Merry Christmas!

 

 Merry Christmas from Hikaru Nishida gracing the cover of the 1995 KOKIKU Magazine, the month where I first began exploring the wide world of J-dramas in general and set off a love that continues to this day!

My KOKIKU Collection

Times have sure changed regarding watching Japanese dramas. Back in the day, you had but two channels to choose from here in Hawaii (local Channel KIKU or pay-channel NGN), and in the days before the internet, the sole place you could get announcements and information about the Japanese shows and it’s airtimes was the KOKIKU Magazine.

Kokiku! That nifty little local publication focusing on Japanese shows and events- the magazine that gave you the details of each show on the air, cast member information, episode synopses, and (if you were lucky) maybe even a picture or two from your favorite show!

Though KOKIKU had been around since the mid 70’s, it wasn’t until I got turned onto the wonder of Japanese dramas in late 1995 that my drama viewing increased enough to warrant picking up the KOKIKU each month for myself. And even then, when I began buying it, it was sporadic at best (I even missed out on the wonderful cover with Emi Wakui in Pure, shimatta!) but then LONG VACATION came along and my love of Japanese dramas just EXPLODED and became the high point of what I consider my “golden age” of J-drama watching!

Once that happened and Japanese Drams became my life, KOKIKU became my most important source of information for everything I needed to know about my beloved Japanese shows! Every third week of the month was spent in anticipation of the next issue, wondering: Who would be on the cover? What exciting new shows would NGN and KIKU be picking up? All these answers waited for me at the local Shirokiya each month!

 Additionally, with the two nihongo channels’ timeframes virtually overlapping each other, KOKIKU became valuable tool you needed in order to juggle your viewing schedule between NGN and KIKU! As you can see here, I’d have to use highlighter pens to coordinate my j-drama watching plan of attack for each week! And, crap, look at all those awesome shows going on in October of 1996: Long Vacation, Nurse No Oshigoto, Hideyoshi, Himawari, Hoshi No Kinka, Shinkon Nari…MAN! 

My 1995 Issues:

My 1996 Issues:

My 1997 Issues:

My 1998 Issues:

My 1999 Issues:

 My 2000 Issues:

Beginning around, oh…late 1999 or so, I began to get bored with most of the shows out there, and began to drift away from  j-dramas as a whole.  By 2000, I was hardly watching any Japanese shows, and by the time NAOMI and MONA LISA HOHOEMI (among the last of the "golden era' shows I watched) wrapped up, I was only picking up KOKIKU out of habit than any interest in j-dramas, and by April of 2001 I gave it up.

My Kokiku Issues 2001-2005

From there, I only picked up the January New Year’s Issue of each year for the Kohaku Uta Gassen and Record Taisho information of the airtimes and the musical guests… and then by 2006, with the advent of the internet, started getting all my information online instead.

For awhile there, I didn't watch any japanese dramas, and for the next eight years or so, I watched maybe only six or seven shows in total, if that! It wasn't until a chance viewing of the cute Ayase Haruka drama HOTARU NO HIKARI online (streaming) in 2009 that jump-started my j-drama watching passion, a love that continues to this day!

Thus began the new phase of Japanese drama watching: I (like most people) get and watch all my shows off of the internet (whether by download, torrent or stream), and all the information, airtimes, episode synopses and drama photos I need are all at my fingertips! I wonder how many viewers out there know how lucky they are to have everything just a click away! Sure, things are much much easier now, but MAN, you will never be able to replace those days of running to Shirokiya and the excitement of seeing the crisp, brand new issue on the stand!

The Shirokiya I used to pick up my issues of Kokiku was at the Pearlridge Shopping Center, and though that one is now long-gone, the Ala Moana Mall still has one, and visiting the shop last night, I was quite pleased to see that both KOKIKU and its entertainment-equivalent Eye-Ai are still being published today!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Koizumi Kyoko / For My Life

One thing you can say about Kyoko “Kyon Kyon” Koizumi is that her shows always seem to feature some pretty terrific theme songs. This is, of course, no small part due to the fact that she inevitably sings the theme songs for the dramas she appears in herself! HAHAHA, that’s not always true, but with shows like Mada Koi wa Hajimaranai (featuring Beautiful Girls) and Boku ga Kanojo ni, Shakkin Oshita Riyuu (featuring Tsuki Hitozuku), it just SEEMS that way! But out of all of them, the one nearest and dearest to my heart is the song FOR MY LIFE from Kyokochan’s drama RENAI KEKKON NO RULE!

