2 days ago suddenly came into mind was the NHK Kouhaku. I was checking out the 2009 one and was *shocked* to realize that I haven’t watched it yet..! I’ve been following it since many years ago and for some reason I haven’t watched the latest one. I might have been too busy… Anyway I downloaded a HD version of it (32GB total!) and the quality was super good. Watched it on my LCD TV, so perfect.

This year’s show was awesome, and of course the CM would be Nakama Yukie and Nakai Masahiro - they are probably the best CM in Japan so far. Saw quite a few talents that I haven’t seen before and they were so good. First one came to mind is the 11 year old girl Sakura Mayu who sings enka like how a 60 year-old does. So shocking.. and then Susan Boyle, everyone knows about her and I’ve surely watched her video on youtube 100’s of times, but to see the performance again one can really see what true talent means - I was getting goosebumps every 5 seconds. And then this super old enka singer Akimoto Junko, looks like an average mom but when she sings her song “Ai no mama de” I was completely stoked. Such an awesome enka song! (and the violinist Emiri Miyamoto was good too, and young) Perfume put on a good show as well with their most popular song “Disco”. Saw them on youtube tons of times but never seen them in Kouhaku. Then it’s the every so popular Arashi (first timer). Of course I like Jun and Nino as they both do amazing in dramas, but what made me happy was the song they sang which was the theme song for Hanayori Dango, one of my favorite drama! I’m missing that drama now. Then it’s Ayaka’s usual super great performance, but it’s her last show since she’s gotten Grave’s disease and will be retiring from the scene…what a huge lose =( SMAP put on a Michael Jackson memorial dance show this year, and Kimura was very impressive with his dance move, lol.

Of course I have to mention Fukada Kyoko being one of the judges this year! Good to see her there I always love her dramas. In fact I just watched drama Massugu na Otoko that she starred. I was a boring drama though. I just downloaded another J-movie Kimikaze Girls starred by her and Anna Tsuchiya, looks interesting to watch.

I picked up this drama when I was reviewing the 2008 year end list of dramas. I looked at the posters and saw an abundance of teen girls and boys and I thought it couldn’t be too bored of a drama (usually the case). It turned out to be a real enjoyable drama, right from episode 1.

Meichan no Shitsuji talks about a poor young girl that originally lived with worked with her parents in a tiny udon noodle restaurant in the countryside. Until one day her parents died in an accident and she was told by “a guy” that she was actually the grand daughter of a really rich guy that was owner to an enormous cooperation. The guy turned out to be a “servant” from this crazy crazy, rich-girls-only high school that accepted only the richest girls and had a size of 1/3 of Tokyo (lol). The school claimed to provide the best environment for the students so that when they graduate, they would become the most elegant ladies ever - the “Ojousama”. Anyway, this school was really interesting since every “student” had her own servant, kind of like an assistant, and he would take care of the girl’s daily chores, basically acted as her guardian. I wasn’t really sure whether this was possible at all in reality but it was a really crazy idea that lured me into watching it. The grandfather of the girl had asked the girl to attend this crazy school in order to learn how to become a real “lady”. The grandfather had appointed this guy to be her servant at the school.

In the beginning, the girl had this really ghetto look and she was hated by the students a lot. As the story progressed, she had done a lot of good deeds and had won the heart of most of the students. Also she had fell in love with her servant and there you go, a love story between the two of them, even though part of the school rule stated “No love affair is allowed between any girl and her servant”, lol. This drama was actually a mixture of romance, comedy, and action. Since the fundamental idea was just hilarious (girl students with their own servants), I found it very enjoyable to watch all the funny/weird things that happened between the girls and their servants and I got addicted fairly soon.

