Ok, everyone has been talking about Nino and Ryo's new drama on october. I wasn't gonna mention it because, well, everyone has been talking about it!! But now, really...

Kudo Kankuro is working the script?? FOR REAL???

I was gonna watch it. I mean, the story sounded appealing enough to check it out. And It's Nino. And Ryo! Together! (And Erika, whom I also like, but that's beside the point and not enough reason for me to like something)

But now Kudo Kankuro is behind it? I'm gonna freaking LOVE IT! All the actors can drop out if they want. I'm gonna watch it anyway!

Does this mean all the other roles are for some of the familiar faces of Kudo's other works? He's doing the script based on a book, so it's gonna be different. And his three main leads are guys he hadn't work before with. Hopefully it pans out. I mean, it's KUDO KANKURO!

So what? I love the guy.

Finished Tiger & Dragon.

AWESOME.

Same qualities I loved about Kisarazu Cat's Eye and IWGP, but different enough to be something interesting all by itself. And I got to learn a lot about the ancient art of Japanese story-telling!

Our protagonist here is Toraji (Nagase), a scary looking yakuza that collecting a debt from the owner of a Rakugo theater, falls in love with the art of story-telling. He decides to learn the art and leave his yakuza life, and he's doing it by paying for lessons and then asking the money back to pay the Rakugo master's debt. This master takes our yakuza under his wing and gives him the name Kotora to perform on stage.

Then there's Ryuuji (Okada), the youngest son of the Rakugo master, that has left the art behind him three years before even when he was considered a genius for it. Now he owns a shop where nobody ever goes in and has to deal with Toraji's nagging to teach him more about story-telling.

Each episode features one old Japanese story, and is told by pieces during the episode both by having all the actors of the dorama transform into characters living in ancient Japan, where the stories take place, and then mirroring the lives of the actual characters of the dorama in today's Japan.

I think this dorama is a little more light-hearted than the other two I've watch of Kudou Kankuro. Kisarazu is a lot of fun, but the about-to-happen death of Bussan weights on the story on each turn. And I'm not getting myself into IWGP again, I've already said it plenty of times: too many people dead and the violence is an important plot point. T&D has violence too, but it's a lot more warm and, well, family-friendly. The focus here IS family! For Toraji to learn about it and for Ryuuji to go back to it.

Here you have a vid someone made with the ending song of the dorama, so you can have visual aid to what I just wrote.



Oh, and for those who didn't notice. "Tora" means tiger, while "Ryuu" means dragon. Clever, huh?

Are any of you a little interested? Watch it! Is easy to follow and everything from photography to music to performance is done with care and interest and you can easily tell. Give it a chance!

"お前らさ 本当に むかつく"

I've just finished watching Kisarazu Cat's Eye. I've still to watch both movies that came after the dorama, though.

I LOVED the dorama! It is, I think, a grown up version of Stand Up!! (both story and direction-wise) with something other than sex in the mind of the main characters, a lot of baseball and yakuza references thrown in the middle and of course, the impending doomed death of the protagonist.

I know for real now that I love the screenwriter, Kudou Kankuro. He also wrote Ikebukuro West Gate Park, and this is pretty much all of the things I loved about IWGP WITHOUT the violent awful nightmare-inducing deaths that came with it (Shun's dead body inside a locker still hurts, ok?).

I also like Okada better than Nagase as actors. I can understand the attraction to Nagase, I've watched the first two episodes of Tiger & Dragon (another great work of the same writer), but I also watched some of My Boss My Hero, so I can't really say the guy makes great acting choices for me to love him. I was already loving Okada in the already mentioned T&D, but Bussan is just great. I love him. Both character and actor.

I found yesterday the movie GO, of the same writer, with another actor I love (in IWGP and Long Love Letter), Kubozuka Yosuke, who also stars in another movie of the same writer, Ping Pong, that I've still to find. I want to see everything this writer has to offer. I kinda love him just for the fact he likes to work with the same actors, cus they are all actors I'd like to watch again. And again.

I have to thank annnimeee for the recommendations, now that I remember. She was the one to direct me to this writer and this dorama (and the movies), the same way I want to direct you guys now.

