A Wild Fuka Appeared!

 Was back in Waikiki at Mitsuwa to pick up a bento for dinner last night (since my beloved Hokkaido Ramen Santouka is gone!!!) and happened to notice in the makeup aisle that actress Fuka Koshiba is the newest spokesperson for Canmake and they’ve got a monitor streaming all her Canmade CMS on repeat!

Was standing there mesmerized for a minute then decided to take a snap for posterity!! So wonderful to see Fuka in my daily walks- this girl is really making a name for herself!

Rasen no Meikyu: DNA Kagaku Sosa

 
A common set-up of the modern J-drama Mystery Show is the “Odd person with Anti-social personality who has curious talent is recruited by skeptical Detective to help solve Murders”, a trope used in such classics as Masaharu Fukuyama’s Galileo, Hiroshi Abe’s The Sniffer, even Satoshi Ohno’s Kagi No Kagetta Heya, and now we have Rasen no Meikyu: DNA Kagaku Sosa!

This time around we have Kei Tanaka as the current oddball scientist, the acclaimed DNA Specialist Jin Jinbo who claims that thru DNA he can fairly predict a person’s personality, inclinations and even possible future...and on the detective side we have the bitter disbeliever Genji Ando, played by Ken Yasuda in a role that looks almost exactly like his role in the Minami Hamabe mystery drama Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu, though a LOT more serious…

The two happen to meet during a routine questioning Ando is giving of a suspect in his club, where Jinbo happens to be taking samples of rodent dander. Overhearing the interrogation, Jinbo points out some fallacies the suspect is giving and ends up giving Ando his card.

Back at Headquarters, Ando’s Investigative partner Runa Ranbara (a DEVASTATINGLY GORGEOUS Kana Kurashina) and forensic scientist Ayaka Kusuda (Yuriko Ono) gush about Jin Jinbo and how widely respected he is in the world of DNA studies! Ando is stunned to hear how respected  Jinbo is, considering how odd he seems!

There is a serial killer on the loose which Ando has been passionately tracker for personal reasons. When the case comes to a standstill, Ando reluctantly ask Jinbo to help in the investigation with his skills. And as par for the course in these dramas, Jinbo refuses, wanting nothing to do with the police or the public, only caring about his work.

Like most detectives before him, Jinbo is an eccentric of sorts, looking at things solely through the eyes of how DNA comes into play…except when he’s at the small restaurant he lives above, run by the kind and genial Yukari Baba (Keiko Matsuzaka) who crafts the overly sugary sweet desserts which seem to be the only non-DNA thing Jinbo cares about!

He is asked by the police many times to help, but it’s when he sees how sincere Ando is, when he feels like he can trust the detective, that he finally agrees. From then, the two team up to track down a ruthless killer in their midst…using both parts DNA and good old detective intuition!!

This Mystery drama is hitting ALL the usual cliches of this trope, and I had to laugh when they even got Ikkei Watanabe to be Ando’s infuriated superior, HAHAHA! Watanabe’s done this role SO MANY times, it should unofficially be called the Ikkei role, LOL!

We'll see where this one goes, it's interesting enough...and it's worth it to stick around for the sheer Kana Kurashina goodness alone!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Kasumi Arimura is Back in “Zenkamono”

Kasumi Arimura is Kayo Agawa, a stiff and by-the-numbers kind of woman who works at a convenience store for a living, where she bickers with her manager for her cold and unfeeling way of interacting with both him and the customers.

Kayo has just taken up a job as a probation officer. This is a volunteer and non-paying job, but for reasons not yet revealed to us, she feels the need to do this work.

At her induction she is taught what to do and expect by her superior Takamatsu (Kitamura Yukiya). Kayo’s first charge is a woman named Midori Saito (Shizuka Ishibashi) who was in for assault, and by the records was quite violent. But Kayo feels optimistic about what she can do for this girl.

Of course, things are a lot tougher than Kayo expected. Her first meeting with the girl’s mom turns out disastrously as the mom has no love for her ex-con daughter, and lets Kayo know that she wants nothing to do with her.

Upon Midori’s release Kayo had intended to meet with her, make her a meal and then get her passes for the bath house. She hopes the two can bond and work through the issues she will have to deal with. But things don’t go quite as she expected...

When Midori arrives, we see that she is a bitter and troublesome person from the get go. She has Kayo pay for her hair stylist and then scoffs at the homemade meal. It seems like they can’t work together, but when Kayo goes off on a tirade (when Midori belittles her convenience store job), Midori has to laugh and, in the end, accepts the meal and her offer to stand as her probation officer!

Kayo has managed to find Midori work at a Care facility, but even before the first day of work, Midori is late and gets into a physical altercation with the staff, causing Kayo to leave her job and speed to the care center. On the way she crashes into a fence trying to avoid some kids and has to hobble her way to the center with her nose bleeding. 

Seems this Probation Officer thing will be a LOT harder than she even could have imagined!!!!

Ah, the lovely, lovely Kasumi Arimura! While I wait and pray for her last drama Conte Ga Hajimaru to EVER get completed, we’ve been blessed with yet another intriguing Kasumi role, this time the mousey and mumbly Kayo Agawa, whom, despite her introverted manner, is a wholly charming and likeable character- think a cross between Mitsuki Takahata’s Sakura in “Douki No Sakura” or Ayase Haruka’s character in “Gibo To Musume” and you get the picture!

Quite looking forward to seeing how this one turns out!

PS: So jarring to be watching Mushuoboke with Yukiya Kitamura as the  loudmouth ex-con ex-Yakuza Sosuke... 

....and then see him in Zenkamono as the strict and sensible Probation Officer Superior Takamatsu. Talk about two sides of a coin!

PPS: I’ve always referred to actress Shizuka Ishibashi as “That weird-looking girl whom I can’t decide if she’s really pretty or really odd” in dramas like Kono Koi Atatamemasu ka or her scene-stealing part in Omameda Towako to Sannin no Moto otto, but WOW, I barely RECOGNIZED her as the juvey delinquent Midori here! Such a different kind of role for her, far from her reserved and conservative role in something like “Hanbun Aoi”!! 

As Midori:

In "Hanbun Aoi"

Shizuka’s becoming an actress I really like and want to look out for!!!