Kafka On The Shore

Just finished the wonderful, wonderful book KAFKA ON THE SHORE this afternoon! Such a great book, and such GREAT characters! With the book split between two characters, 15 year old Kafka Tamura who runs away from his abusive father to find solace in a mysterious private library run by a beautiful librarian named Miss Saeki, and a simple-minded elderly man named Nakata who speaks with cats who finds himself on a quest to find a magical doorway with only a tuff and gruff lorry driver named Hoshino to help him, there was much to captivate the imagination and as I read it, I didn't want it to end!

Once I was done, I ran online to read up more about the book, and was thrilled to find that they had done an onstage version of Kafka On The Shore, starring such luminaries as Naohito Fujiki and Rie Miyazawa!!

 

 

 

Very intriguing to scroll through the pictures of the performance (as well as other fans' illustrations of what they think the characters look like) though I must admit that no matter how good they are, they' ll never quite match what I imagined for myself in my head! 

Kafka On The Shore is definitely one of my BIG faves!

Zettai Ojiji: Shiro Sano in "Genkai Danchi"

Just checked out the first episode of "Genkai Danchi" and I'm still not sure who I'm supposed to be rooting for here! Shiro Sano stars as Seiji Terauchi, an old-ish man who is taking care of his young granddaughter after his son and daughter in law perished in a fire.

On the surface, he is a tenant's dream come true, fastidiously adhering to rules regarding trash pickup, keeping contact with the neighborhood elderly and trying to create "community".

But beneath this surface is an obsessive person who will do whatever it takes to make people fall in line, even if it means some people will get hurt...or be killed! 
Hamanosilence recommended this drama to me because he knows what a huge fan I am of pretty Rika Adachi, and she's great! She plays Eriko Sakurai, Seiji's only friend in the Habitat. She has a son who is in the same class as his granddaughter  and so they bond right away.

 

 

 

So far, she's the only one who sees the good things he does for everyone around, helping the elders and dealing with trash, etc, and she even has him take care of her son when she has errands to run. He seems like a very dependable neighbor!

 

 

But she doesn't know how he keeps tabs on the lives of her and all his neighbors in a notebook, writing every detail about them.

 

At first glance it seems he's only doing it because he cares about everyone, but when a mysterious woman turns up out of the blue and accuses Seiji of KILLING his sons and daughter in law, Eriko gets her first doubts about Seiji's intentions.

 

 

Seiji dreams of life back in the old days where everyone cared about everyone, but in this modern age, no one takes the time to care about anything, and flat out reject his methods. But by the look on his face, you can see that Seiji is not a man to be trifled with.

 

 

Things build up as Seiji gets turned away by every tenant he's trying to help. And when those unruly tenants start turning up dead, one wonders if the rumors about him killing his son and daughter in law aren't true, after all! 

 

 

So like I said, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be rooting for. I mean, they're clearly indicating that Shiro Sano is a man with something suspicious about him, but the tenants are such freaking jerks that I can't help but admit a sense of pleasure when they get their just desserts!

PS, HAHA, it was so funny. When I began watching Genkai Danchi, I had no idea what the show was about. And when they introduced the Seiji character as a cheerful, lovable grandpa, I went "Ehh, Nope, I don't buy it".

Ever since AOITORI where Sano spent the entire series trying to kill Etsushi Toyokawa and Yui Natsukawa, I've known that no matter WHAT, his character will be up to no good.

And then when they showed Seiji and his dark side, I went "Yup, that's more like it..."LOL!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

South of The Border, West Of The Sun

...and just wrapped up South Of The Border, West of The Sun today!

This was an OK book, strangely missing much in the way of surrealism for a Haruki Murakami book, though.

In fact, for the most part, it was just a regular story about a guy who makes friends with a girl in elementary school and how his life is shaken up when she re-enters his life some 20 years later.
I mean, don't get me wrong, this was an entertaining story with nice pacing, and the characters were all fleshed out and you really liked them, and it even had a nice conclusion to it. Just didn't seem very Murakami-ish.(except for the Jazz Records or course!)

Up Next:

Hear the Wind Sing!

edit: My copy of "Kafka On The Shore" came in, so I'm going to be starting that one next instead...I've been dying to read this one!

Nanao at her Devilish Best in "Miss Devil"

Really hoping some subbing team decides to pick up the new drama "Miss Devil"..

