I've been meaning to watch the old classic drama "Ikebukuro West Gate Park" for some time now, but FINALLY got around to it a few weeks ago. This is an old drama from around 2000 and was one of Nagase Tomoya's first "yankee thug" roles, albeit one where he's still more of a child delinquent punk.
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| Wakana Sakai,Ai Kato,Nagase Tomoya,Ryuta Sato,Tomohisa Yamashita |
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| Wakana Sakai and Ai Kato |
Anyway, there were two girls in his "gang", one of them I immediately recognized as Wakana "Moko" Sakai, but the other girl, though she looked REALLY familiar, I just couldn't place. her. She looked like Matsumoto Megumi in "Seiga No Koushin, but nawww...I didn't think it was her. Then I thought- Rosa Kato? No. Suzuki An? Mayyyybbbbbeeeee.... Then it hit me- Holy crap, this was a very young Ai Kato!
There was this episode on the old tokusatsu superhero show KIKAIDA where Dark Robot Blue Beetle sees Dr, Komyoji and they show the faces of all the different Dark Professors going through the Monster's mind til he lands on Komyoji and yells "It's KOMYOJI!"
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| Blue Beetle: "Hey, This Guard looks Familiar..." |
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| Scrolling Through his Robot Memory Bank |
I had to laugh because that's JUST what it felt like when I was running through all those teenage girls in my head. I thought it was too funny not to share on twitter, and then I had this (slightly paraphrased here for clarity) conversation with Tanikaze:
Zdorama said:
Watching an old drama and COULDNT figure who the girl was. I hadda go thru my mind DARK ROBOT BLUE-BEETLE style to figure out it was Ai Kato
Tanikaze said:
OTAKU!!! Man, Blue Beetle was sloooowwww... My next question: who were the previous two women who transitioned/henshin'ed into Kato Ai??
Zdorama said:
Matsumoto Megumi. Then Kato Rosa. Then Suzuki An. And then finally Kato Ai!
Tanikaze said:
BTW I never thought Kato Ai was all that pretty, way back when. But the older she got... kinda grew on me.
Zdorama said:
Must say that since I didn't recognize who she was for a good 30 minutes of the show , it’s clear she hasn't stood out for me before
Tanikaze said:
Fair enuff. I used to think she looked like Okada Junichi in drag.
Zdorama said:
That's an image thats gonna be hard to shake...
Tanikaze said:
Sorry. I always thought she looked so... manly.
So we had a good laugh over that. But I gotta say though, the more I watched the show, the cuter Ai Kato got, and by episode 4 I had to ask myself, Crap, am I developing a crush of her after all that? LOL, all that joking BACKFIRED on me!
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| Me: "Am I starting to LIKE Ai Kato?" |
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| "Hmmmm, she is really starting to seem pretty freaking adorable..." |
Oh Yeah, I was really starting to dig Ai, and it helped that she was playing an extremely adorable girl, as the wide-eyed and innocent Hikaru, she stood for everything innocent in Ikebukuro, from the get go she has been in love with Makoto (Nagase Tomoya) but he’s too dense treat her properly and spends most of her time being heartbroken. Man, makes you wanna scoop her up and hug her!
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| Yep, She's a Cutie-Pie. |
Of course, there was more to Hikaru than what she let on (a whole LOT more, it later turned out) but it was her naive baby-girl talking sweet side that really GOT me!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
