Just finished watching this 12-episode Japanese drama “Nodame Cantabile” about 30 minutes ago and I thought it really worth blogging. Great drama! Guess I’m biased as I love classical music and this drama features neverending clips/full songs of my favorite pieces. Beethoven, Shubert, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninoff….. I’m familiar with most of the pieces being used in the drama, just a couple piano solo pieces and some Ochestrial pieces (for example the one by Brahms) that I haven’t really heard of. They were all great selections, probably chosen among the greatest works of these composers. The song that gets played the most is probably Beethoven’s #7.

Enough talks about the music. The main protagonists are Megumi Noda (???) performed by Juri Ueno (????), and Shinichi Chiaki (????) performed by Hiroshi Tamaki (???). Typical pretty girl pretty boy drama. I haven’t seen either of them performing before, but they are surprisingly good. Juri Ueno is young, pretty, and energetic, full of emotions, while Hiroshi is handsome and cool looking, and acted surprisingly great for his conductor post. The “RS Ochestra” (RS=Rising Star) formed by Chiaki had some great faces too, can’t really remember their names by the girl that plays violin, another girl that plays cello, and the guy that plays oboe, are all pretty good looking.

The story itself was straightforward. Here’s an excerpt from Wiki:

Megumi Noda, or “Nodame” is a piano student at Momogaoka College of Music. An extremely talented pianist who wants to be a kindergarten teacher, she prefers playing by ear rather than reading the music score. She is messy and disorganized, takes baths several days apart and loves to eat, sometimes stealing her friend’s lunchbox when it is filled with delicacies.

Shinichi Chiaki, is Momogaoka’s top student. Born into a musical family, he is talented in piano and violin and has secret ambitions to become a conductor. An arrogant multi-lingual perfectionist who once lived abroad in the music capitals of the world as a young boy (namely Prague), he is trapped in Japan because of his childhood phobia.

They meet by accident. Nodame quickly falls in love, but it takes much longer for Chiaki to even begin to appreciate Nodame’s unusual qualities. Their relationship causes them both to develop and grow. Along the way, they meet some crazy people (like Masumi, Mine, and Stresemann) and make lasting friendships. Because of Nodame, Chiaki gets the opportunity to lead a student orchestra and begins to have a broader appreciation of people’s musical abilities. Because of Chiaki, Nodame faces her fears and enters a piano competition. Opportunities open up as both begin taking risks, stretching themselves far more than they ever thought possible.

This is a highly recommended drama. Not just because it features great classical music, but the performance and storyline were awesome as well. By the way watching Ueno Juri’s performance as a silly girl reminds me of drama “Nobuta o Produce“, in which Horikita also acted in a silly way.

Oh last but not least, Ueno Juri’s personal blog has really cool design! http://www.ueno-juri.com/

Here’s the first movement of Johannes Brahms’s Symphony #1, the piece I love the most in the drama:

 

 Johannes Brahms - Symphony #1 - First Movement [02:59m]: Play Now | Download (272)

This is a fairly new movie that was just up in Japan last April. Since it was starred by my favorite star Mao Inoue / ????, it instantly became a must-watch…lol. Anyway I’m glad that I watched it as it was really lot better than I’ve expected. The story was mainly taken from Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, shot in a modernized manner. Here is an excerpt of the synopsis from NHK: “An adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. When a businessman falls ill he makes his three daughters an offer. Whichever one agrees to take care of him will inherit his chain of supermarkets. The two older daughters fight over which one will live with dad, but the younger daughter wants nothing to do with the competition.”

Most characters in the movie were veteran so they were very natural and looked great. Mao in particular, though she’s really young she acted great starring the youngest sister in the family. I always love how she acts since watching “Hanayori Dango 1 & 2“, and the recent “First Kiss“. She’s one of the most talented and natural actress I’ve seen so far. The father, starred by Nishida Toshiyuki, was also performed extremely well. I think I’ve seen him in a couple other movies as well.

This movie was full of family love, love between father and daughters in particular. It was also full of joy and jokes. It’s the type of movie that would make you smile and feel good for the rest of the day. I highly recommend watching it, if you have a chance.

The latest anime (2006) produced by the Ghibli Studio, directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro Miyazaki. As a HUGE fan of Ghibli’s, i.e. Hayao Miyazaki’s animation, I thought this was a must-watch. A little backgroud info on my addiction to Miyazaki’s stuff. I have been watching his animation since when I was little. To name a few, Laputa - Castle in the Sky/????????(1986), Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind/????????(1984), Totoro/???????(1988), Kiki’s Delivery Service/??????(1989), Porco Rosso/???,(1992), Spirited Away/????????(2001), Princess Mononoke/ ?????(1997), Howl’s Moving Castle/???????(2004). They were all great, but my love had mostly been devoted to Laputa and Nausicaa not just because of the awesome storyline/character designs, but the insanely beautiful sound track that were featured in these two animations. These music had really influenced me a lot and they are where a lot of my inspirations originated from.
Here is a brief synopsis from variety.com:

To tell the truth, I was like “what the…. what’s going on? I have no clue on ____ and ____. Why did ____ do ____? Okay I understand this but why he _____ ?”….etc. Yes the plot was pretty badly developed. Poor or…maybe zero character development. (I guess I shouldn’t have expected the same quality of sublimeness,creativity, beauty, cleverness, from the old Miyazaki’s former productions, from his son Goro. I’m pretty sure no one on earth would have been able to reproduce the same quality ever) But visually and musically, this film is certainly on par with the former Miyazaki films: stunning visuals, rich facial expressions, vibrant colors (town in sunset looks like a nicely framed painting) , and awesome soundtrack (I was a little disappointed when I got to know the the music wasn’t directed by Joe Hisaishi/???, who created probably the most beautiful animation musical pieces ever made for the previous Miyazaki animations.) I think they were using the same team of artists as the characters and colorings greatly resemble the other Miyazaki films…like you would be able to tell right away that it is from Miyazaki.
I’m pleased by the visual and soundtrack so even though the story isn’t all that great and I wouldn’t give it a thumbs up, it still deserves a 6 out of 10. It certainly fails miserably compared to Miyazaki’s former animations, but it is still an OK animation, with stunning visuals and great sounds. I watched it twice actually, and I had Chinese subtitles on when I watched it again and was able to have a little better understanding on some of the ideas in the story. By the way my favorite character in the movie was the dragon! Way too cool~

