Robin Hood Theatrics In A Lupin The III Vein with “Kaito Yamaneko”

Kazuya Kamenashi is Kaito Yamaneko

 Just watched the first episode of the most compelling and thrilling Crime/Espionage Drama with “Kaito Yamaneko", starring Kazuya Kamenashi as the titular Neko-Mask wearing thief who makes it his mission to steal from the crookedly rich and politically corrupted. 

Cracking the Code to Untold Riches...

You Can't Catch Me!

  MAN! From the very beginning I was completely enthralled by the exploits of Yamaneko and his band of Criminal Cohorts; like Lupin The III before him, this show is full of colorful and captivating characters led by a man whose demeanor, antics and dialog all strike one as someone gone completely off the deep end! 

Yamaneko’s group of like-minded individuals consists of: 

Hiroki Narimiya as Hideo Katsumura

Suspicious First Meeting

Hiroki Narimiya as Hideo Katsumura, a news Journalist who first gets the attention of Yamaneko because of his sympathetic serial write-ups on their doings, and by and by slowly sees the mission that they adhere to- his journalistic sense has him accompanying  Yamaneko on his missions until he has become one of them!

Nene Otsuka as Rikako Hosho

Sexy Nene Otsuka makes her mark here as sultry Rikako Hosho, the woman who uses her feminine wiles to get the inside scoop on the team’s intended victims, as a big fan of hers, I have to sayhow GREAT it is to see her again, aside from an appearance in HERO2, I haven’t seen her in a drama proper since 2008’s “Around 40”!

Suzu Hirose as Mao Takasugi

 Probably the most interesting character is Mao Takasugi, a tormented teen-genius hacker who, at first a proverbial “Arch Enemy” of Yamaneko’s who becomes an ally of sorts when Yamaneko uses his maniacal ways to convince her to fight alongside each other rather than against each other. Mao is played by a new actress I’m seeing for the first time in Suzu Hirose, (oops, Dramawiki informs me that she the actress playing the “younger” version of Ryoko Kuninaka’s Takako character in Gekiryuu ~ Watashi wo Oboete Imasuka?) she’s just great, she and Kamenashi play off each other perfectly!

Nanao as Sakura Kirishima

And WHOA! If THAT wasn’t enough, we’ve even got luscious, luscious NANAO as a pretty young Police Detective Sakura Kirishima who’s made it a point to try and capture the elusive Yamaneko, little does she know that her childhood sempai Katsumura is actually AIDING the felons! 

Poor girl really has her work cut out for her…besides not knowing of Katsumura’s misdeeds, she also sadly is working under a sleazy superior anmed Sekimoto (Sasaki Kuranosuke, playing another icky role) who in fact is working behind the scenes with the same corrupt politicians Yamaneko and his crew are exposing!

Oh Man, this is such a great  and FUN show!!! Can’ wait to get back to even MORE!!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

FNS Kayosai 2015!

2015 FNS Kayosai

Haven’t caught the FNS Kayosai in a while but wanted to see what Chisato Moritaka was going to be offering us this year~ Since she was co-host I thought they’d showcase a few of her songs, and made a point to grab the special when it came up! Chisato's stage ended up being a tofubeats remix of her 1995 song “LaLa Sunshine” ...I was disappointed that she didn't do another medley like before, but still, she looked and sounded as terrific as she always did!

Chisato Moritaka: LaLa Sunshine with tofubeats

Woooot! Gal still GOT IT!

 The FNS Kayosai is pretty famous for bringing back old nostalgic guests, and they did it again this year, surprising me with the return of My Little Lover! Boy, I really liked this act back in the day and it was great seeing them again, performing their classic “Hello Again”! Mmm, Akko-chan has aged gracefully!

My Little Lover Akko

"Hello Again" My Little Lover

It was Johnny’s groupV6’s 20th Anniversary, so they opened the show with a medley of their past hits sung with other johnnys groups like NEWS, Sexy Zone, Tackey and Tusbasa and the like- When they got around to singing “Honey Beat”, it really took me back! Too bad they didn’t do “Over”, my all-time favorite song from them…

V6 20th Anniversary Medley!

And on the Johnny’s front, this is the first time I’ve seen KAT-TUN since they because a foursome (yes, their name should be a proper KTUN right now) and it looks and sounds like they’re doing just fine without Tanaka and Akanishi! And taking a look at NEWS, it looks like quite a FEW Johnnys groups are now down to 4 members, ne?

KAT-TUN

NEWS

Once again the Year End specials were a big GIRL GROUPS thing, with acts like the E-Girls Super Team, Momoiro Clover-Z and the AKB48 troupes out in full force! Morning Musume’15 did a rousing perf of “Love Machine”, making me realize just how long it has been since Momusu were the “new” gals on the block!

Hello Project and AKB48 "Love Machine"

Hello Project and AKB48

E-Girls

Dream

Flower

Happiness

 Whoa, and check out HAPPINESS! Seems like only yesterday they were a cute little group singing catchy little tunes (I just loved their single Happy Talk), now they've all grown up into these cool and sultry groovin'  ladies!

Happiness

AKB48 and Momoiro Clover Z

The Cute, The Zany: Momoiro Clover Z

And speaking of Girl groups, on the SKE48 front,  just before their stage singing “Okey-Dokey”, Team Leader Miyazawa Sae announced her graduation! An emotional performance for the girls!

