Chocolate and Howling at the Moon

 I FINALLY finished Jun to Ai. I've been working on this one for like 2 years lol. Episodes are here! It's not subbed, but the dialog is fairly simple and slowly spoken.

I definitely recommend it, and I like the premise a lot. The pairing was a shy guy who can see people's inner natures and an outgoing girl who is determined to create the best hotel. Both the leads did a great job, and I was happy to see Kazama with a leading role.  

It was written by Yukawa Kazuhiko, who is pretty much my favorite writer, and it lived up to his reputation.

As the drama went on, the situations changed pretty drastically and it got further away from its premise.

But the hopeful tone always stayed the same. Even though the drama dealt with a LOT of PAINFUL topics, it never felt really depressing, because Jun was always determined to overcome the odds. 

It's an asadora, so the episodes are only 15 min, but because I usually had so many emotions during one, I was satisfied by that amount. With some dramas, you get kind of addicted or they're like candy - you just want to watch the next one and next one. This drama isn't like that - you can savor it slowly. But it always delivers the emotional goods.

Honestly, I watched this like last week, and until I remembered that an actress from Hotel King was in it, I completely forgot about it.

It was fake dating, which is my jam, but it was pretty forgettable, apart from the fact that it was laugh out loud hilarious in parts!

So it's good for some light entertainment and humor, but it has pretty cliched characters.

This drama was so intense! It was good, but I cried so much, ugh. And there were so many tense scenes when I had like full-body stress reactions.

I liked the characters and the main couple, but the villain was kind of over the top and had no motivation.

The North Korean accents might have been fake, but they were interesting to listen to and so sing-songy. The translated English that they made foreigners speak was hilariously awful. The US NSA in response to a terrorist attack was saying the US was considering a "severe physical reaction." Is that like an allergy?? The US soldiers were so racist omg.

Now I really want North and South Korea to unify again to show that stupid US. I liked the subtle "despotic occupier" vibe that was given to the US troops. Very odd to be watching this drama in the current political climate...

In this drama, Tsuyoshi goes back in time from age 22 to 18 (high school) by accident. He seemed happy about the do-over chance the first time, though. (My friend and I disagreed on whether we would go back in time to high school given the choice. He thinks it would be dead easy, knowing what he knows now. But I think it would be dead boring! And also restrictive, ugh.)

( And he keeps being sent back over and over! )

I was so excited to watch a drama with Park Hae Jin in it! The latter half did get a little boring/annoying with the Min Soo copycat plot, the ~stealing class notes~ plot, etc. But despite the behind-the-scenes controversy about the latter half, I was happy with this drama... ( until the last episode. )

Yes, the soundtrack was A++ like Coffee Prince. And the characters reminded me of Hana Yori Dango - there were elements of Domyouji and Rui in Yoo Jung and Baek In Ho.

Wow, this drama did not disappoint. Toma and Ogushun were so amazing (especially Toma). And of course I love Hirosue Ryoko. Yoshida Yo plays the same kickass woman she does in Jun to Ai (which reminds me I have to finish Jun to Ai), and special shoutout to Takeda Kumiko for playing the best yakuza boss ever, with a wonderful Kyoto accent. Ueno Juri I could take or leave. I certainly didn't love her like I did in Nodame. But she didn't annoy me like Seino Nana's character did. I didn't recognize Shinohara Tomoe AT ALL as the forensics person, but she was totally believable, so good for her.

My favorite part of this drama was that everyone had their own interweaving motives and investigations - there were no "good guys". The mystery and PLOT TWISTS were really engaging, and only a little convoluted. The hand-to-hand fight scenes were very well choreographed and entertaining - they reminded me of Cowboy Bebop in look and feel (and in Toma's hairstyle). When they brought out the guns, however, there seemed to be a lot of standing around and AIMING the gun while not saying anything of substance, instead of SHOOTING the gun, and it stalled the action in quite a few places. It also strained credulity just how many times a character was about to tell Ogushun and Toma "everything," and there would be some flimsy excuse to delay or separate long enough for that character to get killed. But the pacing was well done enough that I was constantly eager to keep watching the next episode, and the action was spread out well throughout the entire 10 episode run.

( The ending involved some ugly crying. )

I swear to God at least once an episode I was 100% positive that Toma and Ogushun were about to kiss. And their hilariously "covert" meetings were such ~forbidden love~. Them communicating on their normal cell phones?! Ogushun buying out an entire sento for them to meet at, lol yeah that's not conspicuous... Their restaurant meetings reminded me of Peggy and Jarvis meeting back to back at the diner, and Angie rolling her eyes at their obviousness. Except with ten times the sexual tension.

Now where are all the slashy interviews?? Did Ogushun call Toma his Tokyo bride again?

Drama:

Can You Hear My Heart - ( I laughed, I sobbed, I stroked the screen repeatedly whenever Ma Ru's emoface appeared... )

 Ma Ruuuuu. (Ugh, he is like Rui all over again. OT3 IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER. Except for F/K/V that I still can't read because I am a MRKS at heart.)

...I knew reading darkeyedwolf again was a bad life decision.

So I was watching TV on the actual TV (a rare occurance), and I saw a few minutes of Star Trek: Enterprise (an even rarer occurance) when who should appear on the screen but ANDREAS KATSULAS. His beautiful face and voice and oh. After only one glorious moment though, the show cut to commercial. Then when I flipped back I swear to God I came in on the tail end of Archer and Trip having an emotional lover's argument. Cut to credits. Oh, well.

***

I watched all of Saigo no Koi in like one day. My God, those subs were off, often saying the exact opposite of what they should be. But baby Nakai did a good job, a little over/under acting, but mostly good and intense. Hee, he must have been SO EMBARRASSED at the love scenes, but that nervousness was in character at least. I really loved his character. <3333 And of course Tokiwa Takako was good. As for the writing, well... The exposition was shaky, the story tugged at my heartstrings, and the ending was pasted on. Yeah, pretty much everything you'd expect from Kitagawa Eriko.

***

My aunts visited recently and redid the garden, and then invading neighbor hordes came in to check it out, when they weren't spying on my aunts from their own yards. OMG! GTFO! ::hides:: And what's worse, digging up the yard gave rise to more invading hordes of the small buggy kind. >.<

***

SDK: Koichi's large handkerchief. I died. Aw, he's so adorable and delusional.

The Bonnie mention was an odd and interesting moment. They cut something out there, probably just more of them hemming and hawing, trying to remember, but Koichi being clueless is always cute.

OMG I could watch them forever.

( I love how sparkly everything is in Hana Kimi land!! Everyone is so colorful~! )