Former AKB48: Kasuka na Kanojo – Episode 1: Who wears short shorts?

Lately, I’ve been watching J-Dramas, mostly to shore up my flagging interest in learning Japanese. As my idol interest has been winding down I’ve been looking for more stuff to keep me interested in the language. Actually, I’ve just finished the drama “Rich Man, Poor Woman,” which script-wise was pretty dry and boring, but it was incredibly good because of the acting talents of Oguri Shun and Ishihara Satomi, and Iura Arata was no slouch either. Just a great watch and the finale just had me all smiles at the end. The Drama Special even includes a wedding dance of Heavy Rotation.

So, what triggered me to watch Kasuka na Kanojo?

Hey, who’s that?

Look, it’s Acchan! Or Assan. Well, I don’t like typing Assan in English because it looks like ass.

She actually looks great, better than when she was in her final years of AKB when she looked dead all the time.

The premise of the story seems to be your typical school drama, where students have problems and the teacher invokes their gimmick to solve the problem. I’m a big fan of GTO, and the only other equivalent show I’ve watched was Dragon Zakura, which wasn’t as good. And the new GTO was good, but not great. I guess it was just Good Teacher Onizuka.

The biggest surprise is Acchan’s shorts.

For some reason, Acchan gets away with wearing these short shorts. Like… wow.

Her role in the drama is the vice-homeroom-teacher to SMAP’s Katori Shingo. I’m actually curious to see what his acting is like. I’ve only ever seen him do comedy stuff whenever I see on TV shows and variety. Like, really silly comedy stuff. I know he has acting chops but I never bothered to watch any of them.

Seriously. Those shorts.

The gimmick invoked in this show is that Katori can see ghosts, and the apartment that he’s living in has a ghost who was a former teacher at the school he works in. The mysteries involve why the ghost is still there, as well as why Katori decided to change schools. Acchan seems to play the role of GTO’s Fuyutuski (Matsushima Nanako’s, not Takimoto Miori’s) and is teaching because she couldn’t get a better job or something.

And there’s the ghost now!

So… pretty atypical. I wasn’t too impressed with this first episode and I’m not sure I’ll continue. Maybe I’ll give it a more couple episodes.

On the other hand, at least Acchan’s acting has improved. I bought Moshidora because she was in it, and she actually had the worst performance there; not a good look when you’re the leading actress. And it was kinda sad because Oizumi Yo, Seto Koji, and Ikematsu Kosuke did really good jobs on their characters.

It would be something if Acchan excelled outside of AKB48. I’m actually liking her a lot more now that she’s out.

J-Drama: Not Mastercard, but Priceless

Yo~

Well, I got sick last Thursday. And by sick, I mean… in one day, I got fever, chills, muscle pain, delirium… and I slept all day, literally.

Funny because before then, I was thinking about this blog, thinking about how I need to get it back together, get my hobbies back together, get it all together. Then, sickness happens, and well, everything stops.

So lately, I’ve been getting into J-Dramas. A while ago, my friend recommended that I watch Thermae Romae, a movie starring Abe Hiroshi and Ueto Aya. I liked it so I started looking up other Ueto Aya dramas, which led me to watch the currently airing Itsuka Hi no Ataru Basho. Well, because it’s currently airing, I still have a lot of time, so I decided to watch the drama Priceless. I do remember how I heard about Priceless…

It must be tough playing an idol wannabe.

There’s our Kojiharu, in a Kimura Takuya drama!

I don’t know why but I like watching Kimura Takuya dramas, even though he always plays the same cool and clever character in every drama. And this one is no exception either, he’s the cool guy. To make things worse (or better?) his villains use every dirty trick in the book so you just have to hate everyone that’s going against him because he’s so cool.

But for some reason I still like it.

What I didn’t know was that this clever girl was also appearing in the drama…

Kojiharu makes Karina into an idol.

It’s Karina. And how do I know who Karina is?

Because she doesn’t know how to love, just like Yuko!

Oshima Yuko starred alongside Karina in the drama “Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu”. And Karina was awesome because she took the role of the strong independent woman who don’t need no man but she gets man but then she don’t need man.

I also suspect that they use her in this drama because it’s about people becoming poor, and I think Karina is one of the better looking actresses with no makeup… which is a pretty sick attribute to have.

Also, some guy from Kis-My-Ft2 is in here, and I only remember him because he was in the same drama as Kojiharu… and that show was terrible anyway because I was only able to watch 3 episodes of it before quitting.

Anyway, so far this drama is decent. There’s this company, and right before the President dies he tells his son that he doesn’t want him to be the successor but rather cool guy Kindaichi (Kimura Takuya). Obviously his son is not going to relay the good news, so there’s a firing, a cover-up, and just to make things worse they blow up his apartment so he’s poor and homeless. The show is about how he’s still relentlessly cool despite the odds. I don’t think Kojiharu will play a big role, sorry to all you Kojiharu fans, but overall it’s still a fun show to watch.

Also, there was one thing I noticed when I was watching the ending.

It’s Costco. I actually went to Costco in Japan and it’s EXACTLY like the ones in the US. Even the prices on the pizza and hot dogs were the same.

Hopefully next time I’ll have some more NMB-relevant updates for you, haha.