Oh almost forgot to talk about the cast. Well actually I hadn’t seen any of them except for the girl (barely remembered her) which was Eikura Nana / 榮倉奈々, and Mizushima Hiro / 水嶋ヒロ. I first saw Nana in Proposal Daisakusen / プロポーズ大作戦 and she was a good friend of the main girl…I wasn’t really too familiar to her acting nor her face, but she was really good in this one. And I saw Hiro in Hanazakari no Kimitachi e / 花ざかりの君たちへ, and I still remember his name there was Nanba, lol. The rest of the cast was loads of teen girls/boys, some faces were familiar but most were not.

It is a highly recommended drama! Very refreshing to watch.

These days, I tend to do my blog posts the following day, just cause I usually work till really late and don’t have the time to prep for the image that I wanted to post. I guess it’ll get better when my project (due in June) is done.. Anyway yesterday I had my favorite Chirashi Don (mixed sashimi rice bowl) at Ichiro Tei Japanese Restaurant with Alice for lunch. I finally remembered to bring my camera with me so here’s the picture of the awesome food.

But the main thing for the day was that I finally got a flash for my E-3 DSLR. I had been wanting the bigger version of the flash (Olympus FL-50R) but it was too pricey plus I’m not always doing flash photography so I decided not to buy it. These days I tend to take quite some outdoor photos for Wendy so I figured I should really get a flash, maybe the smaller version (Olympus FL-36R) of it (Olympus has 2 flashes, big and small). Peter was able to get it for me at Futureshop for a much cheaper price since he works there, so I decided to go for it. Ended up being about $200 + tax, which is a pretty good deal. I’ve actually never seen a real digital flash before, when I looked at the user manual I was a little overwhelmed by the complexity of it, like all sorts of different settings, and tilting the flash in different angles would give you totally different results…etc. Oh and I also tried the wireless function of the flash, you can actually place the flash somewhere else, and then wirelessly trigger it through the camera….it’s so cool…. I guess I have so much to learn now but, it seemed to be quite an interesting thing to know about….and hopefully will also help in other areas of photography that I take, like macros. See the picture of my flash with my camera body, it’s so frigging huge!

At night I had cake at Berry Good with Wendy. I tried their Black Forest cake (which is one of the kinds that I always asked my mom to get for my birthday parties), it was pretty good. I kind of forgot how it’s supposed to taste since I haven’t had it for so long, but I liked the one I had. Wendy got a Strawberry Shortcake, which even though I wasn’t sure what a shortcake was, tasted pretty good. Berry Good remains one of the best places for late night dessert cravings.

A friend in Japan recommended this drama saying that it was hilarious. I downloaded it and took a quick look, and got addicted… The drama was shown in Japan starting end of December 2008 I believe, and it just ended (I just watched the last episode) It’s got a few actors that was quite familier - Tamaki Hiroshi / 玉木宏 who starred Nodame Cantabile (my review here) and Matsuda Shota / 松田翔太 who starred Liar Game. As for the main actress, I’ve seen Karina / 香里奈 here and there in various dramas like Ryokiteki na Kanojo (my review here) and Galileo (my review here), but seemed that she’s never starred a prominent role - she wasn’t bad at all in this drama.

The story was written by Nojima Shinji / 野島伸司. I used to hate him when I was young when he married Noriko Sakai (used to be a big fan of her..lol), but I couldn’t denied that he was a great script writer. I liked a couple of his past work a lot, like Hitotsu Yane no Shita / ひとつ屋根の下, and Seija no Koushin / 聖者の行進.

It had an interesting theme - swapping partners. Four guys and four girls joined a game called “Love Shuffle” which was hosted by one of the guys who was a phychologist. Each of these people have been having issues in their relationships and the phychologist came up with this game in which for each week, each person will get together / date a different person, and the game would be repeated once, so each person will the the same person twice. The idea was to expose each person to new partners in order to find their “true love”. I thought this would make a really interesting drama and apparently I was right. There were hilarious moments as well as depressive ones, when these people had different kind of chemistry against each other. Four of these Eight people actually were living on the same floor (28th) in the same apartment, they would gather in front of the lift and hold “pajama party” every night to chill and chat about their experiences.

