Konkatsu 1000 Bon Knock

Actually pretty entertaining story of an unlucky-in-love young novelist named Ayako Minami (Maki Fukuda) who, after getting ghosted by an over-the-top cad of a player named Yamada (Yusei Yagi), has decided to give up the game.

She has just made up her mind, when two things happen: ONE, she is given an offer for her to write a new story about the art of marriage-hunting and attending meet and greet events for a possible partner...

and TWO:  Yamada the uncouth ex-lover of hers who had just dumped her has come back as a GHOST and has told her that unless he helps her find true love, he can never attain eternal enlightenment and will be reincarnated as a bug!

With this, Ayako bravely enters the field of marriage partner hunting to kill three birds with one stone: To write her konkatsu serial, to find true love...and to help this meddlesome ghost attain enlightenment so he can get out of her life for good!

A lightweight drama for sure but, as I said, if I see it uploaded, I'll grab it- Not only is Maki Fukuda delightfully dorky as lead character Akari, there's also Nagisa Sekimizu as her arch-rival Kyumoto and that's totally a plus!!!

Gossip: #Kanojo ga Shiritai Honto no 〇〇

 Ririko Seko (Haru Kuroki) is a no-nonsense clerk in the accounting department of a major publishing company. She is highly regarded by her superior Masaki Niwa (Masanobu Ando) not only for her diligent accounting, but for her keen eye in discovering discrepancies and untruths in the receipts the employees give her; with only few clues she can get to the truth of things like a determined detective!

So good at her job is Rikako that Niwa takes her out of accounting and gives her a NEW task: To be placed as the head of a dying online news site the company owns named CAMPHOR News, straighten the employees up and re-focus the site as a Gossip Column instead of the old cut-and-paste News Site they were…and get viewership UP!

As soon as she gets there, she immediately bumps heads with the staff, for one thing, these are all employees who have long since given up on their Media site being popular and lazily drag their feet and scoff. Adding the problem is Ririko’s cold and unfeeling way of addressing people and situations, seeing everything in black and white with no room for feelings to get in the way.

But it is this very intensity about her that the staff will discover makes her unique, and they learn that because of her unwavering adherence to facts, she is able to turn a mere “gossip rag” story into a REAL News piece, and make Camphor News the place where a reader can find the actual truth about things! And slowly, she begins to earn the respect of her so-called peers….

Along with Ririko, the Camphor Staff are:

Michiharu Nezu (Junpei Mizobata)

Makoto Ichimoto (Anna Ishii)

Shuto Shimouma (Shuhei Nomura)

and Seiji Kabatani (Toru Nomaguchi)

REALLY enjoying this one so far, Ririko is yet another wonderful role for the talented Ms. Kuroki. Quite a relief to see for myself because I had seen early buzz online about the show's low ratings and people saying Ririko is “an unlikeable character that rubs you the wrong way”…I absolutely did NOT feel that (though I suppose the other characters in the show were meant to) and in fact I found her quite sweet and naive, a character I wanted to know MORE about!!!

There is this scene of Ririko fighting the urge to take a picture of a cute kitty, and watching it, I felt the same feeling I got seeing her in “Mi Wo Tsukushi Ryoricho” and “Nagi No Oitoma”, slowly paced, no dialog, just the camera following this girl...

Already up to episode 3 and am looking forward to more!!!!!

Just For Fun: App de Koi Suru 20 no Joken

As a fan of both Maika Yamamoto AND Tsubasa Honda, it was a given that I would be grabbing the TV Special movie “App de Koi Suru 20 no Joken” and it was a fine time indeed!

"20 Conditions to Date with an App” follows a bunch of friends entering the wild-and exciting world of online dating, and though at first it seems these six characters have their own individual problems, as the story deepens, we learn that everything may be connected one way or another!

Tsubasa Honda

Shuhei Nomura

Yosuke Sugino

Maika Yamamoto

Takayuki Hamatsu

Reina Sumi

Gotta admit, I downloaded this because of my recent obsession with Maika Yamamoto (and she was as cute as can be...!)

 ...but once watching it, it was Tsubasa Honda all the way, my GOSH, she has to be one of the most FUN and VIBRANT young actresses out there!

A wonderful diversion for a cloudy weekend!

In Anticipation of Video Girl Mai....

With the announcement of a new Denei Shojo drama about to be picked up with “Video Girl Mai” set to air, I thought I’d better hurry and watch the original series so I would be all caught up when it began! So over the weekend I crash-coursed both the original Video Girl Ai series and its 2018 Special and finished ‘em both up in few days…

Hmmm, it was an okay if slightly draggy and meandering romance story, but Nanase Nishino simply dazzled as the adorable Ai, the Video Girl who exists to make your dreams come true!

Shuhei Nomura stars as Sho, a shy and introverted guy who secretly loves his classmate Nanami (Marie Iitoyo) who in turn secretly likes their colleague Tomoaki (Hiroya Shimizu)
The three work together on video projects while at the same time keeping their feelings in check.

One night fretting over his love of Nanami, Sho hears a bump coming from the closet of his Uncle's house where he's been staying. Upon inspection, he finds an old VHS Idol tape and, intrigued, puts it in the vintage player.

He's taken by the impishly adorable girl in the screen who tells him she's there to make his dreams come true. But what he cannot imagine is when the girl extends her hand out...and EMERGES FROM THE SCREEN!

Once there, she makes it clear that she is there to make his dreams come true- but how will the shy Sho deal with trying to woo Nanami with a wild and rambunctious magical girl LIVING with him?

Yes, if it sounds like a twisted soap opera, that’s exactly what it was. the first few episodes were fun and zany as Sho dealt with having a secret video girl living with him...

 ...but somehow once it got past the 4th or 5th episode, it became a rather dreary affair of love triangles, unrequited love and deception.

Man, what is it with these kind of shows. They take a fantastic situation and always manage to turn them into the most cliched and mundane teen romance fluff. It almost doesn't even matter that Ai came from a VHS tape, she could just have easily been a girl from out of town who has to move to the United Staes in a few months.
Truth be told, I had the same problem with the Risa Naka movie “The Girl Who leapt thru Time”, a fantastic sci-fi set-up with a girl appearing from the future to a budding sci-fi writer, which you would have thought would lead to some amazing stories but ends up being just your usual “I love her but I cannot confess” tropes….

Here’s hoping the 2019 Mai series is more bright!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com