It’s Mao Inoue again! Being her #1 fan after watching Hana Yori Dango and a couple other of her dramas, how can I miss this new one of hers. Plus, Anmitsu Hime (Sugar Princess) was one of my favorite cartoons when I was like 7 or 8 years old. Still remember some episodes like how Princess Anmitsu saw ghosts in a castle and I was hella scared…lol. And now they turned this classic cartoon into a real movie, so awesome…Check out a trailer / interview on Yourtube here, or click here for the official site. By the way “Anmitsu” (????) is the word for a Japanese dessert that has been popular for many decades.

Anyway, here is the synopsis: Inoue Mao stars as Princess Anmitsu, a tomboy princess who feels restrained by the orderly and boring life in the castle. On her 16th birthday, after being introduced to a series of unappealing candidates for her hand in marriage she decides to sneak out of the castle to find true “?????” (love). She wrecks havoc on the town, defeats bad guys and discovers the true meaning of “?????”. Inoue Mao is completely adorable and believable as the naive and headstrong Princess Anmitsu and the rest of the cast is equally believable and entertaining. The series never takes itself seriously and the ending is quite sweet.

It is a highly recommended comedy! (as usual since I usually don’t review crappy movies) It’s just a 1.5 hour movie so make sure you buy/download it!

The Ikebukuro West Gate Park / ???????????? is an older drama (year 2000) starred by Tokio’s Nagase Tomoya / ???? and the current super popular idol Yamashita Tomohisa / ????. By the way Tomohisa (aka YamaP among his fans) looks SO young in this drama, I think he was like 15 years old or something around that time. When I was first watching the drama I was thinking like “oh that guy looks so familiar isn’t he YamaP?!” and later on when the credits scrolled around I figured out it was him…lol. I watched a couple of his recent dramas like Kurosagi and Nobuta wo Produce, he looked way more mature (he’s around 22 now I think), not a bad actor at all.

Enough talks. Now about the drama. It’s GOOD! The first couple episode is a little..boring ? Since they’re still trying to introduce the characters and setup the storyline. It gets really exciting and suspending starting around episode 4 when they starting to see hints and evidence of the strange murder that’s been happening around Ikebukuro. The story is about a group of youngsters (lead by Tomoya) whose job is to “protect” the Ikebukuro area from the harms. The head of a group of young gangsters named themselves “G-BOYS” likes Tomoya a lot since they have the same interests in protecting the area. In other people’s eyes, these youngsters are just a bunch of of jerks that screws around the area and cause problems. The story mainly portraits the lives of these young people, how they carry out tasks for their leaders, how they “protect” the area by fighting with some groups of other gangs…etc. It also depicts the lives of the young schoolgirl prostitutes that does Enjo Kousei (????) meaning “dating with compensation” in Japan.

Right from the beginning of the story, strange murders keep on happening, and the targets are always on these young prostitutes. Tomoya and his friends decides to start an investigation on this matter after his girlfriend got killed in the incident. There are lots of suspenses going on during the development of the story, and it’s also funny to see how the G-BOYS carry out their tasks and how loyal they are to their leader that they would basically do anything that they were told to. The leader of the G-BOYS (forgot his name) was really cool looking too and has a weird attitude and he speaks in a weird way, really hilarious! …and he has a really bitchy girlfriend which just adds more fun to his role.. anyway all in all it’s a wonderful 11-episode drama that really shows you the innocence and ignorance of young people in Japan in their raw forms, highly recommended!

To sum up this drama series in one word: LOL! I’ve just finished watching this wonderful comedic drama. (official site here) Starred by Japanese teen idol Aragaki Yu (????) and Hiroshi Tachi (????), in the drama the souls of the father and the daughter are interchanged due to a train accident. Relationship between the father and daughter is pretty bad in the beginning, like the daughter wouldn’t talk to the dad since she thinks he’s annoying, and the dad wouldn’t talk to her as he scares that she wouldn’t like it. Then the other day this train crash accident happens, and the soul of the girl goes into the father’s body and vice versa. Yup this is pretty crazy (and unrealistic) but it does create LOTS of funny moments XD… like the girl doesn’t want her father to see her body when she baths (since the father’s using the girl’s body), so she has to cover up her dad’s eyes and bathe for him~ and also the girl has to work at her dad’s office, attend office conferences…etc. The father has to cramp for the exams for his daughter at school, and he even has to go for a date with some guy for her! (and of course since the dad doesn’t like his daughter going for dates so he (inside his daughter’s body) acted so weirdly during the date, and the girl had to follow through the whole process by observing her dad’s “performance” from far away~) Pretty hilarious, but they both acted extremely well. I like how Hiroshi Tachi acts all girlish! and how he types message super quickly on the cellphone! (since he’s actually having the soul of his daughter)

Anyway, after seven days, though it’s kind of expected, their identities go back to normal after a second “crash” (they both fell off a cliff), and since then the father and daughter treat each other nicely as they have gone through each other’s tough moments and realized how much they love each other. There are only seven episodes in total, a relatively short drama but still highly recommended! It’s really great laughs and will brighten up your day for sure