Keiko, Keiko, Keiko!

Kitagawa Keiko Does It Again!

I had downloaded the RAW file of Kitagawa Keiko’s Television Movie Special HITSUDAN HOSTESS a while ago, but at the time, there were no English subs available, so I stashed it in a folder on my harddrive til subs showed up. After a time I forgot all about it!
It wasn’t until I acquired a translated copy of Keiko's appearance on HIMITSU NO ARASHI-CHAN that I was reminded of just how much I fully LOVE her! With candid conversations with Arashi about various things like school, modelling and acting, Keiko’s wonderful, interesting and FUN comments just had everyone rolling on the floor, and I found myself COMPLETELY fallin' in love AGAIN!
After that I needed more and more Keiko, and it was then that I remembered I still had Hitsudan Hostess waiting on my computer to watch! But were subs finally available? Going online, I was happy to find that in the time since I’d acquired the movie, Fansubbing team DRAMANIACS had made soft subs for it!!! YATTA!
Once again Keiko is just fantastic here, beautiful and totally believable in her portrayal of Saito Rei, the Ginza Hostess who made it all the way to the top of #1 Hostess in Japan despite being completely deaf since childhood. And naturally, Hostess=Pretty clothes! But it was the slow and deliberate pacing of the show that really hooked me in- with scenes built around Rie poetically writing elegantly in her notepad to communicate with her clients and fellow peers, she really gave a "relaxed and calm" feel to the picture!

Now fully invigorated with renewed love of Keiko-chan, I’m slowly downloading the episodes of her new drama TSUKI NO KOIBITO as they come out, (but am waiting till I get a few before watching them so I can enjoy a whole chunk at one time) and you can bet when I start watching it, the Kitagawa Keiko love will be uncontainable!!

Crush Of The Day: Seki Megumi

We started watching the Eriko Kitagawa penned drama SUNAO NI NARETAKUTE, mostly (as did quite a few people) to see the reunion of actors Eita and Juri Ueno, whom we’ve loved together in dramas Last Friends and of course the mighty NODAME CANTIBILE, and in that regard, the drama didn’t disappoint! As Car noted, “Those two have great chemistry together”! But once the show started and the ensemble cast was revealed, I began vigilantly watching the show for ANOTHER actress!
The story of Sunao Ni Naretakute revolves around five people who are regulars on twitter and, because they get on so well online, decide to meet up one day in person. From this initial meeting, the five tweeters enter each others’ lives and discover that they are not the only ones going through hardships- each person at that fateful meeting has huge obstacles to hurdle and problems to sort out. But with the support of these newfound friendships, they are able to help each other get through the hard times and find out what it truly means to be friends. It was after this quandary-filled first episode that I said in confused summation: ”I don’t know WHERE this crazy drama is going, but that psycho girl with the slashed wrist scars is pretty fricking cute”!

AHAHAHAHA! Yes, while all the screeching and hair-pulling was going on throughout the episode, I was busy taking notice of what really matters in any good drama: “Where are the babes?” And though I love Juri Ueno to death, her character of a troubled teacher just couldn’t compare to the attraction I found in that sweet and feminine lass with the telltale lines scrawled upon her arms!

Car laughed, “You said that that actress was cute before, when we saw her in HATCHIMITSU TO CLOVER (Honey and Clover) with Sho! She was the one who liked That Takumi guy”

Huh! I hadn’t realized that I’d seen this actress before in anything!

“Yeah, remember?” said Car. “ You said something like “As IF a BABE like that would be pining away for a loser like that dork!”

I still didn’t remember her (I was too busy being introduced to the wonder of Aoi Yu at the time), but laughed, “Well at least that PROVES that there’s something about this girl that I really like!”

The actress in question was none other than a girl with few dramas but LOTS of Movies to her credit, the insanely adorable Seki Megumi! With looks that seem both part Yu Yamada and Miho Kanno mixed together, Seki has an almost western look to her, at once exotic and HELLA SEXY!

As Nishimura Hikari (or her online name "Peach", which TOTALLY matches her), Seki plays a beautiful but extremely insecure and manic depressive girl who is starved for love and companionship, and out of the entire cast, she was the only one out of the five who really captured my interest (and heart) and made me want to know more about what her ‘story” was all about.

Well, it seems that my interest in Peach was well invested, because throughout the drama, she retained her status as my favorite character in the show, whether the story focused on her, or even if it was her interacting with the other people as they dealt with their own various problems.

