Misato Tanaka is Back!

Just got the heads up on an upcoming drama called Sorezore no Dangai, starring Kenichi Endo, Misako Tanaka and...(drum roll) MISATO TANAKA! As some of you are aware, Misato Tanaka has been one of my big, big BIG fave actresses, ever since stealing my heart on the Asadora "Agri" (as evidenced by her permanent placement in the above Zdorama banner), but it's been YEARS since I've seen her in a starring drama!

I think the last thing I saw her in was the quirky "Face Maker" where she played the protagonist's deceased wife, and as the angry and manipulative Mother of Shigeyuki in "Ashi-Girl"a few years back....

Reading up, looks like Sorezore No Dangai is a remake of the 2000's drama of the same name starring Tomokazu "Mr. Momoe" Miura, with Endo playing the part of Shinichiro Shikata this time. And Misato is going to play Hatsumi, a role originally played by actress Eri Ishida!

Original theme song was "Motto Tooku e" by Misato Watanabe, the 2019 version will have a theme song sung by...Chemistry???

Not sure how BIG Misato's part is going to be, but news sites are already running articles on the pairing of the double Tanakas new venture! from Chunichi:

Funny, back in the day, I would ALWAYS get Misato Tanaka and Misako Tanaka mixed up, their names are SO familiar, can't believe it took THIS long to finally put them in a drama together!

Drama starts airing in August so I'm hoping there will be some forums where I can download the show. Not too hopeful that anyone will subtitle it, but I still want to watch it anyways, even if it's just RAWS.

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Anata No Ban Desu: Humor in a JUGULAR Vein

At episode 8 of Anata No Ban Desu, and at this point I just HAVE to saw how much I freakin' LOVE this drama- it is without a DOUBT my favorite show on right now! Such a GRIPPING tale and you’re kept on your toes with the intricate plot as well as the ZANY interludes- this is a DARK comedy of the BLACKEST noir- When you have grisly murders like families with their throats slit and then have a police chief who is afraid to come into the apartment because it might be haunted, you have the perfect mix of shock and slapstick!

Sadly,  I have no doubt that the last episode will disappoint me. There is NO WAY this show can continue as good as it is- Either the show will have a silly twist ending or they’ll decide to ‘shock” us by having either Nana or Shota be the murderer, someone ridiculous- I just CAN’T believe this show will END on a note as GOOD as these past 8 episodes have been!

Man, right now I love the show so much that I’ve been re-watching each episode as they get subbed, with frequent rewinding certain scenes, that are interesting or flat out hilarious.

Falling so in love with Tomoya Harada, she is such a cutie and she balances the plot of wackiness and violence with tempered reaction. In the scene where the cops are grilling her, she says, "You guys keep asking me the same questions over and over," to which the wacky head cop says, ""Ma'am, we Detectives are TRAINED to keep asking the same questions over and over!" Nana asks in a puzzled voice, "W-Why?" and the cop, befuddled, hits his partner and says, "Tell Her Why." The partner evenly says "We keep asking the same questions because if you're lying, inconsistencies may appear," to which the head detective says under his breath "Oh, is that why?" LOLOLOL

And this is the first character I’ve EVER liked from Kei Tanaka, an actor whom for some reason has always rubbed me the wrong way, most recently in Ito Kun A to E. But his character of Shota is freaking great and extremely likeable! And if they make him the killer, I will flip my LID!

Crossing my fingers for a decent ending, because right now, the drama is as GOOD as it GETS!!!!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Tomohisa Yamashita, Gaku Hamada and Nanao "In Hand"

Yamapi stars as a “Parasitologist” named Tetsu Himokura, an eccentric researcher with an insatiable hunger for research on all things parasitic, a personality (as usual in cases like this) with almost zero social grace, and a mysterious prosthetic hand “made by MIT”to do his bidding....He is content to do his research in his laboratory and shuns other people, but an event will happen that will take him out of his closed-off life….

Nanao is Tomoe Makino, a woman just transferred to the Science Medical department of the government. Though she intends to make the stay short (until she can work her way back up to the main office) she goes after her job with gusto. The crew she meets is unmotivated and consider the department the dumping ground for all the cases no one wants, but Makino is set on proving herself.

Meanwhile, Gaku Hamada is Haruma Takaie, a Doctor in emergency, notices an unusual affliction upon two of his emergency patients. Sensing a rare case of a deadly disease, he reports to his uppers, but is surprised to find they want nothing to do with his findings and brush him off.

Chagrined, Takaie makes an anonymous report to the Medical Board, and it’s here that his report lands in the lap of Makino. No one is particularly invested in checking on the report, but Makino wants to investigate properly. Sadly there are no researchers in the field who can help. Thus she calls on the only scientist who can help he, the odd-duck Himokura.

