Catching Up on Some Older Kimura Takuya Dramas

My friend’s Wife has been bitten by the Kimura Takuya bug thanks to NETFLIX’s recent airing of a BUNCH of his shows, including GOOD LUCK, A LIFE, KAREI NARU ICHIZOKU, and most significantly, GRAND MAISON TOKYO, and she’s been simply "Koo-Koo for Kimura” ever since, and ready to explore more of his catalog!

“OK, My wife wants to see this “Long Vacation” show that  everybody keeps talking about!” my friend requested one day, and of COURSE I was happy to oblige! As some of you know, Long Vacation is just about my FAVORITE J-drama of all time, and the more fans I can introduce the drama to, the merrier! 

I told him I’d pass Long Vacation along as well as a few OTHER Kimutaku shows I thought they’d like, and chose classics HERO, A Million Stars Falling From the Sky, and CHANGE to the mix, as well as more recent dramas "Ando Lloyd", "I'm Home", “Mirai e no 10 Count”, “BELIEVE”, and both “BG: Personal Bodyguard” seasons as well.  A good assortment of Kimura shows!

Going through my files, however, I found several of them to be lacking in quality- back when I'd originally acquired them, files were usually 250MB in size and from crude sources. Worked fine for the time, but now seemed hard on the eyes to watch. I wanted them to experience the shows as best as possible, and so took to the forums to get better quality files.

Thankfully all those dramas were up and available, and while re-downloading both HERO and CHANGE, I saw that there were a few other Kimutaku shows available that even I hadn’t seen before (he has so many it’s easy for a few to slip through the cracks!): GIFT (1997), Love Generation (1997) and Concerto (1996), so I grabbed 'em all! Began watching them right away and have been having a blast! Of the three of them the one I’m liking most is GIFT, a VERY wacky and zany affair of a man with amnesia who becomes a courier for a shady organization while simultaneously  trying to piece back his past.

High points include a VERY cute Ryoko Shinohara in an early role- funny, Ryoko was one of the first J-actresses I knew when I began watching dramas, but she plays such tuff tomboyish roles nowadays that I was taken aback by how gigglishly GIRLY she was here- flirty and OH! Such a BABE!

The biggest shocker for me though is seeing actress Mitsuko Baisho as Inspector Sakuhara- I’m SO used to seeing her as a doddering old lady in dramas, it never occurred to me that there was a time when she was an admittedly pretty HOT Lady!!!! But WOWWW, she sure is HERE! I’m not kidding-  I’ve always respected Mitsuko in her drama appearances as those Granny types, but seeing her as this cool, sexy badass character is a whole new experience!

Just LOVE whenever she's in a scene, and at this moment I'm even going to say that Sakuhara's my favorite character on the show! SO KAKKOI!! 

Throw in Muroi Shigeru as Kimutaku’s outspoken boss and a sassy Satomi Kobayashi as an eccentric psychic and you’ve got a WILDLY entertaining drama!!

CONCERTO (Kyosokyoku) stars Kimura and Tamura "Furuhata Ninzaburo" Masakazu as architects competing for the affection of Rie Miyazawa. Not a big fan of infidelity and cheating dramas, but there’s so much going on in this one I can’t stop watching it! Great characters and great acting!

Rie Miyazawa in particular captivates, she’s so bubbly and cute in this one and it dawns on me that this might be the first drama I’ve seen with her as a younger girl, most stuff I’ve seen is her as an 0lder lady, playing mature wives and spinster-ey widows in shows like GuGu Gu Neko Datte and Shinhannin Flag! But she's simply a heartbreaker here, no wonder these two guys end up fighting for her....

Lastly there’s LOVE GENERATION- it’s hard to believe this is the first time I’m seeing it as this came right on the heels of Long Vacation and EVERYBODY wanted to see it! Sadly however, no station here picked it up, and unlike my friend Golden, (who soldiered through the series blind), I refused to watch it unsubbed, LOL!

Took a good 10 years til fansubbing became a thing and  a team translated it, but it still took me until NOW to get going! Watching it now, it very much seems like a continuation of Long Vacation as the two leads look exactly like they did in the previous show, though in entirely different roles, with Kimutaku as a womanizing "player" type and Matsu as a dorky spastic chatterbox! Great fun!

