Holyland ホーリーランド [series]

fists of fury or fists of fuwa fuwa, either way im sold.

Cast:

Ishigaki Yuma - Kamishiro Yu

Tokuyama Hidenori - Izawa Masaki

Aoyama Sota - Kaneda Shinichi

Mizutani Yuri - Izawa Mai

Suzuki Shinji - Midorikawa Shogo

Ueki Kiyohiko - Iwado

Umemiya Tetsu -Tsuchiya

Yuge Tomohisa - Kato

Miyata Daizo - Taka

Mimoto Masanori - Yoshii

I looked for this series about a year ago and didn’t find anything and promptly forgot all about it. I am in fact quite glad about this, I think I would have liked it back then but I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much as I do now. There are a few reasons for this, I know the two main actors now, and also have just been overloaded by immense amounts of serious gayness from kamen rider kabuto and youkai ningen bem (both of which were great) so the unbelievable boy love desperate to break out in this drama was not lost on me.

Don’t worry, if that isn’t what you’re after, it doesn’t really ever surface but it really was so funny – on a par with the longing looks and adoration in my boss my hero (Tegoshi can never hide his gay much) and the put on a pedestal dialogue of natsu-bem in youkai ningen bem in the throws of confusion (tokuyama matching kamenashi’s sex voice and raising hell with it)

So enough ranting about the gay, the plot is coming so be patient.

There is this adorable little feeble chipmunk of a lad called kamishiro who gets bullied and pushed around so much he barely goes to school and is frightened of everyone. Completely alone in the world he only really longs for a place to belong and goes out into the city at night to search for it.

Kamishiro had learnt a one-two punch from a book and practised 5000 repetitions a day for the two years he had been house bound from his severe bullying incidents. The fights that ensue after he attempts to hang out in the city at night time lead to him using this punch and earning the name of yankii hunter.

This series really reminded me of Kennichi the strongest disciple, he learns fast and picks up other people’s techniques, learning boxing moves, karate kicks and other stuff from the random reprobates he inadvertently beats up. They love him once they realise that he is an awesome little munchkin and a bizarre band of friends grow out of this weird situation.

Every gang, thug, and martial arts master ends up after this poor lad (just like kennichi) and one by one he ends up having to fight them all.

It includes having big ass show downs with mental feel no pain type crack pot kato after he smashes the living crap out of kamishiro’s two best boy love friends. And I haven’t even explained the deal with him and his super sempai izawa yet.

Izawa is played by mr sex voice himself tokuyama hidenori (ai no
kotodama, kamen rider kabuto) jeez that man’s voice is beautiful. But besides that, before I get carried away, this guy is a boxer, known and loved by all and sundry. No-one really wants to mess with him apart from yoshii who is a d*ck with a white polo neck and too much hair gel.



Izawa has clearly rubbed this dude up the wrong way – and probably got covered in hair gel in the process. After bumping into each other a few times izawa and kamishiro form a fluffy fuwa fuwa eyed view of each other and even they end up at one point having a gloriously incestuous fight in front of kamishiro’s adorably stupid mates and a blood thirsty crowd of yankii b*stards.

It has an esc of crows zero and as I’ve said most definitely kennichi, and a bit like the prince of tennis in the way he learns the other's moves, throw some fantastically over the top acting, absolutely p*ss poor camera work and terrible sound quality and you have got yourself this drama.

What I don’t get, is that the brilliant ishigaki yuma that we all know and love these days, was in Gokusen looking like an adult years before this – where he looks so tiny and young. Gok was 2002 damn it. How could he then look so young and small in 2005 for this drama... I don’t get it. Japanese actors are amazing for this. Time and time again this will happen, I just don’t get it. Narimiya Hiroki played a married guy with a kid in ima ai ni yukimasu 2005 then 2010 was a high school kid in yankii kun to megane chan. I seriously don’t get how they do it. (sorry for the random narimiya rant but I just finished bloody monday2 and my god I love that man)

So back to the gay – I mean series. Yes, well anyway. This drama was so much more than I was expecting. I couldn’t really tell you why. It was totally budget. Really cheesy – almost unbearably so. And pretty bad by all accounts. But just absolutely brilliant. In every way.

The fighting is good – it actually is interesting instead of stupidly fake. Maybe because it is shot so budget it works better. I haven’t read the manga so I cant compare it to it, but it still had that kind of manga feel to it for sure and I’ve heard there is an anime of it. I may track down the manga at least to give it a read.

I have to say I really rate ishigaki. I love to watch him fight – you don’t really see him do it enough these days. i do love it when he goes meccha psycho for like two or three episodes in this and beats the sh*t out of everyone. The boy is crazy fit – I certainly wouldn’t want him to punch me.

And it is always nice to see tokuyama fighting as if I hadn’t seen enough of that when he was being completely ridiculous all gothed up in kabuto with his little chibi bee buddy.

Aoyama shota (prince of tennis) had me in fits, and I did love the odd friendship between Shin and Shogo. Seriously there was boy love being flung around like a baseball made of Japanese teenage girl’s daydreams. Was stupid funny.

It isn’t gay enough for boys to mind, and it is gay enough for girls to find it hysterical so really it is an all round win on that count.

But besides all that, it must have been a good show as it left me with a massive smile and all I could do was ureshii squee that it was so brilliant. I think kamishiro won me over just like all the yankii f*ck heads he fights that all in turn fall in love with his weirdo little self.

The episodes are 20mins long so its one to watch in one go, doesn’t take much. I will be watching this stupid drama again someday, so safely away onto my hard drive it goes, and if I show it to anyone else I bet they will think I’m mad for ranting about how great it is. I fully don’t care though. Whenever I want to see ishigaki fight – which I often do as he is so great at it, I can just watch this. In hana kimi it is all just so silly that he doesn’t really do much real martial arts, and in gok he is just a – well you know what gok kids are like. If he has done any other martial arts roles tell me because I don’t think I’d ever get sick of seeing that boy fight. Ive seen him in quite a few things (none of which I can remember off the top of my head other than the two ive already mentioned) but this is my favourite so far. But hey, there is still time. And many dramas and movies I have not seen. Bring it on! kakatte koi! Im pathetic enough to have Yamapi shouting that as my message tone.

Ive not stuck to the point much, but I think you get the picture anyway.



ホーリーランドHolyland (manga in Japanese)
http://manga-zip.net/archives/1604.html 

ホーリーランドHolyland (manga in English)
http://bakabt.me/166285-holyland.html

ホーリーランドHolyland (drama with English subtitles stream online)
http://www.gooddrama.net/japanese-drama/holyland 









...Now I feel a bit sick from all this chocolate Ive eaten, im going to have a bath. Why the f*ck would anyone put rice in chocolate. Morons. I love it too much.

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