Makino finds the scientist holed up in his huge laboratory which is more like a zoo with its botany and animals. But there is none stranger than Himokura himself, who, though knowledgeable and passionate about parasitic afflictions and their causes, has no desire to help Makino and her plight, treating her coldly and waiting for her to leave.

 It’s only after Makino tempts him with reinstating his VISA which he had revoked on his last trip (while trying to take out an animal out of the country), that he agrees to accompany her to the hospital and see what’s going on.

Poking around the doctors' desks, he finds the work of one man who seems knowledgeable about the parasitic outbreak, and upon meeting him, discovers HE’S the one who made the anonymous report.

Takaie is persuaded to get samples of the patients blood for comparison, and meets up at Himokura's lab...where he meets some of the exotic pets with much trepidation!

 Checking on the blood samples of all the patients, Himokura concludes that there IS indeed evidence of the disease in ALL three patients…and that it may have been released on purpose in an act of revenge!

And so the three make an unlikely alliance to get to the bottom of the outbreak, and with Makino’s government connections, Takaie’s Medical skills and Himokura’s exhaustive knowledge of every possible kind of parasitic malady, the truth may yet come to light…

 ...if they don’t end up killing each other first!

LOL!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

All You Need Is Kill: Murder and Mayhem in "Anata No Ban Desu"

Strangers On A Train, J-Drama Style!

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on The Train” tells the story of two men who meet on a train. They both have someone they want to kill, but know they will be arrested immediately for it because of their association with the victim. Their theory goes like this: since they’ve just met on a train and have no connection to each other, if they each kill each other’s adversary, the police will have nothing to connect them to the murder and they can get away scot free.

New drama Anata No Ban Desu (Your Turn To Kill) has a similar set-up, where a group of tenants at an apartment meeting admit they all have someone in their life they’d wish disappear. After some goading from the blowhards of the group (loudmouth Naoto Takenaka as the Landlord), they are all pressured into playing a ‘game” where they write down a person they want gone, and then put it in the box. 

 "Everyone has SOMEone they'd like to get RID of, right?"

 Pressured into participating in the macabre game.

 They then are passed out the sheets with the names on it and are told that this is the person they have to kill. “But this is just for fun, right?” worries newcomer Nana Tezuka (Tomoyo Harada)...They assure her that it’s all a game. 

Nana has just moved in the the apartment with her fiance Shota (Kei Tanaka) and doesn’t want to play the game but is nervous about making a bad first impression. In the end, she plays the game but opts not to tell hubby about the strange game she got involved in. They are an otherwise happy couple, but things are about to get dark!

She tries to put it behind her. But when the loudmouthed landlord hurtles from the apartment balcony  to his death the following evening, the unwitting participants realize that to some, the game is all- too real, and one by one people begin turning up dead!

A thrilling drama to watch, even though they’ve already defeated the purpose of the switching: The Hitchcock movie worked because the two men met by chance on a train and have no connection whatsoever, but in Anata no Ban Desu, they’re all living in the same apartment and are on he same committee no less! Surely the murders will end up sticking to them one way or another!

Naoto Takenaka

Maho Yamada

Soko Wada

Nao

Nanase Nishino (so pretty!!!)

Rie Minemura

Yoji Tanaka

Miho Kanazawa

Reiko Kataoka

Jin Katajiri

Tae Kimura

Yoshihiko Hakayamada

Namase Katsuhisa

And indeed, as the deaths pile up, authorities and fellow tenants alike begin looking upon their neighbors with much suspicion, wondering who will be next on the list!

Been YEARS since I’ve seen pretty Tomoya Harada in a drama, (since 1996’s “Dessin”!!) , and it’s wonderful to see her here! She’s still as warm and lovely as ever, but BOY, the girl STEALING the show for me HAS to be actress NAO as the creepily odd neighbor Mikiha Ono.

From the beginning Mikiha seems like a strange girl, but when she begins stalking Nana’s fiance Shota every day, waiting for him after work and following him around, she becomes the most interesting character on the show!

She already wowed me with her smouldering sexuality in the Nozomi Sasaki drama “Ame ga Furu to Kimi wa Yasashii” (which also starred Tae Kimura), this adds a new dimenion to her that I’ve never seen- I LOVE this character….Hope she doesn’t turn out to be the killer, AHAHAHA!

Another character I really like is Nurse Ruri Sakuragi, played by actress Miwako Kakei. As the assistant under scatterbrained and arrogant Atsushi Fujii, she is no-nonsense and really puts her FOOT down on his spazzy personality! Another character that lights up the screen whenever she’s on, I hope she doesn’t get written out soon, however, if Fujii gets murdered then I guess that’s that, LOL!

CAN’T WAIT TO GET BACK TO THIS DRAMA!!!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com