Catching Up On MORE Dramas!

With so many of you pointing out older dramas that I have either forgotten about or haven’t finished watching, I thought it was HIGH time for another huge cram session month to try and complete some titles!

Deka Wanko

 After such glowing comments on this drama, I thought I’d better dig this one up and finish it up!  Deka Wanko- The story of an eccentric woman police detective with an unusual gift to help in her sleuthing- a dog-like sense of smell!

 A very bizarre Mikako here, the director probably told her "act like a spazzy puppy" and MY does she indeed! In her Goth-Lolita outfits she looks JUST like a Pampered pup, and with her haircut in bangs and pigtails, her antics reminded me not just a little of Icelandic Singer Bjork! LOLOL

 Strangely found myself thoroughly entertained throughout the show, lots of fun!

Mikako Tabe is going to have the most eclectic drama catalog, LOL!

Taiho Shichauzo

 As a fan of both Misaki ito and Sachie Hara you would have thought I would have watched this ages ago, but somehow never got around to it!

 The show was based on the animated sries of the same name, and true to its' source, watching the show was like seeing a manga come to life! Wacky hijinks, slapstick comedy and goofy villains, this was pure entertainment! 

 You know what this show reminded me of, the Tamao Sato drama “Hashire Komuin” a Policewoman drama I really loved!

BTW, Seems like whenever the show features zany cops, Shiro Ito is ALWAYS called in to play the chief of Police, appearing as the chief in not only this but Deka Wanko as well!!!

PS As some may recall, I was a huge fan of the animated series, not the show itself, but the theme song from one of their seasons, a catchy little tune called “Hare Nochi Parade” by “Tokyo Policewoman Duo”!

Attention, Please!

 Then we have Attention Please, the very succesful drama about a delinquent rocker chick who decides on a whim to become a Cabin Attendant, thinking she can ace through it and win the affection of the guy she likes!

 Of course, things are harder than they appear to be, and she will soon find that the department has little patience for her antics and attitude!

 Of course, once she decides to get serious, they find out taht she just might have that something special to get her to the top of her class!

Ah Aya Ueto! After  watching the excellent Nagareboshi the other month, I made plans to watch all the backlog of Aya Dramas I had, and this is the first of many!!

Change

 Takuya Kimura stars as an introverted Teacher named Keita Asakura who wants to be kept out of his Politic-driven family. But when his Father passes away just before a huge election, his party needs someone to take his place, and they decide that, come hell or high water, that it's GOT to be him!!!

 Tasked with turning this stuttering bumpkin of a guy into a suave candidate that people will vote for falls into the hands of aide Rika Mayama (Eri Fukatsu) and election-manipulator Katsutoshi Nirasawa (Hiroshi Abe). The team certainly has their work cut out for them, but where honesty and integrity makes up for office inexperience,  their candidate might just make it!

 Ah, so far been a great drama, after seeing Fukatsu and Abe as the troublemaking co-workers in Tsuyoshi Kusanag’s “Narita Rikon” , they are back to do their meddling magic with yet another SMAP member!

 Also a pretty cute appearance by Rosa Kato as a young aide with eyes of puppy love for the humble Asakura! 

 So cute, strangely enough, back in the day, I thought Rosa was kind of weird-looking, funny that now she looks perfectly adorable to me! Ah, just another reason to watch this show!

SP

 Speaking of Kimura Takuya, this drama starring Shinichi Tsutsumi and Junichi Okada seems so much like Kimutaku’s BG series, complete with the double Initial title, Kimura’s stood for Body Guard, and Okada’s stands for “Security Police”…
In many ways it’s exactly the same story, team of guards watching over the Japan Elites, but in this one they give agent Inoue (Okada) an almost supernatural ability to “read’ the room and pinpoint any discrepancies such as nervous tics, secretive behavior, etc, which leads to some great takedowns!

Also, BIG plus for Yoko Maki as one of Okada's kakkoi partners! We don't get to see enough of her!!

Voice

 Medical drama involving 5 students entering Forensics, starring Eita, Ikuta Toma and Satomi Ishihara. After seeing Satomi in not only Unnatural and her current Unsung Cinderella but also Indirectly in Bull Doctor, it is becoming pretty unexciting to see her in yet another Forensics show, though it seems like Eita is the star of this drama, with him being to one with the drive to investigate cases and the one who solves them as well. the others are pretty much just there for support. 

Yawn, A fairly generic show with extremely excessive melodrama. Plus, some of them act so INCOMPETENT during the series that I just CAN'T sympathize.

Subete ga F Ni Naru

  You’d have thought that after Emi Takei went on hiatus and there were no new dramas of hers to see, that i would have watched this one right away! But at the time, it looked like a generic romance flick which I didn’t feel like watching, and so put it away for later. In time, I promptly forgot all about it!

But as part of  my purging of unwatched dramas, I came across it while looking thru my old hard drive and FINALLY decided to check it out! 

 Well, I don't know WHAT kind of romance drama I was expecting (it looked so much like Emi’s earlier romance drama "Seisei Suru Hodo, Aishiteiru" that I just assumed it was a romance drama?), but turns out this is yet another of those “Locked Room” Murder Mysteries, where student Moe Nishinosono (Emi) and her sensei Sohei Saikawa (Go Ayano) use their skills to crack cases where murders take place behind locked doors which no one can have gotten in nor out of.

