi

Natsuki Mari as Ms. Fukunaga

Inoue Mao with Hiraoka Yuta

And then there’s Mao Inoue.  Oh My GOSH, from the first moment she came onto the screen, she just FILLED the show with this bright, blinding and SASSY energy! She TOTALLY captivated me throughout the entire episode, and I found that whenever she was onscreen, I just could NOT take my eyes off of her! Sooo Cute, Sooo Perky and soooo PRETTY!!!! Seriously, she’s already breaking my heart, I am in LOVE!!!

To wrap things all up nicely in a bow, they’ve even got wonderful Oda Kazumasa singing the beautiful, beautiful song “Kokoro” as the First Kiss’ Theme. If your heart wasn’t already aching from being tugged this way and that, this melancholy song will take care of the rest!

Ahhh, looking forward to catching the rest of this drama, and if the rest of the show is as good as the first episode, I'll be in for an INCREDIBLE ride!