Kokiku 8/1999 announcement!

For My Life is SUCH a great little song, and I’d even wager that if push came to shove, I’d even say that it was my very favorite song from Kyoko, ever! Being the theme song from one of my very favorite TOP TEN dramas of all time doesn’t hurt, either! ‘Cause as much as I loved the song, the drama was JUST as GOOD!!!

“Renai Kekkon No Rule is the story of an average but goodhearted man named Koichi who’s just looking for someone who he can spend time with, a “nice girl”, if you will. He goes on a dating-service meeting, and meets the girl of his dreams in Asako (Koizumi). They seemingly hit it off, much to Toshiro’s delight, but it all comes crashing down when he realizes SHE has no interest in seeing HIM!

Fate seems to have other plans, however, and time after time the two cross paths and before you know it, they are thoroughly intertwined in each other’s lives and affairs, both literally AND figuratively! Along with Toshiro’s overbearing relations and Kyoko’s meddling co-workers and friends, it’s a crazy mish-mash of plotting, deception and…falling in love!!!

  

The actors in this show are all top notch, with a cast that includes Koizumi Kyoko and Yanagiba Toshiro as the leads, with an incredible supporting cast filled out with Kashiwabara Takashi, Koyuki (in her first ever drama!) and even Hikaru Nishida as the young love of Toshiro’s FATHER! 
But the one that really takes the CAKE in every scene she’s in just HAS to be Kobayashi Satomi, whose sarcastic and dramatically helpless attitudes both overpower AND assist Kyoko in her situations, at times being a dominating force in Kyoko's life, then becoming needy and pathetic at the drop of a pin!

The formula of the show would usually go like this: There would be a 5-8 minute opening scene or recapping scene and then it would have a computer print out a statistic based around the situation of the current scene. Like the one I have uploaded here, In this opening sequence, Kyoko’s lamenting that she didn’t have the guts to tell her father she isn’t getting married because he’s so happy about it. Then the computer beeps on and types up: 50% of parents want to see their children get married…then the hands of a clock would turn and it would go right into the theme song!

Folks, I just gotta say, this opening is a MASTERPIECE!!! Featuring the characters playing out a happily married life, the sped-up antics of Kyokyon and Yanagiba layered over crayon cartoon backdrops PERFECTLY captures the fun and zaniness of the show, and I love how even in the beginning credits Satomi Kobayashi’s stealing the scenes, first as a cat stowaway, and then cheering as the sun is ALSO emblazoned with her features, much to the chagrin of Kyonkyon and Toshiro!

Each time I watched that fun beginning, I noticed more and more “fun” things that you just couldn’t catch all at once- like when they’re packing the suitcase (to go to the moon!), you see things like a toy mallet which Toshiro bonks on Kyonchan’s head, then he picks up a bikini top which she promptly snatches away, then she puts on a boxing glove and punches a catcher’s mask off Yanagiba’s head, AHAHAHA, so much funny stuff crammed into this opening!!!

The song is an apt choice for the drama, as Kyoko sings about taking a chance “for her life” to go out and begin living as a professional single on her own, and the music just captures the happiness and spontaneity of the show, bouncy and sassy! But the song with the images of the credits, and you had SUCH A WINNING COMBINATION!!!

One thing that always seemed clear to me is that the actors and actresses involved in Renai Kekkon No Rule were having FUN shooting this drama, and there's no better evidence of this than this HILARIOUS NG montage clip I got off one of those NG shows. 


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!!!!

Even after all these years, Renai Kekkon No Rule remains  one of my Top Ten Japanese Dramas of all time, and as the years go by, it becomes even more and more precious to me!