Holy HELL,(pun intended) is NANAO is simply ROCKING IT as the cold and calculating Human Resources Consultant Mako Tsubaki!!!  

 

 

 

The Devilish Nanao is here and she's ready to make employee Shori Sato's (and everybody else's) life unbearable with her unorthodox and seemingly sadistic methods!!

Why, it's all Yoshino Kimura can do to keep quiet about her methods! "Why is that woman even here?" she asks an aloof Toshiyuki Nishida! 

I've already watched the first episode sans transaltion and my head is swimming, Oooohhhh, so much dialog......Really hoping to see this one get picked up by some loving sub team!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Haruki Murakami's After Dark

Wow, I simply BLEW through Haruki Murakami’s book “After Dark”…had no idea it was such a relatively SHORT story, but MAN was it good! In fact, after 1Q84, After Dark might be my favorite story from him yet!

After Dark tells the story of a girl named Mari who is nursing a cup of coffee in the wee hours of the night at a Denny’s restaurant.  A young trombone player named Takahashi  comes in for a meal before his gig, and tells Mari that he recognizes her. They had met years ago when he was on a group date with Mari’s beautiful older sister Eri.

Mari and Eri are polar opposites: Eri has been dazzling since very young and has even modeled and appeared in commercials, while Mari is shy, introverted and bookish. She had only gone on the date because her sister had asked her to, and Takashi remarks how they aren't anything alike. They talk about things for awhile at the Denny's and have a nice enough conversation but he cannot help but feel there is something bothering Mari...

We find out through various conversations that Mari’s sister Eri has fallen under a mysterious malady- one evening she simply said “I’m going to sleep for awhile”, went to bed…and then never woke up again. Even more haunting is that some strange being with a hidden face seems to be materializing and spying on her in the night through the television when no one is around, preying on her and drawing her essence through the screen...

Through her initial meeting with Takahashi, Mari ends up meeting various strange individuals such as Female Former Pro-Wrestler Love Hotel Managers and Chinese Prostitutes while visiting various places only haunted by the night owls.

As Mari ventures into the shady nightlife, the people she meets teaches her about understanding her sister and valuing the bond she shares with her.

I have to say that even though this book was certainly full of “Murakami-isms” (Jazz Records, Cats, Supernatural Powers), this was much more straight-forward than his other books, and even had a nice, thoughtful conclusion to it (a REAL rarity in the books I’ve read!).

I mentioned how short the book was, and perhaps that was an added charm to it: the entire story of After Dark takes place in one evening over the span of about 7 hours (from midnight to 7-ish in the morning) and when I finished reading it, I had that same satisfaction I had after seeing movies like “Before Sunrise” or even “The Breakfast Club”, where entire scenes are simply people talking and learning about each other through one sitting.

Just LOVED this Book!

A Wild Sheep Chase

Just finished up reading Haruki Murakami's "A Wild Sheep Chase", and it was as entertainingly baffling as expected! The story of a man who is hired by a mysterious group to track down an elusive sheep of unknown breed with a star on its back is as surreal as it sounds, and with it came all the quirks a Murakami novel is known for...

Cartoonist Grant Snider once made a hilarious comic called "Haruki Murakami Bingo"which cited some of the odd ideas and images that run through your typical Murakami Book, and with A Wild Sheep Chase, I easily got a Bingo!

Unexpected Phone Call. Check!

Cats and Speaking to Cats. Check!

Old Jazz Record. Check!

Urban Ennui. Check!

Supernatural Powers. Check!

Feeling of Being Followed. Check!

Something Vanishes. Check!

Cooking. Check!

and, most of all, (drumroll)

...EAR FETISH!

I'd noted in previous books how Murakami would always describe a girl's features by including how captivating she ears were, my GOSH, in A Wild Sheep Chase, an unnamed girl's ears actually have mesmerizing powers!

A Wild Sheep Chase is the conclusion of a trilogy called "The Rat Trilogy" following books "hear the Wind Sing" and "Pinball, 1973"., both of which I've yet to read. Even, funnier, the first book I ever read from Murakami was "Dance Dance Dance", which was actually a sequel to the Rat Trilogy, so it's like I'm reading the Rat story BACKWARDS! Oh well, it's actually fun to read the older books and think "oh, so that's how he met so and so", etc.
Up Next: AFTER DARK!

PS: To Snider's cartoon, I might add "Drinking Cutty Sark" and "Elaborate Cigarette Smoking", two elements which I always notice in Murakami's books!