 You see, that already work and i'm interested...I don't know WHY they try so hard to push a romance between Moe and Saikawa, it doesn’t work at ALL, and in fact, clutters the storyline. I see that this is based on a succesful book, maybe it was a heated romance there, but it fails here.

Not really a fan of these locked room mysteries pre se because the solutions are always so preposterous. I remember REALLY rolling my eyes with some of the solutions for both Satoshi Ohno’s "Kagi no Kakkata Heya" and even some episodes of the Keiko Kitagawa/Sho Sakurai drama Nazotoki Dinner no Ate De…
But If Emi's in it, then of course I'll watch it....

OKAY, back to those dramas!!!!! Still got a LOT on my plate and will be posting updates soon!

Crush Of The Day: Ozawa Majyu

Ozawa Maju as Reiko in JOTEI

Oh, Majyu, Majyu, Majyu! Who knew you could be such an evil, conniving and ultimately KRAZEE young lady? I certainly wouldn't have believed it! And yet, that’s exactly what I got when I tuned into the wonderfully clichéd and colorful Hostess Club drama JOTEI where she played the proud and envious Reiko against Rosa Kato’s pure and straight arrowed Ayaka.

Arch-Enemies: Reiko (Ozawa) versus Ayaka (Kato)

Ozawa Maju  as Reiko in JOTEI a

Ozawa Maju  as Reiko in JOTEI b

Ozawa Maju  as Reiko in JOTEI c

I first fell in love lust with beautiful model Majyu Ozawa seeing her in, of ALL PLACES, the wacky comedy variety show MECHA MECHA IKETERU~ WHAT A COOL We ARE!!! where that fat guy ‘Yamamoto” in the comedy troupe (that included, among others, Suzuki Sarina, Ninety-Nine, and Hinagata Akiko) tried using every trick in the book (and some OUT of the book, as well) to win the heart of his favorite celebrity, Ozawa Majyu! (more on this  episode in the following post)

The Target on Mecha Mecha Iketeru

WOW! Who WAS this gorgeous woman? With her sharp profile and slightly Latin-looking features, she instantly fascinated me, and I remember pausing the video when they showed her name, vainly trying to decipher the kanji...in the end I gave up and had to phonetically figure it out. The next day at work, I gushed to a co-worker who also had NGN, “Did You See That Mecha Mecha Show? That girl, was it…MACHA Ozawa? She was SOOOOOO fricking BEAUTIFUL!”

Pretty Majyu on Mecha Mecha iketeru

My Co-worker nodded, and said, “Yeah, her name’s MaJU Ozawa, she’s really pretty…Say, I have an old Weekly PLAYBOY with her in it, If you like her so much, I can give it to you!” “WHAAAAAAA!!!” How fast can you say O HELL YEAH! I gushed my gratitude, and he laughed. And sure enough, the next day , he presented me with this gorgeous magazine:

Maju in Weekly Playboy 

Maju in Weekly Playboy 1

Maju in Weekly Playboy 2

Maju in Weekly Playboy 4

Man, did I love this girl! Since she was featured on the Mech Mecha show, I figured it was only a matter of time before she made her first appearances in dramas and such, but for some reason, the only other time I saw her after that was in yet ANOTHER variety show, this time where the pranksters were waiting in the FUJI TELEVISION lobby and accosting  celebs as they came out, demaning to look through their wallets and purses.

Ozawa Maju  as Reiko in JOTEI h 

As they stopped a cute young thing coming out of the elevators, Car said, Oh, that’s a pretty girl”, and then I went “WHOA! That’s Majyu Ozawa! “ I told her the story of seeing her on the Mecha Mecha show and then realized, “You know, I thought I ‘d have SEEN her by NOW in a drama or something! What’s the holdup?!”

Ozawa Maju  as Reiko in JOTEI  e

Over time, In my mind I guess I gave up hope of ever seeing her in a show. That’s why I was so THRILLED to see Majyu’s credits listed when I got the JOTEI drama, and knew they’d be utilizing her luscious features tp the utmost with her as a hostess- little did I know they’d be giving her such a, shall we say, dramatic role! No kidding, when the character goes from haughty condescension to simmering jealousy to attempted murder, yelling “YOU MADE ME INSANE!”, You KNEW she was going out with a BANG!!

Ozawa Maju  as Reiko in JOTEI  f

Ozawa Maju  as Reiko in JOTEI  g

Going onto AsianMediaWiki, I see that in actuality, Majyu (and yes, I call her MaJYU instead of MaJU, I realize it's probably wrong, but I've called her that for so long it seems to have stuck) has made quite a few appearances in various movies and guest roles in dramas, including LOVE GAME, KUROSAGI, MAID DEKA and even 4 SHIMAI TANTEI, all of which I will be checking out if I can! 

in STYLE!

with Yamashita Tomohisa in KUROSAGI

with Kato Natsuki in 4 SHIMAI TANTEI DAN

with Fukuda Saki in MAID DEKA

Right now I've got the 2007 movie XX X-CROSS on my Harddrive waiting to be seen- How's this- I downloaded the movie only because Majyu was listed in it (as a particularly Krazee Samurai-Scissors wielding Psycho, No Less!) , and after I got it, I found out that NAO MATSUSHITA is the main character! 

in XX-X-CROSS

How COOL is that!!! Time to check this one out...Hold On, Majyu, I'm Coming! You can get as NUTTY as you want, 'cause no matter what, You'll ALWAYS be that sweet lil' ole thang I first fell in love with on the Mecha Mecha show!

Maju in Weekly Playboy 5