For those who'd want to know, Kisarazu is a dorama about an ordinary enough guy that finds out he's only got six months to live. He decides, then, to spend the rest of his days either playing baseball and reading manga or acting as a robin hood-like thieve with his friends for the good of the town... and their own, of course. The cast is awesome, the direction is awesome, the story-telling is awesome. I even loved the Arashi theme song!

I will recommend the rest of the stuff I have mentioned here once I watch them. I'm probably gonna love them too.

I... I suppose this need an introduction.

It just that... Shit.

So, this is not a real life thing. Real life is going fine. A little boring and full of stuff to do, but fine.

It's virtual fandom life.

FUCKING SHIT.

I haven't been this shocked with a death that I already saw coming in... I don't know. Gods, this is just AWFUL! DAMN IT.

I saw it coming because I sensed something wasn't right. And I opened the episode before the finale without reason and the first image seemed to be a flashback with the character in question asking to not be hated. So, I assumed he was gonna do something awful, or something awful was gonna happen TO him. I really, really thought he was gonna get killed, but at the same time I didn't, and I didn't expect it to be like that, to be so unbelievable horrible. Shit.

Haven't you ever watch or read those deaths? Those that, it doesn't matter you know they're only characters and they are not real and it's just a story, but still, that situation is so real and it feels so close that it grabs you and tears you apart anyway? I had those before, but they usually involve a long term relationship with the character or something in real life to make the connection in my head and make me cry for hours.

Now, I didn't really cry. My eyes got puffy and now I have a ronny nose, but I won't cry for hours on end, though. I won't watch the end of the dorama either. I just... can't. I'm probably gonna dream about this, fuck. I'm shaking. So, no, I don't plan on watching the two episodes this dorama has left to see how they avenge Shun and everything ends in a bloody mess. It's not gonna kill Makoto and I hope it doesn't kill Masa or even Hikaru, or King, of course, but I'm not really worried about them, as much as this story is a cruel one, killing Rika and now... they shouldn't kill more of Makoto's friends.

...

Gods, what a horrible way to die.

I was gonna recommend watching this. Ikebukuro West Gate Park. It is a good story and it has a real, bitter taste about life in Japan. Kudo Kankuro (the screenwriter) did a great job at that. School girls selling their bodies for fun, perverted salary men, police officers doing whatever they want with their suspects, gangs ruling the streets, Yakuzas ruling the city... I was seriously going to recommend it because even if it is a little awful, Makoto and his friends make it bearable. They go through all of that without giving the afternoon special speech to make it all better. They are a part of it, and they CAN have innocent fun in it, until...

I liked Rika. And she died in the first episode. But she drives Makoto through the rest of the story so it was OK. But this... I'm talking freely about all of this because I don't give a shit anymore, I'm piss with Shun's death. You shouldn't watch this. It's hard to get into it anyway, because it's so raw and even when it seems light it really isn't and it ends badly. I mean, they only found the yakuza's daughter after she was raped and beaten to death. Although they saved Ali of the drug dealers, he still got deported. They rescued the kidnapped kid, to see him join the rival gang...

Gods, why didn't they kill HIM? He was annoying! Shun WASN'T! Shun was awesome! He loved drawing and girls found him cute. Kaoru was dating him! Him calmness around Makoto and Masa was a balance to the craziness they got involve in. He was only 15!! 15, damn it!

It sure doesn't help he was played by a really young Yamapi in his first important role as an actor. Right after this he played a dying kid from a disease in a TV movie, I think. I'm really happy he got out of playing characters that end up dead after that. Though, if Takuma had died in Sore wa totsuzen, arashi no you ni, I would have expect it and understand it. I would have cried my eyes out (I did anyway with that dorama), but it would have been OK. He was meant to die, just as Ken in the movie. But Shun WASN'T. He just WASN'T. Not to be found dead in a locker as a message. It was fucking horrible. Horrible!

...

I think I feel a little better now. I'm gonna go and read fluffy fics with Yamapi in it to not keep relating him with Shun and Shun scared and alone and dead. Yes! I'm gonna go read Nobuta fics. Akira will save me! Kon!