Speaking of Takako, when they were watching Long Vacation, my friend and his wife really detested the Ryoko character-(guess her wishy-washy naiveity grated on their nerves), but when they began watching HERO, not only did they really LOVE her character of Amamiya, they did not even realize it was the same actress who had played Ryoko! This is a TRUE testament of Matsu’s acting versatility- "We couldn't believe it was the same actress when we saw the credits!" they said with some awe and amazement!

Indeed, Amamiya stands out as one of Takako Matsu's most enduring characters, and it's feedback like this that I love hearing and what makes sharing dramas so rewarding!

LOL, and for some hilarious feedback: While talking to my friend’s wife about Grand Maison Tokyo, I mentioned that I really liked the lead actress Kyoka Suzuki, to which she said, “Kyoka Suzuki? Which actress is that, THE ONE WHO LOOKS LIKE A DUDE?” LOLOL I had to laugh and say “Ye Gads, no, THAT was international model Ai Tominaga!”

Ya gotta LOVE feedback like this HAHAHAHA

The Enduring Friendship of Kyoko Koizumi and Satomi Kobayashi

Satomi Kobayashi and Kyoko Koizumi in 1997's Renai Kekkon no Rule 

...and Satomi and Kyoko reunited in 2024's Danchi no Futari!

As some of you well know, one of my favorite J-dramas of ALL TIME is the 1997 romcom "Renai Kekkon No Rule", the story of a thirty-something woman named Asako Nakajima looking for love while dealing with a demanding job, a nagging sister-in-law, and TWO suitors who may or may not be the right one for her!

While the headlining stars of the show were Kyoko Koizumi and Toshiro Yanagiba as the bickering would-be couple, it was the moments with Kyoko Koizumi and Satomi Kobayashi (as the aforementioned nagging sister-in-law Chiaki) that STOLE every SCENE and made this one of the most FUN and ENJOYABLE shows ever!

The set-up is that Asako's no good brother has left his wife Chiaki and child to go off gallivanting somewhere, and without a clue where he went,  Chiaki has arrived with daughter in tow and has decided to stay with Asako til he returns!

At first I remember thinking, "Why is it Asako's responsibility to take care of what her brother does!" but the fast paced banter between the two became so entertaining to sit through that I didn't care, and I soon realized that despite the reasons, this zany pairing was the best part of the show!!

with Hikaru Nishida

I had mentioned before in my post about Kyoko Koizumi and her song "For My Life" (which was the theme song for the drama) about the undeniable chemistry between the two, Koizumi and Kobayashi were like a manzai duo in this drama, playing off each other in madcap style, and there was no better proof of their real friendship than in the NG blooper clips, which clearly showed how much FUN they were having shooting the show:

Watch as Kobayashi Satomi bangs into tables, forgets her lines and Kyonkyon and Toshiro crack up, Nishida Hikaru forget her lines when she is distracted by crispy nori being eaten, and the hilarity the ensues when the guy who plays Toshiro's Pop keeps forgetting it's his turn to talk! TOO FUNNY!!!!

Though the drama was mostly about Koizumi's character being wooed by Yanagiba's character, I always felt like the show could have been just as good watching Koizumi and Kobayashi going about their everyday lives!!!

While a Renai Kekkon no Rule Spin-off drama with the two actresses never materialized, I was STOKED to read about the 2024 drama "Danchi no Futari" starring BOTH Kyoko Koizumi and Satomi Kobayashi in the lead roles!  WELL, it seems like after all these years, we've finally got our wish to see them reunited!

Danchi no Futari tells the tale of two old childhood friends who grew up in a shabby apartment complex as kids, grew up, moved out and married, got divorced..and then, as older women, moved right back to those humble apartments where they hangout, eat food, talk story, and do all the "regular" things friends do day by day!

Whether it be helping older neighbors change their sliding door screens…

...or helping a young neighbor exterminate a trespassing cockroach…

It’s all in a day’s work for these two and the only reward they need is a hot meal and cool drink at dinnertime! 

For those of you who have kept up with Satomi, you know that these slow-paced slice of life shows are her real forte, with dramas like "Pan to Soup to Neko" and "Pension Metsa" all following this same formula where nothing much is going on and we’re just watching them live life, cooking, baking and eating!

Though the show doesn't have any real connection with Renai Kekkon No Rule, it nonetheless feels to me like a "sequel" to the show, and I can easily convince myself that Koizumi and Kobayashi are playing the SAME characters they did on that show, and know that this is exactly what they would be doing today!

Awwww, there are just some actors who give off a real vibe of friendship, and Kyoko and Satomi have it for sure!

SO GLAD to see both of them again! Going to enjoy this drama!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com