A Mayu Matsuoka Crash Course

After falling in love with the spritely Mayu Matsuoka in the short but sweet drama “Okane no Kireme ga Koi no Hajimari” I realized I hadn’t seen her in a lot of stuff, including her classic “Manbiki Kazoku” and so with that and the recommendation of her drama "Genkai Shuraku Kabushiki Kaisha”, I decided to make a weekend of diving into Mayu’s works!

At an easy 5 episodes long, I decided to tackle her drama first. Genkai Shuraku Kabushiki Kaisha told the tale of a dying village out in the sticks who cautiously team up with a man who promises he can bring prosperity to their ailing farming town.

As a young woman unable to get work in Tokyo who returns to her hometown to take over her absent father’s organic cabbage field, I was shocked how big a role Mayu had in this one! I really thought she was gonna be just one of the villagers but she was practically the main character!

A great, heartwarming little drama! 

After the fine feel-good vibes, it was time to take on Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku), and as a huge fan of director Hirokazu Koreeda’s other films like Air Doll, Nobody Knows, and Still Walking, I knew this was going to be a moody, slowly paced and heartfelt affair!

Welp, sure enough , it hooked me right from the start with the tale of a sort of Father (Lily Frankly) and Mother Sakura Ando) pair taking in an array of lost or suffering kids (Matsuoka, Jyo Kairi and Miyu Sasaki) and one feisty old grandma (the always outstanding Kiki Kirin in her last role).

As usual with Koreeda's films, a lot of time is spent without anything being said and the viewer is left to soak up the atmosphere and rely on facial nuances between the characters more than actual dialog.

Mayu was great as the one child who is making her own income at a local peep show revue. I was at first surprised to see her in such racy role (all the ones I’ve seen before have been so squeaky clean and wholesome!) but if that wasn’t all, I discovered for the first time how AMPLY ENDOWED Mayu was! WHAAA!

Holy TOLEDO, ya NEVER would have thought that from her diminutive stature in Suizokukan Girl or Okane no Kireme ga Koi no Hajimari, but BOY, Shoplifters not only made you aware of her curves, they literally shoved it in your face!

LOL even Shota can't keep his eyes off his Big Sister's figure, and who can blame him!

LOL just another fun family outing with a well-developed older sister!!

Cheesecake aside, it added up to a wonderful little movie which left you sadder for the characters in the end and had you hoping they’d somehow get together again and have a “happy ending” together. But that's about par for the course for these Koreeda type of movies, a bittersweet, fun and touching drama that makes you think about it long after you're done watching it!

PS, if that wasn’t enough, they also had Aju Makita playing Mayu’s little sister! 

Had to laugh seeing her in her all-too-brief scene…she's certainly playing a lot of little sister roles!

OK, after this Crash Course, I'm ready to see what Mayu Matsuoka has in store next!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

More Yui and Hiroshi With Aruitemo, Aruitemo (Still Walking)

Yui Natsukawa and Hiroshi Abe in Still Walking

Still riding on a very intense Yui Natsukawa high after falling in love with her in “Kekkon Dekinai Otoko” and was trying to get my hands the 2011 drama  “Shiawase no Kiiroi Hankachi” because it starred both Yui and Hiroshi Abe as a married couple. Well, I still haven’t managed to locate it, but I realized I DID already have a MOVIE starring Hiroshi Abe and Yui Natsukawa as a married couple, the film “Auruitemo, Aruitemo (Still Walking) which I’d been sitting on for years and I immediately dug it up to watch!

 This was one of those laid-back “absorb the atmosphere” kind of flicks, ones that take the time to show random things like an old man walking down a hill or a train clicking across the scenery…and it reminded me not just a little of the terrific Hiroshi Abe/Tomoko Yamaguchi drama “Going My Home”: Same story of a city resident going back to visit his relations in a small old-fashioned town, and once there, sitting back and taking in the slowed down pace on the town. Heck, they even got YOU to play his younger sister in both of them!

I’d originally downloaded this movie at the recommendation of a friend who really likes Hiroshi Abe , Ironically, he never remembers his name, instead calling him “that guy who looks like Rider-Man”. One day he told me, “Hey we saw this Japanese movie with that guy that looks like Rider Man, and it was really good! It’s about this guy who goes back home to visit his family, but he doesn’t get along with his father who thinks he’s good for nothing”. When I looked like I was thinking “That’s it?”,  he added, “eh, there was more to it, but it was more in the way the movie was shown than the story itself.” And how right he was!

 So I got it, but I never got around to checking it out til now (Well, some of  the beginning looks familiar, so I may have watched some of it initially but I don’t remember it)! But that’s okay because I don’t think there’s a better time to be watching it than right now, where I can fully appreciate both Yui and Abe’s acting skills and the way they play off each other! Actually, everyone was really great, such natural and organic scenes which were composed mostly of dialog, GREAT dialog which grew and simmered like real conversations… so realistic, at times if seemed like I was watching a hidden camera video recording of some family’s life!

Watching this has really reinforced my Yui Natsukawa love, man…she was so doggone pretty and delicate in this one, not at all like the tough realist Natsumi Hayakawa, but both really great characters. And of course, no matter who she plays, her characters always have those signature dimples, and in fact, there's a scene where Mother (played excellently by the awesome Kiki Kirin) even comments, "Oh, you have cute dimples!" LOLOL

PS. Was really cool to realize the line “Aruitemo, Aruitemo” used as the title of this movie came from none other than the immensely gorgeous Japan chanteuse Ayumi Ishida’s  song “Blue Light Yokohama”, how cool is THAT!!!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Karasawa Toshiaki & Kiki Kirin / Futari No Subete

AHAHAHA, this next one is a really FUN one! As the theme song for the Karasawa Toshiaki / Kiki Kirin drama KAGAYAKE! RINTARO, the story about the life and times of a earnest young business man living with his feisty mother as he tries to balance work and getting married, FUTARI NO SUBETE is the PERFECT opening for each episode!

Besides being a terrifically catchy song and danceable as hell, the theme song FUTARI NO SUBETE had the added bonus of being both sung AND performed by the fun two co-stars themselves! Each episode began with a little teaser for the show which usually ended with the two having some wacky, light-hearted argument before the the drums and synthesizers kicked in and the song started!

As the title suggests, the song FUTARI NO SUBETE is all about how great the two of them are together, the Ultimate Pair! As the two sing and grasp each others’ hands, wildly boogying down against the backdrop of a computer-generated cabaret show, you immediately get the “feel” of the show: silliness mixed in with the tender affection each has for each other. And those slow-motion clichéd SMAP dance moves at the end never fails to seal the deal!

Kagayake Rintaro was one of the very first dramas I watched on my own (without the suggestion of anyone else) and was the very first time seeing both Karasawa Toshiaki, Kiki Kirin AND awesome Esumi Makiko. Though I would see Kiki Kirin only sporadically in later years (cracked me up in the Kyoko Fukada movie Kamikaze Girls!) Karasawa Toshiaki and Esumi Makiko would go on to become some of my favorite actors!