SKE48

Pretty Sae Miyazawa Announces Graduation

  One complaint I had about this year’s broadcast was the AWFUL sound! Oh, the VOCAL track was fine, but all the other music:  Guitars, Bass, Drums, Keyboards, etc, were mixed down SO low that you just couldn’t really get into the songs… this is the FNS, folks, Get yo STUFF TOGETHER!!!
   Not that any mixed-down backing music stopped Kiyoe Yoshioka from making the most of HER peformance- She and Ikimonogakari were, in my opinion, one of the best performances this year, so cute, so fun, and she was so over-the-top GENKI! Oh, if ONLY the music was a bit LOUDER!

Ikimonogakari

Kiyoe Launches into the Stratosphere!

Well, that's the report for THIS year's offering! See Ya All NEXT year!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

The Return of Ayase Haruka

Ayase Haruka in Kyouwa Kaisha Yasumimasu

  Seems like its been quite some time since I’ve watched anything with Ayase Haruka, the actress who almost singlehandedly brought me back to the j-drama fandom with her turn as the loveable Hotaru Amemiya in Hotaru No Hikari back in the day. I began watching her latest drama Kyou wa Kaisha Yasumimasu not knowing what to expect, but once I got into it, whaddaya know, the old feels came right back to me and I found my self falling back in love with her!

Above and below: Ayase Haruka as Aoishi Hanae

Kyou Wa Kaisha Yasumimasu deals with an efficient Office Clerk named Aoishi Hanae who, upon reaching 30 years, is not only inexperienced in love, but still a shy virgin to boot! When a chance meeting with a cool young coworker named Tanokura Yuto (Fukushi Sota) turns to physical contact, Hanae’s world is rocked as she knows nothing about how to react for her “first time”. Should she be bold about it? Not talk about it? Or simply quit work so as to never have to deal with him again?

Fukushi Sota as Tanokura Yuto

Interdepartment Relation Problems Brewing

 These questions are hard enough to deal with, but Hanae also has to put up with her curious, meddling and zany co-workers, among them Okawa Hitomi (Naka Risa), a vivacious sexy young thang, the outgoing hyperactive loudmouth Oshiro (Taguchi Junnosuke), and Asao Yu (Tamaki Hiroshi), the wise and knowledgeable CEO who has ALSO taken a shine to Hanae and her doings!

Naka Riisa

Taguchi Junnosuke

Above and below: Tamaki Hiroshi as Asao Yu

 As usual with most of the movies and dramas I’ve loved with Ayase Haruka in them, it’s her shy, naïve and innocent facial expressions and body language that really sells her characters to me- From Hotaru Amemiya in Hotaru No Hikari to Tachibana Saki in JIN, you always feel the warmth and sincerity in her roles, you can now add Aoishi Hanae to that list!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Crush Of The Day: Kimura Fumino

Kimura Fumino as Kahiyama Rika

       Just started watching the wacky mystery/suspense drama Henshin Interviewer No Yuutsu, and already I can tell it’s going to be a fun romp! After the heavy handed Nagase Tomoya drama Kurokochi, I needed a light comedy to let the breeze back in, and this show seems like a perfect fit! 

  The story of a mystery novelist named Shirakawa who, suffering from writer’s block on the eve of his 100th book, takes to the mountains to investigate the details of a real-life mystery called the Tulip Murders (to hopefully rejuvenate his writing) sounds like a straight-forward tale, but his eccentric way of disguising himself as a dapper young flatfoot journalist and his eagle-eyed sense of details makes for a zany and intriguing story all in one!

   The plot’s an interesting one, and Nakamaru Yuichi of KAT-TUN fame is terrific as main character Shirakawa Jiro, but honestly, the real reason I’m loving this drama so much is all because of ONE person, and that’s actress Fumino Kimura! As Shirakawa's nerdy and eager book editor Kahiyama Rika, she is so adorably spastic, dramatically goofy, and yet sweetly feminine, that she MELTED MY HEART after just ONE episode!

Nakamaru Yuichi and Kimura Fumino

As Shirakawa’s dutiful editor, she feels obliged to follow him as he goes out to investigate the unsolved mysteries, and the charm of Kahiyama is her sensibly uptight persona- besides carefully scrutinizing every scene and pooh-poohing most of Jiro's theories, she's practical to a "T", carrying this ENORMOUS bag full of the most peculiar and unexpected things, all “just in case of emergency”... Laptops and tape recorders make sense, but I even saw a hardhat in there! 

Watching her pull out a pair of sneakers before a big hike and happily put them on before cutely lacing them up had me in a BIG smile, YES, she can even make putting on SHOES adorable!

Throughout the show, every time Kahiyama (or, as the easily-annoyed Shirakawa likes to call her, “Gebi-yama) peers up from those thick glasses and curiously squints, I realize that there’s an extremely pretty girl under there (in fact, she kind of reminded me of gravure idol- actress YUKA for awhile there), but it’s her dorky aura that’s got me in SUCH a crush right now!

Checking the dramawiki stats, it seems I’ve seen Fumino before in dramas like ATARU and Mitsu No Aji, but I didn’t remember her at ALL, and that’s probably due to the fact that she was in her “regular” guise as a pretty actress! Funny though, once I dug those old dramas out to take these screencaps, I DID remember thinking her “Rai Yoka” character in “Mitsu No Aji” was a cutie, guess that shows that even THEN she had that special something!

in ATARU

above and below: as Rai Yoka in Mitsu No Aji

Going onto Youtube and checking out some of her many CMs, I gotta say, I was STUNNED my how gorgeous she was- Holy Crap, who knew Kahiyama was so good-looking under all that mousey camouflage? Just freaking BEAUTIFUL!

And is it just me or does she look a bit like actress Nagasawa Masami here?

Aw MAN,  such a pretty young actress/ model, but you know, the more I see the gorgeous side of her, the more I wanna get BACK to more episodes of Fumino so I can see her once more as Kahiyama! She's just TOO PRECIOUS!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com