One of the things that made this drama shine was that each of these six people have their own “messed up” personalities - Photo freak, gay phychologist, sex-addicted married woman, girl with messed up mind always wanted to suicide, super rich kid that was shy and polite…etc. It was super entertaining to see how they dated each other when their personalities totally went against each other’s. It was also very relaxing to watch, not sure why but probably because most of them were professionals (e.g. phychologist, photo artist, linguist..etc), and their livings were classy, which I always endeavor. Just cool people.

This is a highly entertaining and recommended drama. Before closing it up here is a little bio for each of these interesting characters:

Tamaki Hiroshi as Usami Kei (29)

A section chief and a graduate from a second-rate university. He should have risen to become the division chief after his marriage, but … is his love for Mei real? Or is it just because he wants to maintain his current lifestyle? He’s opposed to the love shuffle.

Karina as Aizawa Airu (25)

The daughter of a diplomat. She works as a translator. She has a boyfriend that she wants to break up with but she is enthusiastic about the love shuffle.

Matsuda Shota as Sera Ojiro (26)

A photographer who shoots magazine cover shots and an outstanding young man who’s successful in his career. The female subjects of his photography shoots are always bowled over by him. He loves women and he’s enthusiastic about the love shuffle.

DAIGO as Oishi Yukichi (29)

A wealthy man who made his money through stock trading. Even though he loves Airu, he eventually gives up and joins the love shuffle.

Yoshitaka Yuriko as Hayakawa Kairi (19)

She hallucinates and has tried to kill herself several times. Her condition is unstable. She joins the love shuffle at the persuasion of Dr Kikuta.

Kojima Hijiri as Kamijyo Reiko (34)
Her husband is a famous person. She is enjoying herself in the 3 months before her husband’s return and joins the love shuffle at the invitation of her lover, Ojiro. She’s a woman who only cares about looks but not talent or virtue.

Kanjiya Shihori as Kagawa Mei (25)
The daughter of a company president. Kei saved her when she met a mountain accident back in high school and they are currently dating. She has never dated anyone else. 3 months before their wedding, she suddenly proposes to break off their engagement. She and Airu were classmates but Airu has forgotten about her because she has transferred schools numerous times. She joins the love shuffle.

Tanihara Shosuke as Kikuta Masato (32)
An easy-going psychologist, he is more famous than he deserves to be. He joins the loves shuffle at Kairi’s invitation.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms / ???? ??? was a war drama shown in Japan in 2007. I usually don’t watch war/history movies and I almost stopped watching at about 10 minutes in when I realized the film was about some war history, I was glad that I didn’t. It wasn’t subbed so it was a great opportunity for me to try to understand the story listening to pure Japanese.

There are two parts to the story. Part one began with a 22-23 year-old girl Minami (performed by Kumiko Maso / ?????) who was a victim of the Hiroshima atomic bomb incident in year 1945. She had scars on her arm from the fire at the incident. The story talked about how Minami lost her younger sister and her father in the incident, and her post-war life living with her mother and younger brother, Asahi. Minami got sick for no reason and had been coughing blood. She died from radiation poisoning (just my guess) at 26. Coping with the tragedy, her brother continued to live and get married with a girl who was living in the same village as he did.

Part two of the story began with Nanami (performed by Rena Tanaka / ????), the daughter of Asahi (Minami’s younger brother), one day realized that her father was acting strange at home and left home without saying a word, so she followed him out secretly. Her father ended up taking a bus to Hiroshima (from Tokyo where they lived) and Nanami followed him onto the bus. At Hiroshima, Nanami saw her father meeting with a couple old people, going to his older sister’s (Minami) tomb, and revisiting the area where it used to be the village he lived in. Nanami there learned about his father’s past and the story behind her hair pin, which was worn by Minami before. Nanami also recalled how her mother died on the floor while she was couging out blood, and she wondered if she would end up having the same fate as her mother - as a post-war victim that was highly susceptable to death by radiation poisoning.