And as far as problems of her own went, just like her character of Ayumi in HONEY AND CLOVER, once again we find her sadly pining away for various guys who all politely rebuff her. Really breaks my heart to see such a sensitive and pretty girl continually getting her feelings hurt, you would think that by simply being a babe she would have guys falling all around her feet! Or at least, I would. Ahahahaha!

Reading up on Megumi’s Dramawiki stats page, I was excited to see “Bandage Club” listed as one of her more recent movies, because I'd JUST seen it available for download at one of the j-movie sites that I visit. Scurrying over to said site, I was bummed to read that the DL didn't include english subs. Determined, I went online to see if anyone else was offering up the subs in softsubs like .ass or .srt. When none could be found, I said heck with that, I’ll watch it without subtitles! It was only then that I discovered that the movie torrent had 0 seeders and was informed by my torrent program that it would take “approximately 40 weeks” to download! D’OH!!!!

Ah well, Looks like I’ll just have to be satisfied watching Megumi in the last few episodes of Sunao Ni Naritakute!

Crush Of The Day: Kitagawa Hiromi

What if you found you could only have sex seven more times in your life? That’s the dilemma facing Mutsuki “Muu-chan” Tomoya in the comedy drama CUPID NO ITAZURA when he finds he’s afflicted with an illness that gives him just seven times left to “get it up” whereupon his equipment will cease to perform forever after!

Mutsuki (Takahashi Ryosuke) first becomes aware of his sickness when he’s “self gratifying” himself, and to his horror, a purple ball shoots out! He doesn’t know what to make of it, but when he goes to see a doctor, played by the cool and uber-sexy Kawashima Naomi (whom I had a MAD luv-on for back in THE CHEF), he finds that he is afflicted with a disease called RAINBOW BALLS and will shoot out six more different colored balls (hence the zany affliction’s name) til he shoots out a red one, and that will signify that it is THE END! AHAHAHAHAHA!!

Now, with a zany premise like that, you just KNOW you are in for a fun and WACKY comedy, but while there is surely enough of that here, this drama was SURPRISINGLY thoughtful and touching, and for me, I believe it all comes down to the AWESOME acting talents of actress Kitagawa Hiromi!

As Muu-chan’s best friend Kiryu Asami, she’s been his steadfast pal since childhood, and he knows he can rely on her whenever he’s in need of encouragement, consolation or companionship, but the rub is that she’s secretly been in love with him since they were in primary school together, and he’s only ever seen her as a friend. This is, of course, a tried and true j-drama storyline, but MAN, Kitagawa plays Asami SO believably and sweetly, she is INSTANTLY likeable and by the end of the first episode, you realize that SHE’S the character you care about the most, and find yourself TOTALLY ENGROSSED in finding out what happens next!!

The story begins with Asami encouraging Muu-chan to work up the courage to ask out a co-worker named Reiko thathe’s had a crush on for some time, but when he is successful and actually starts DATING the girl, Asami realizes that in her heart she’s always hoped SHE'D be the one by Mutsuki's side, and it is HEARTBREAKING to see her so sad and lonely at night while putting on a brave face and cheering Muu on during the day as he gets more and more intimate with Reiko.

But then the dreaded disease hits Muu-chan, and the stakes are changed entirely. Suddenly Asami realizes she can’t just sit aside and just HOPE that Muu’s relationship with Reiko won’t work out. Her dream has always been to be Tomoya's wife and one day bear his child, but with only a few more times left where he can have sex, if she doesn’t make some kind of move soon, he will use it all up on Reiko! Furthering the problem is the fact that Tomoya’s afraid Reiko will reject him is she finds ouf about his affliction- and the person he seeks advice and encouragement from is, of course, Asami!

So Asami is faced with the dilemma of working on making her dreams come true while at the same time being a loyal friend to Tomoya and helping him get through the illness and work things out with Reiko! Nonetheless, whenever Tomoya asks for her help, she freely gives it, and no matter what she may be harboring in her heart, shel always shows the utmost love and care towards his well being, and you think, “Ah, this is a true friend”.

So naturally watching Kitagawa go through all of these emotional scenes, after I few episodes, you guessed it, I found MYSELF magnetically attracted to Asami and her sweetness, and as the relationship (or lack thereof) built up between the two, I found MYSELF falling deeper and deeper in love with Asami, thinking, "The HECK with Tomoya, If he can't appreciate her, I'LL take her!" AHAHAHAHA!

Oh, and I have to say for the record, that when it comes to those lovey-dovey scenes that all good romantic dramas are wont to do, Kitagawa proves that she is definitely one of the top-notch kissers I’ve ever seen, strong and heartfelt, one of those that gives you goosebumps when you watch it!

Someone on a blog somewhere (probably d-addicts) asked if there was some kind of nihongo-realted reason why the actors and actresses in Japanese dramas always gave such half-assed kisses. While I didn’t quite agree with the reasons that were put forth on that thread, it did validate my OWN observation that for the most part, these “quick-peck” kisses were the norm for dramas, and so whenever I saw a drama where they actually seemed like they were “kissing” kissing, (if you know what I mean) I’d always think, “Hey, that looked like a For-Real Kiss!” And so it was for Hiromi Kitagawa, whom I give a BIG “Four Stars” for smooching!

After the drama was over, I just COULDN’T get pretty Hiromi out of my head, and moseyed on over to the almighty DRAMAWIKI site, where I was surprised to find that I’d actually seen Hiromi in a few dramas before, though none of them in orled that I readily remembered… dramas like Bengoshi No Kuzu, Star No Koi and even the chock-full-o-babes Mei-Chan No Shitsuji!

When I realized that Hiromi’s latest offering was a detective Crime drama called ZETTAI REIDO, my heart leapt up, for this was show that was currently being shared and subbed on the d-addicts site!!! Holy Crap! So now I’m slowly but surely trying to acquire episodes of the show, and when I finally get to sit down and watch the series, you can be sure I’ll be mentioning it here! 

PS: Man, what’s the deal with Mei-Chan No Shitsuji??? Seems like recently, whenever I like an actress, (like, say, Mayuko Iwasa or Mitsuki Tanimura) when I check up on their acting credits, inevitably, MEI-CHAN will be listed on it, and I have to sit down and concentrate to try and remember which character she played!

PPS: Someday I’ll have to do a blog entry proper about Naomi Kawashima as well as her Shashinshuu extraordinaire WOMAN!

Honoka'a Boy

A while ago, a friend had given me a copy of the movie Honoka’a Boy to watch. When I asked why he thought I should check it out, he ventured, “Well, It’s set in Hawaii.”
Set in Hawaii? “Hey, this isn’t that movie where those kids all follow Konishiki around, is it?” I warily asked.
“No,” he laughed, “But Aoi Yu is in it.”
On that note I made plans to get around to watching the movie, but to say that Aoi Yu is “in” this movie is like watching the Blues Brothers for Peewee Herman, seeing as how they both appear onscreen in each respective movie for about the same amount of time! But despite that setback, something about the Honoka’a Boy’s slow and calming pace really drew me in, and before you knew it, I was really enjoying it!
Starring Okada Masaki (doing a perfect “Eita” here) as the fish out of water, or rather a Nihongo stuck on the Big Island, the show details his adjustment to life in the Islands as opposed to his life in Japan. The show is crammed full of interesting and eccentric characters, (including a fun performance by Matsuzaka Keiko, whom I ADORED as Ikushima in Atsuhime, and Baisho Chieko as the spinsterly lady who falls for Okada) but make no mistake about it: The true “star” of this movie just HAS to be Hasegawa Jun’s ASS, which made many delightful and varied appearances throughout the show!
From the moment Okada’s character Leo befriends the exotic “local” girl Mariah, her sexiness totally captivates Leo’s thoughts (and ours) and with Hasegawa rockin’ the cute denim short-shorts and skimpy bikinis, you just CAN'T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF HER!
Funny that until I watched this movie, I’d always believed :”Jun Hasegawa” to be an ACTOR, that is, a dude. What I didn’t realize is that there are actually TWO talents out there with the same name, a fact I sadly discovered when I tuned in on the drama Naka Nai to Kimeta Hi thinking I was gonna see some sweet local goodness and instead saw an up ‘n’ comin’ Johnny’s Boy. D’oh!
Living in Hawaii myself, I love going out to visit the outer islands, and I think this movie manages to capture the laid-back and relaxing vibe the islands give off perfectly! When the movie was over, I found myself strangely mellow, as if I'd just come home from a long, breezy visit to Honoka'a! AHAHAHAHAHA!