The movie was very beautifully sculpted, with great settings, scenery, and most importantly the great symphonic soundtrack. I liked how they talked in I believe Hiroshima dialect in the old days. It made it 3 times more difficult for me to understand but I felt great when I seemed to understand most of what they said. The story-telling was awesome, like since there were different time periods involved, flash backs were used to introduce different time frames, mood and colors were also used pretty effectively such that you wouldn’t be confused what setting the current scene was in. Some people may get bored watching this movie I would think, even though I truely enjoyed it (thus bothered to write this review). I liked it and in my opinion it is a highly recommended!

To close up here’s a synopsis from nhatkyviet.com:

Adapted from Kono Fumiyo’s award-winning manga, Yunagi no Machi Sakura no Kuni (a.k.a. Yunagi City, Sakura Country) is the story of two young women living in different times, and the unforgettable historical memory that connects them. Director Sasabe Kiyoshi follows up his WWII drama Sea Without Exit with a sensitive portrayal of postwar life under the shadow of the war experience and the atomic bomb. Divided into two sections - “Town of Evening Calm” and “Country of Cherry Blossom” - the film alternates between 1955 Hiroshima and the present-day with Tanaka Rena (Waiting in the Dark) and Hochi Film Award Best Actress Aso Kumiko (Kairo) in the leading roles.

Atomic bomb survivor Hirano Minami (Aso Kumiko) knows all too well life’s bitter brevity. She lost her father and sisters to the bomb and radiation poisoning, and has not seen her brother since he was evacuated years ago. She takes hesitant steps toward first love with her coworker (Yoshizawa Yu, Night of the Shooting Stars), but happiness and normalcy are elusive in the atmosphere of postwar Hiroshima. Decades later, Ishikawa Nanami (Tanaka Rena) travels to Hiroshima to find out the reason by her father’s frequent mysterious trips to the city. There she slowly retraces the story of a young woman whose life has affected hers in more ways than she realized.

I can’t remember how I came across this movie, probably because I was craving to see Rena Tanaka’s performance. Turned out to be a really really interesting one (interesting is really the best way to describe the movie). It was shown in Japan in year 2006, starred by Rena Tanaka / ???? and Wilson Chen / ??? (He’s Chinese). Even though Wilson is Chinese, I think he’s really able to speak Japanese rather fluently (could have just been result of practices, but still really good pronunciation.)

The story is about a blind girl and a young guy that was a murder suspect. The girl’s mother left her and her father when she was really little. One day her father died all of a sudden (not sure why) and she had to start living alone. While she tried to adapt to the life as a blind person without any family member, something strange happened. There was this young guy that entered her house without she knowing it. The story became really interesting from this point and on since the guy would hide at her place without speaking a word, at this corner of the house. He would take the food and drinks from the fridge when the girl went to bed. The girl was somehow able to sense something strange going on but she wasn’t able to tell it was a person hiding in her house until one day she almost dropped a clay container onto the floor off a shelf while the guy silently caught it and then placed it on the floor. The girl thanked the “person”, and from that point and on she also prepared dinner for the guy (In my opinion this could never happen in reality since I think anyone would have freaked out when someone enters his or her property without permission….but oh well, no point to acknowledge it.) It was really entertaining and interesting to see how the girl and the guy reacted to each other. Both of them performed brilliantly in this regard - I thought it’s really hard to play a blind person but Rena really scored it well this time. The story went on to talk about how the girl tried to adapt to the outside world, and the guy’s quest to prove his innocence.

The story was pretty simple, and the plot was straight forward. What worths watching was definitely the chemistry between two main characters. It was mainly silence for most of the time, since the girl’s living alone, and the guy had to keep his mouth shut in order to not let the girl know that he’s hiding in the house. It was really interesting and suspenseful. And lastly of course, it’s always a pleasure just to behold Rena’s performance I would give this simple but interesting film a 4/5. It’s hightly recommended for anyone to watch.